Design Engineering

9 posts

From Figma variables to CSS tokens
We used to maintain design tokens by hand in CSS, aliased to Mantine (–type-body-size: var(–mantine-font-size-sm)). That worked until Figma and the product drifted. We wanted a wired-up Figma: take th…
18 Sept 2026
CSS Grid vs. Flexbox: When to Use Which
If you’re like a lot of designers who write CSS, Flexbox is probably your default. It’s flexible, it’s forgiving, and it solves 80% of layout problems without much thought. But CSS Grid isn’t a compet…
14 Jul 2026
Prompts are becoming a design material
There’s been a shift in how products get designed, especially in anything that involves AI. For a while, prompts were treated as a means to an end. You wrote something, tweaked it a bit, maybe added a…
11 Apr 2026
A Tailwind Colour Palette Generator for Design Engineers
One of the first problems I encountered as a design engineer was sales teams wanting custom demos of software products. They were talking to large enterprise clients, and having a slick demo in client…
10 Jun 2025
From Designer to Design Engineer: A Practical Guide for Getting Started
Transitioning from designer to design engineer can feel like stepping into a whole new world—new tools, new workflows, and a lot of unfamiliar terminology. If you’re a visual designer who’s learning t…
5 May 2025
Design Engineers Are the Future of Product Development
In the past, product development followed a familiar pattern: designers created static mockups, handed them off to engineers, and hoped for the best. Too often, something vital was lost in translation…
30 Apr 2025
The End of a Meme
You’ve probably seen the meme. On one side, there’s a gorgeous, promised land of design. On the other, a sad, broken version of that same screen — stretched buttons, misaligned text, the whole thing j…
11 Apr 2025
The Beginning of the End for Figma? Building Prototypes with Vue.js as a Designer
For years, Figma has been the dominant tool for UI/UX designers. But with AI-assisted coding, powerful UI libraries, and a growing need for real interaction in prototypes, many designers are discoveri…
5 Feb 2025
Product Design is a Technical Pursuit
Product design is the intersection of art and science. It requires creativity and intuition, but it is also deeply technical, based on research and hypotheses. Balancing these elements is what makes p…
9 Jan 2025