Cadence Design Systems Company (2026)

If you want to get really good at Design Systems, I'd recommend following a mix of practitioners, design leaders, design engineers, and people who talk about the strategy behind building and maintaining systems.

Here are the people I'd put on your follow list.

1. Must-follow design systems experts

1. Brad Frost

Best for: Atomic Design, component architecture, reusable patterns, and design system thinking.

Start with: Atomic Design

Website

2. Dan Mall

Best for: Design systems as products, business value, team collaboration, and strategy.

Website

3. Nathan Curtis

Best for: Component architecture, documentation, governance, and design system operations.

EightShapes

4. Jina Anne

Best for: Design tokens, design systems communities, and the future of design systems.

Design Systems community

5. Mina Markham

Best for: Building scalable systems, frontend collaboration, and practical design system implementation.

2. For Figma, design tokens and component architecture

These are particularly useful if you work hands-on with Figma.

• Christine Vallaure – Figma variables, components, and design-to-code workflows.
• Marta Conde – Design tokens and system architecture.
• Jan Six – Technical foundations and flexible design systems.
• TJ Pitre – Component architecture and design system implementation.

3. For design systems in real companies

Follow these teams and study how their systems work in production.

Atlassian Design System

Explore the system

Shopify Polaris

Explore the system

IBM Carbon

Explore the system

Google Material Design

Explore the system

4. Newsletters and communities worth joining

• Design Systems Community – Connect with practitioners and learn from the community.
• DesignSystems.com – Articles, case studies, and practical resources.
• Figma Resource Library – Learn design systems and Figma workflows.

5. My recommended learning order

If you're starting from scratch, I'd follow this sequence:

1. Foundations: Learn design principles, typography, color, spacing, and grids.
2. Components: Understand variants, properties, states, and component architecture.
3. Design tokens: Learn color, typography, spacing, semantic tokens, and variables.
4. Documentation: Learn how to document components and usage guidelines.
5. Governance: Understand contributions, versioning, accessibility, and maintenance.
6. Design-to-code: Learn how design tokens and components translate into frontend code.

Figma also has a structured Introduction to Design Systems course. Overview: Introduction to design systems – Figma LearnDesign.SystemsDesign Systems Experts to Follow on LinkedIn | Ana State posted on the topic

One question so I can make this list more useful:

Learning about design systems requires looking at experts who specialize not just in visual UI, but in tokens, cross-functional collaboration, governance, and front-end architecture.

The top practitioners, authors, and advocates to follow to master design systems include:

1. The Definitive Authors & Pioneers

• Alla Kholmatova: Author of the seminal book Design Systems. Her work focuses heavily on the psychology of systems, practical naming conventions, and treating systems as living, breathing products rather than just static component libraries.

• Nathan Curtis: Co-founder of EightShapes. He is one of the ultimate industry veterans on design system operations, token governance, and multi-team scaling. His articles (often on Medium) are considered masterclasses in system architecture.

2. System Leaders at Top Tech Companies

• Diana Mounter: Head of Design Infrastructure at GitHub (previously built Primer). She frequently writes and speaks about the human side of design systems, team adoption, and open-source contributions.

• Dan Mall: Founder of SuperFriendly and a massive name in system consultancy. He specializes in bridging the gap between business value, brand strategy, and scalable design systems for enterprise brands.

• Karri Saarinen: CEO of Linear and former designer at Airbnb. He helped pioneer some of the industry's most widely admired design languages. His approach heavily emphasizes speed, minimalist systems, and product-led execution.

3. Token & Front-End Architecture Experts

• Kaelig Deloumeau-Prigent: Design engineer at Shopify and a pioneer behind modern design tokens. If you want to understand how design systems translate from Figma to code, Kaelig is essential reading.

• Una Kravets & Adam Argyle: Developer advocates at Google who heavily focus on CSS, design tokens, and web styling architecture. Their content is incredible for understanding the deep technical mechanics that power modern web design systems.

Where to Read & Follow Their Work

• Design Systems Slack / Discord Communities: Communities like Design Systems Slack (run by Nathan Curtis and others) are where industry professionals hang out to discuss real-world token implementation, governance hurdles, and tool transitions.

