Frontend Design

This skill guides creation of distinctive, production-grade frontend interfaces that avoid generic "AI slop" aesthetics. Implement real working code with exceptional attention to aesthetic details and creative choices, then audit it against the self-critique rubric before returning.

The user provides frontend requirements: a component, page, application, or interface to build. They may include context about the purpose, audience, or technical constraints.

Scope and requirements

Before design thinking, classify the request and plan the appropriate ownership boundary. Ask only about missing information that materially changes structure, behavior, integration, or accessibility; when requirements are sufficient, proceed without a round trip.

• Page or application: Plan the user journey, information architecture, content hierarchy, navigation and route context, page-level states, full-viewport responsive composition, and one coherent visual concept.
• Isolated or reusable component: Plan its responsibility, public inputs and content, events, variants, loading/empty/error/disabled/selected states where applicable, host context, intrinsic sizing, keyboard and focus semantics, tokens, and composition boundaries.
• Hybrid work: Plan both layers and keep page-owned requirements out of reusable component internals.

A component must not invent an unrelated page shell, global landmarks, document-level <h1>, global typography or background, or viewport metadata. A page must not collapse planning into individual components without first establishing page hierarchy, navigation, content flow, and responsive behavior.

All three tracks converge into the design thinking, implementation, anti-generic guidance, self-critique, and optional validation below; do not duplicate those stages per track.

Design Thinking

Before coding, understand the context and commit to a BOLD aesthetic direction:

• Purpose: What problem does this interface solve? Who uses it?
• Tone: Pick an extreme: brutally minimal, maximalist chaos, retro-futuristic, organic/natural, luxury/refined, playful/toy-like, editorial/magazine, brutalist/raw, art deco/geometric, soft/pastel, industrial/utilitarian, etc. There are so many flavors to choose from. Use these for inspiration but design one that is true to the aesthetic direction.
• Constraints: Technical requirements (framework, performance, accessibility).
• Differentiation: What makes this UNFORGETTABLE? What's the one thing someone will remember?

CRITICAL: Choose a clear conceptual direction and execute it with precision. Bold maximalism and refined minimalism both work — the key is intentionality, not intensity.

Then implement working code (HTML/CSS/JS, React, Vue, etc.) that is:

• Production-grade and functional
• Visually striking and memorable
• Cohesive with a clear aesthetic point-of-view
• Meticulously refined in every detail

Frontend Aesthetics Guidelines

Focus on:

• Typography: Choose fonts that are beautiful, unique, and interesting. Avoid generic fonts like Arial and Inter; opt instead for distinctive choices that elevate the frontend's aesthetics; unexpected, characterful font choices. Pair a distinctive display font with a refined body font.
• Color & Theme: Commit to a cohesive aesthetic. Use CSS variables for consistency. Dominant colors with sharp accents outperform timid, evenly-distributed palettes.