C3 - Design System

Curve

From Systems to Aesthetics

Overview

As Curve evolved from a startup to serving millions across Europe, our design system needed to scale alongside this growth. The transformation from scrappy beginnings to a mature financial product required a design foundation that could support our expanding user base and evolving features. As Design Lead, I spearheaded the creation of a robust design system, defining Curve's core product identity through visual aesthetics, interaction patterns, and component libraries. What began as a side initiative soon influenced the entire product, leading to a comprehensive design system that standardized over 300 screens and significantly accelerated engineering workflows.

Role

Lead Visual and Interaction Designer

Platform

iOS,.Android

Team

2 Engineers

Year

2023-2024

Identifying Problem

Complex Product, Fragmented Experience: While the product team universally recognized Curve's usability and consistency challenges, the issues were scattered and varied across the app. Our rapid growth had led to a complex fintech product with fragmented user experiences, making it crucial to establish a unified approach. The challenge wasn't just about fixing isolated issues—it was about creating a scalable foundation for Curve's future growth.

Strategic approach

Collaborative Discovery & Alignment

To tackle these challenges systematically, I organized a series of focused workshops bringing together key stakeholders. These sessions went beyond simple design audits—they were collaborative exercises in defining our product's core identity. Through structured evaluation against established principles, we not only identified issues but also built consensus on priorities and approach.

Exercise 1

Workshop

We captured every screen in the Curve app to create a comprehensive visual inventory, enabling us to identify inconsistencies in colors, typography, layout, and component usage. By gathering the team to analyze these screenshots collaboratively, we encouraged designers, product managers, and engineers to annotate problem areas and propose improvements, uncovering the full scope of our design debt.

Exercise 2

Design Principle Measurement

To structure our findings, we categorized issues under six design principles: (Useful, Usable, Desirable, Findable, Accessible, Credible)This measurement framework kept our discussions tightly aligned to Curve’s broader UX goals, ensuring that each issue tied back to a principle that directly impacts user experience.

Exercise 3

Voting & Categorizing

After we compiled the list of issues, we held a voting session to determine which ones were most critical or frequently occurring. We then grouped these recurring problems into four overarching categories: Communication, Scalability, Quality, and Contents.By narrowing the list down, we had a clearer picture of where to focus immediate efforts and resources.

Exercise 4

Brainstorm & Strategy

Through additional brainstorm sessions, we discovered the root issues that needed to be addressed first. We recognized a pressing need to standardize our design system, not only for designers but also to streamline communication with the broader team—including engineering and product stakeholders. This systemic approach ensured that each new feature or screen followed a unified set of guidelines.

Key Findings

Breaking Down the Core Problems

The workshop identified four key issues in our app.

Scalability

The main product views, which were critical screens within the Curve app, lacked flexibility, making it difficult to incorporate new features and requiring extra engineering effort, which increased time-to-market and costs.

Contents

A lack of visual consistency in icons, illustrations, and branding elements disrupted the holistic user experience, resulting in fragmented visuals and messaging that reduced the perception of a seamless, reliable service.

Communication

The user experience wasn’t always self-explanatory, leading to heavy text usage and over-communication within screens, resulting in crowded, text-heavy interfaces that diminished clarity and user engagement.

Quality

Non-standardized patterns and numerous “snowflake” components created significant design and engineering debt, leading to inconsistent user experiences that undermined brand trust and usability.

Part 1. Design System

How might we simplify our design system while empowering designers to create consistent, on-brand experiences without sacrificing flexibility?

After discussing with the team, we decided not to add more components but to minimize them and clearly define patterns for their use. This approach ensures that everyone can easily understand the purpose of each component. Additionally, we identified the need to define content guidelines that designers can easily follow, enabling greater flexibility while maintaining alignment with our brand identity. This, in turn, promotes consistency and creates a streamlined user experience.

Minimizing Component

I reduced the list components from 55 variations to 20 and streamlined the icon styles from 12 to 8, ensuring no use cases were compromised by collaborating closely with the team.

Designing Templates

To reduce confusion around the design system’s usage and to document team discussions effectively, I began documenting its usage in Zeroheight.

Flat Icons

I designed simplified flat icons to visually represent each of Curve’s functionalities and benefits.

Motion Designs

To counter the simplicity of minimal illustrations, motion is added to key screens, bringing dynamism to bold minimal illustrations and enhancing the clarity of their message.

Impact

The cross-functional team began adopting and refining our system after recognizing its value in efficiency and brand coherence.

Once they realized how the design system streamlined workflows and strengthened brand identity, designers, engineers, and stakeholders began actively embracing it. Through a series of workshops highlighting the key issues and proposed solutions, we expanded participation from the core design group to teams across the organization. This broader involvement shifted Curve’s working culture, uniting everyone around our shared goals.
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Engineers, in particular, experienced faster development cycles and took the lead in organizing the design system library—ultimately increasing Jira task resolution by around 30%. By applying systematic thinking to design work, our teams stayed aligned and continually refined both the design system and our brand identity. This success led Curve to invest more deeply in both, making them central to our ongoing product development strategy.