Things I've been thinking out loud about.
I publish on Medium. Mostly about design judgment, design systems, and how AI is sorting designers instead of replacing them. Some pieces are practical. Some are arguments. None of them pretend to be finished.
Read the interactive field notes here. The archive below collects pieces first published on Medium, ordered by most recent.
Field notes · published on this site
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Every gap needs an owner
Measure spatial relationships, remove duplicate spacing ownership, and preserve whitespace that still has a job.
Read the layout normalization note -
Every line break is a layout decision
Apply
Read the typesetting notebalanceandprettywhere they improve reading instead of merely changing a screenshot. -
Your layout has not met its content yet
Make components survive long names, unbroken values, narrow containers, translation, and right-to-left text.
Read the content resilience note -
Motion should survive a change of mind
Build state changes that feel causal, reverse cleanly, and remain complete when motion is reduced.
Read the motion note -
The spinner comes second
Choose acknowledgement, pending state, preserved context, optimism, and recovery before reaching for a loader.
Read the async feedback note -
Interface Tuning
Thirty-one small decisions for sharper typography, controls, motion, loading, and visual hierarchy.
Read the interface craft field guide
npx skills add daniasyrofi --all
2026
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Training design judgment: how to read products like a senior designer
In a world where AI can do almost everything, this is what it truly cannot replace.
Read on Medium -
Product designers are not being replaced. They are being sorted.
The question was never whether AI replaces you. The question is which side of the split you end up on.
Read on Medium -
Logo grid system: how professional designers build logos that last decades
Most people think great logos come from talent. They actually come from a system.
Read on Medium -
Solo designer, part 1: learn to write
The skill most designers leave for last is the one users feel the most.
Read on Medium -
Icons in UI design: history, types, libraries, and motion
The layout was clean. The typography was solid. Something still felt cheap. It was the icons.
Read on Medium -
I stopped using brand colors for everything — and here is what changed
Why mixing your brand identity with functional UI design is ruining your user experience.
Read on Medium -
Not just animations: micro-interactions that improve UX
How tiny details build trust and make digital products feel alive.
Read on Medium -
15 Google Font pairings every designer should save
Save hours of font hunting. Use these instead.
Read on Medium -
Figma MCP and the rise of AI-first design systems
For years our design and development process has looked the same. That's about to stop.
Read on Medium
2025
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How Kigen made my design setup way faster as a freelancer
It's not about skipping design. It's about skipping the repetitive parts.
Read on Medium