alt Hacker NewsFor my agency this won't replace Figma or designers. It's just a really useful tool to express yourself and communicate intent.
Before these tools, when a client wanted a specific section built, we'd spend hours hunting references across the web. The output always ended up feeling like a mesh of 2-3 sites, never fully unique. Then we'd burn more time explaining the intent to the client's designers and devs, usually with multiple rounds because words don't convey layout well.
Now we throw a quick mockup together in Claude or Lovable and send it. The designer gets the idea in 30 seconds instead of a 45-minute call, then pushes it further with their own taste and the client's branding.
It's not replacing designers. Most clients don't know what they want until they see it. These tools collapse that feedback loop from weeks to minutes, so the designer actually spends their time on the parts that need human taste, not on decoding a vague brief.
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> this won't replace Figma or designers
If every designer takes less time to do their job, you need less designers. There’s no getting around that simple math.
Indeed. Kitbashing is a thing, and it was always a thing. Designers I worked with would spend hours doomscrolling pinterest, google images, etc. looking for their, uh... 'spark' when they were given a briefing.
This is just a really cool way of building.
I'm impressed. I tried Google Stitch but it was slow and useless. Sad, because Gemini has a pretty good creative flair, ironically enough.
That's how I see most of the system design capabilities of Opus. I've been an engineer for 15 years. It's so nice to describe what you want, it gets you in the ballpark, and you can refine and tweak to get it just right. Sometimes it's fun to have it design crazy stuff so you can play out a crazy idea without wasting too much time. I can see how it could easily translate to the visual design space.
Now, if I could only get a model to draw arch diagrams....
I'd be curious to hear from you in 3 months whether or not it ended up replacing designers at your agency, and why. Perhaps you could commit to answer?
1. This workflow is beneficial for a per design pricing model not hourly.
2. Long term you can expect the minimum bar for aesthetically pleasing design to be raised and there to be overall less demand for human produced generic design.
3. This will mean all designers get pushed into the same corner or complex, unique, uninferable design and trying to fight it out.
> It's not replacing designers.
Except it is. Plenty of places will say this is all good enough and not hire, or even lay off, the UI/UX person. I've seen this firsthand.