I design really good looking products. / The perfect design partner for busy founders. / Clients: @chatbase @gooddaysoftware @AvarosEMR
Toronto, Canada
Joined December 2011
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just wrapped a project for a $40b global company.
old school, no company website so we built one from scratch.
letting designers ship frontend code is the biggest moat you can have as a company
it has never been easier to ship, and we’ve been doing this for our clients. the results have been insane.
you ship faster, prioritizing quality every time.
you don’t have to end up with figma designs that don’t look like prod anymore. designers can make sure everything matches 1:1.
have been shipping other people's products for years. trying to ship something of my own.
joined Alif sessions to learn and do this right.
"i can just vibe code it, we don't need a designer"
Celebrating small wins is hardwired into "Achieve," our goal-tracking sample app.
We wanted the simple act of checking off a task to feel like a celebration. Instead of the standard #Material ripple, we used Styles to drop in a custom, high-contrast completion animation—specifically, a brand-colored ring that expands and fades on tap, paired with a subtle pressed-state gradient.
It lets us focus entirely on polishing those custom, rewarding micro-interactions while Material handles the foundation.
#GoogleDesign #MaterialDesign #JetpackCompose #AndroidDev #UXDesign #InteractionDesign
it’s expensive to run software yourself, the complexity grows, the work never ends.
every time the average person says, “but I can build it myself,” i keep asking the same question: do you have the time to maintain it too?
companies master specific niches because software is more than features.. it’s strategy, iteration, support, and constant upkeep.
teams ship new features constantly, so your little vibe-coded app becomes outdated fast, especially if you need anything beyond the basics.
vibe coding is great for personal workflows, but when you need something that scales, stays reliable, and keeps improving, it’s a different game.
let me break down what's actually happening in the industry.
before AI, everyone hired a designer for their website. whether you charged $500 or $10k, you landed clients. every business needed a website and the demand was endless.
post-AI, that's flipped completely.
companies get their first set of designs done with AI. then they bring in a designer to refine them.
the prototype stage is where founders raise, pitch, and validate. a designer is less required during that phase now. sure, having a designer from day 1 helps with research and direction. but founders use AI to research and tweak prototypes until they get validation.
once revenue is locked in, they delegate. that's when they build a team and find a designer.
which means 90% of clients don't want a designer on day 1. they want one at month 6, when they have a product that works.
AI made it cheaper than ever to build your idea. it also made it harder than ever to compete, because everyone else is building too.
so quality matters more than ever. quality stands out, and that's how you win. distribution helps too, not going to deny that. it's always a big plus.
this post might feel unexpected, but no one's really talking about it, so i will.
a lot of designers are struggling to land new clients right now. if that's you, you are not alone. i'm dealing with the same thing myself.
i've talked to 50+ designer friends in my circle, and more than 80% of them are facing this exact issue.
if you're still convinced ai has nothing to do with it, i'd ask you to rethink that. it's definitely one of the reasons clients are harder to come by.
here's an example. we designed a full website and brand identity for an ai company. banger animations, the kind that make you fall in love with it. they paid well for it too.
three months later, they rebuilt the entire site using an ai builder. the new version is sloppy, easily one of the roughest a tool like that can produce. and they're completely fine with it.
they're not the only ones. plenty of founders feel the same way. maybe it's the ai hype, maybe it's about saving money, maybe it's something else entirely. but it's happening.
there are still designers and agencies landing new clients consistently, usually because of their network, name, or following. but a large number of us are getting hit hard by this shift.
no one knows how long this lasts, or if it's a temporary wave or a real shift in how the industry works. i'm not trying to predict that far ahead. i'd rather focus on what's happening right now.
some old clients are trickling back. i'm still earning more than i did at my full time job, but nowhere close to what i made last year.
so i'm trying new things. i've started posting 4 to 5 times a day across multiple platforms. let's see where that goes.
this isn't meant to discourage anyone. it's meant to remind you that you're not alone, since i've spoken with a lot of designers who were seriously questioning their choices lately.
be strong, keep going. hoping we all get through this ai wave and start earning well again.
