Designing with AI

For most of my career, an idea stopped at the mockup. Getting it built meant a developer, a budget and a queue. AI changes that. I can now take a design from sketch to a live, working product on my own, and test it with real people the same week.

The craft hasn't moved. The grid, the type, the palette and the judgement are still mine. AI is the fastest route from a design decision to something you can click. It produces a first pass; I art-direct every pass after that.

You're looking at the clearest example. This site is a Swiss-style index where each project carries its own light palette, and the whole page takes it on as you browse. No template and no page builder: I designed the system, then built it in HTML, CSS and JavaScript with AI.

The first pass AI gives you is generic: a centred hero, a row of cards, a stock gradient. The work is in pushing it somewhere specific, through the grid, a tight type scale, hover behaviour and a lot of small corrections.

Direct: I start where I always do: grid, type, colour and a clear idea of how it should feel, before any code exists.

Brief: I write the brief for AI the way I'd brief a developer: what it is, who it's for, what matters and what to avoid.

Build: AI writes the first version. I read it, run it and steer it, one decision at a time.

Critique & ship: I review every screen as a designer, redline what's off, and iterate until it's right. Then it goes live.

Four products designed, built and shipped, each one live and in use. Building them has made me a sharper designer: I now think in states, edge cases and interactions, not just screens, and I can prototype an idea properly instead of describing it.

For a studio, that means ideas that can be tested as working prototypes early, and a designer who can talk to developers in their own terms. Every build above is live, so open them and try them out.