• Substack & Medium: Search for publications like Design Systems Publication or individual profiles by Nathan Curtis and Diana Mounter.

• Figma Config & Layers Conferences: Look up talk recordings from these conferences featuring the names above - they frequently give deep-dive technical talks on how major companies scale their systems.

To master design systems, it helps to follow industry pioneers, practitioners who write extensively about operations and scaling, and teams maintaining gold-standard public systems.

Leading Experts & Advocates to Follow

** Jina Anne**: A true pioneer in the space, Jina has led design systems work at Salesforce, Apple, and Amazon, and founded the Clarity Conference. They are an authority on design tokens, workflow, and bridging the gap between design and engineering. Jina Anne · People · Clarity

** Dan Mall**: A consultant, educator, and author of Design That Scales. Dan is exceptional at breaking down the business, operational, and structural sides of design systems, offering very tactical advice on how to get buy-in and build sustainable practices. Products from Dan Mall

** Nathan Curtis**: Co-founder of EightShapes, Nathan has been writing the definitive guides on component organization, token governance, and team sizing in design systems for well over a decade. His Medium and-case study breakdowns are classic reading.

** Brad Frost**: Creator of Atomic Design, Brad is fantastic at showing how modular UI components translate directly into front-end code and multi-platform architecture.

Communities and Resources

• Design Systems Slack: An invite-style or community-led Slack workspace (often referenced via Jina Anne's network) that serves as the premier global watercooler for design system professionals to troubleshoot code, tokens, and adoption.

• zeroheight Blog & Webinars: A great industry hub that regularly interviews system leads across tech, tracking real-world team workflows and documentation metrics.

Public Design Systems to Study

Sometimes the best way to "follow" a system is to study how top-tier teams build, document, and iterate in public:

• GOV.UK Design System: Widely hailed globally as the gold standard for accessible, clean, user-driven public sector design.

• IBM Carbon Design System: Renowned for being deeply researched, highly scalable, and thorough in addressing complex enterprise software needs.

• Shopify Polaris: Excellent for learning how to tie component architecture closely with rich merchant experiences and crystal-clear content guidelines. Fixer Upper

If you want to narrow your focus, let me know if you are more interested in the visual/Figma component side or the code/tokens/engineering side of design systems, and I can point you toward more specialized resources.

Follow Adham Dannaway for practical design-system guidance and examples; his site includes a step-by-step guide to building a system. For broader UX and design-system content, Vitaly Friedman is also included among creators recommended to follow.(adhamdannaway.com)(linkedin.com)

Follow Adham Dannaway, Femke van Schoonhoven, Jesse Showalter, and the Nielsen Norman Group for practical, system-focused insights. These voices consistently share actionable knowledge on design systems, UI/UX workflows, and scalable product design.(Top UX design influencers worth following in 2026 | Lyssna)(Top UX research voices worth following in 2026 | Lyssna)(Top UX Designers to Follow in 2026 - Attention Insight)

Key Experts on Design Systems

Why These Voices Matter

• Systems Thinking: Adham Dannaway and Nick Babich emphasize scalable, logical frameworks for UI decisions, crucial for building consistent design systems.
• Practical Tutorials: Jesse Showalter and Femke van Schoonhoven make design systems approachable through hands-on content and career guidance.
• Research & Strategy: Nielsen Norman Group and Andy Vitale provide evidence-based frameworks and leadership perspectives, helping you align systems with organizational goals.

Risks & Trade-offs

• Overemphasis on Tools: Many influencers focus heavily on Figma or specific workflows. Balance this by following research-driven voices like NNG to avoid tool lock-in.
• Influencer Bias: Some creators monetize through sponsorships. Always cross-check advice with independent sources or official documentation.
• System Complexity: Design systems can become overly rigid. Following diverse voices helps you avoid dogmatic approaches and keep systems adaptable.

Suggested Next Step

If you’re starting out, begin with Jesse Showalter’s tutorials for practical workflows, then deepen your understanding with NNG’s research articles. For scaling systems in organizations, Andy Vitale’s leadership content is invaluable.

Would you like me to curate a starter list of their best talks, articles, and YouTube playlists so you can dive in immediately?