name: frontend-design
description: Create distinctive, production-grade frontend interfaces with high design quality. Use this skill when the user asks to build web components, pages, artifacts, posters, or applications (examples include websites, landing pages, dashboards, React components, HTML/CSS layouts, or when styling/beautifying any web UI). Generates creative, polished code and UI design that avoids generic AI aesthetics.
license: Complete terms in LICENSE.txt

Frontend Design Skill

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.

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

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 aesthetic direction:
• Brutally minimal
• Maximalist chaos
• Retro-futuristic
• Organic/natural
• Luxury/refined
• Playful/toy-like
• Editorial/magazine
• Brutalist/raw
• Art deco/geometric
• Soft/pastel
• Industrial/utilitarian

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.

Implementation Standards

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

Typography

• Choose fonts that are beautiful, unique, and interesting
• Avoid generic fonts like Arial and Inter
• Use distinctive choices that elevate the frontend's aesthetics
• Pair a distinctive display font with a refined body font
• NEVER converge on common choices (Space Grotesk, Inter, Roboto, system fonts)

Color & Theme

• Commit to a cohesive aesthetic
• Use CSS variables for consistency
• Dominant colors with sharp accents outperform timid, evenly-distributed palettes
• Vary between light and dark themes across different components

Motion & Animation

• Use animations for effects and micro-interactions
• Prioritize CSS-only solutions for HTML
• Use Motion library for React when available
• Focus on high-impact moments: one well-orchestrated page load with staggered reveals (animation-delay)
• Use scroll-triggering and hover states that surprise

Spatial Composition

• Unexpected layouts
• Asymmetry
• Overlap
• Diagonal flow
• Grid-breaking elements
• Generous negative space OR controlled density

Backgrounds & Visual Details

Create atmosphere and depth rather than defaulting to solid colors. Add contextual effects and textures that match the overall aesthetic:
- Gradient meshes
- Noise textures
- Geometric patterns
- Layered transparencies
- Dramatic shadows
- Decorative borders
- Custom cursors
- Grain overlays

What to AVOID

NEVER use generic AI-generated aesthetics:
- Overused font families (Inter, Roboto, Arial, system fonts, Space Grotesk)
- Cliched color schemes (particularly purple gradients on white backgrounds)
- Predictable layouts and component patterns
- Cookie-cutter design that lacks context-specific character

Design Variation

• No design should be the same
• Vary between light and dark themes
• Use different fonts for different projects
• Apply different aesthetics to different components
• Interpret creatively and make unexpected choices that feel genuinely designed for the context

Implementation Complexity

Match implementation complexity to the aesthetic vision:
- Maximalist designs: Need elaborate code with extensive animations and effects
- Minimalist designs: Need restraint, precision, and careful attention to spacing, typography, and subtle details
- Elegance comes from executing the vision well

Remember

Don't hold back. Show what can truly be created when thinking outside the box and committing fully to a distinctive vision. Create extraordinary, creative work that is genuinely distinctive and memorable.