I've always been a sucker for good design.
Since I started building apps, I wanted them to look "professional."
Having a usable and clean interface is something I think most developers overlook.
Most of the products I use daily hooked me in because of their design.
When a product feels good to use, people come back to it.
It's the reason Apple products are so beloved.
Especially in the age of AI, understanding good design is a valuable skill.
Good design makes a product easy to use.
AI has improved at design, but it's still painfully obvious when an interface is the product of prompting.
I'll occasionally use AI to mockup an interface or replicate a screenshot, but the vast majority of the time I create my UIs from scratch.
To me, designing is one of the most enjoyable parts of building products.
But I wasn't always good at it.
For years I could recognize what a good UI was when I saw it.
I had developed a taste, but I didn't have the skills to apply it.
The concept I was stuck on was color.
Color is the foundation of a good design.
Knowing how to use Color Theory helped me get started.
The base of all of my designs is a brand color.
For my personal site it's purple, and for Creator Kiwi it's green.
From here I realized that if I could find a background color that would look nice with it, I've already done most of the work.
You then need colors for headings and paragraph text that's readable at a distance.
With a border color and a nice "fill" color for cards and other UI elements, you have the start of a color palette.
After a lot of experimentation with different colors, I've created palettes for all of my projects.
I've learned that less is more.
The fewer decisions you have to make when designing, the better.
Once you know what colors look good together, you can start stealing.
The way I learned most of what I know about UI isn't from reading books or watching videos, it was re-creating interfaces I liked.
When you recreate dozens of interfaces, you start to pick up on the individual steps.
The micro decisions like how much border radius to use or where to position a button start to become natural.
You begin to notice common patterns across applications and create your own style.
Tools like Mobbin are great to view hundreds of apps and get inspiration for whatever interface you're trying to build.
As you improve you can reason why your best designs are good.
The key is to constantly experiment and expose yourself to new ideas.
Have a great week.
Cole
P.S. If you found this letter helpful, please consider sharing it with a friend :)
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