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Hey and welcome back to a new week!

In this issue:

• Vibe Coding And What You Need To Know: The hype and pressure around AI and vibe coding are real. Let me shine some light on the topics.

• Finally A Worthy Alternative To read.cv: This CV builder has the best features and perfect ATS-compatible output.

• Emmi’s Portfolio: See the portfolio that landed her a role at Perplexity.

Thank you for reading!

🤝 TODAYS PARTNER

A good-looking CV that is fully ATS-safe?
Look no more.

A good friend and former colleague of mine just built a new tool and I have to share it with you. Curvit feels like the closest thing I’ve seen to a proper Read.cv successor — clean, well-designed, and genuinely practical.

You get an online CV/profile and a perfectly formatted PDF export that’s fully ATS-compatible. I ran the export through my ATS checker (remember?) and it scored 92/100, which is one of the highest results I’ve seen so far.

The free tier is more than enough to get set up properly, and the paid plan is refreshingly affordable if you want to go a bit more pro. If you’re polishing your CV right now, this is absolutely worth a look.

Vibe Coding: What Actually Matters for Designers 🏄🏻

If you’re a designer right now it’s hard to escape the noise around AI and “vibe coding”.

Some people are euphoric.

Some people are angry.

Most people are quietly worried they’re falling behind.

You’ll hear everything from “AI won’t replace designers” to “If you’re not using these tools, you’re done.” Neither of those extremes is particularly helpful.

What is true is this:

Design is changing. The workflows are shifting. And ignoring that shift entirely is not a great idea.

But this is not a moment where you need to panic, rebrand yourself as an “AI designer”, or abandon everything you’ve learned so far. The transition is real, but it’s gradual — and it’s full of opportunity, especially for juniors.

Now for folks early in their career this is a conundrum. You just learned the fundamentals (at least I hope so) and everything is new. Figma maybe gave you a hard time in the beginning. And now you are supposed to learn new tools altogether and they have “code” in their name?

This article is about cutting through the noise:

• what vibe coding actually is,

• where it fits into design today,

• which tools are worth touching (for junior and seniors alike),

• and which ones you can safely ignore for now.

What “Vibe Coding” Actually Means

Vibe coding is a term that emerged last year to describe a new class of tools that let you build real software without writing code yourself.

Instead of manually coding:

• you describe what you want,

• the AI spins up an environment or taps into the existing one,

• writes the code,

• fixes errors,

• and gives you a working app or feature.

This matters for designers because we’ve always been code-adjacent. We’ve been creating blueprints for years. Vibe coding closes the gap between blueprint and reality.

And no — this does not mean you suddenly need to become an engineer.

Depending on the tool, you may never see a single line of code. Some of these tools are explicitly built for people who can’t (or don’t want to) code. That’s the real unlock.

Designers are builders by nature. We just never had the tools to fully build. Now we do.

Where Vibe Coding Fits Into Design Work Today

The most obvious use case is prototyping.

Because these tools generate real apps, the fidelity is fundamentally different from traditional Figma prototypes. Inputs behave like inputs. States behave like states. Logic actually exists.

If you’ve ever tried to fake a form, validation, or complex interaction in Figma, you know how brittle that gets. With vibe coding, you don’t simulate behaviour — you get it for free.

That’s why I personally haven’t built a Figma prototype in over a year. At work, I prototype almost exclusively with these tools. The visuals aren’t always pixel-perfect — and that’s usually fine. For UX validation and solution testing, realism matters more than polish.

But prototyping is only the entry point.

Vibe coding also enables:

• building small internal tools,

• spinning up real side projects,

• experimenting with ideas that used to die in Figma,

• contributing directly to production code in some organisations.

Some companies are already leaning into this heavily. Intercom, for example, has publicly stated that they want designers to push pull requests. That used to be unthinkable. It isn’t anymore.

A Quick Real Example

Recently, I was working on multiple large initiatives in parallel. One of them stalled because engineers couldn’t fully grasp the interaction — even with a PRD and verbal explanation.

Instead of spending hours fleshing this out in Figma — knowing a static design wouldn’t capture the behaviour anyway — I did something else.

I outlined the idea, used ChatGPT to help me structure a prompt, and dropped it into Lovable. Within about 15 minutes, I had a working prototype. Not visually perfect, but functionally clear.

That was enough to unblock the team completely.

Doing this “the old way” would have taken at least four times longer — and still wouldn’t have shown the interaction properly. That moment was a good reminder of why these tools matter.

The Tool Landscape (and Where to Start)

Not all vibe coding tools are the same. They fall into very different categories, and confusing them is where a lot of frustration comes from.

1. Low-threshold, hands-off tools

Examples:

• Figma Make

• Lovable

• Replit (to a degree)

These tools are ideal if you want to:

• prototype ideas quickly,

• build small (or even not so small) apps,

• experiment,

• or create side projects.

They operate in their own sandbox. You generally don’t touch code, and you don’t need to understand it. That’s a feature, not a limitation.

This is where I recommend most designers start.

Lovable, in particular, is my personal go-to. I often start there, and only move on when I need more control. For many use cases, you never need to leave this layer.

2. Code-adjacent tools (Cursor, Claude Code, etc.)

These tools live in IDEs or terminals and are also used by engineers. They give you far more control — and far more responsibility.

Use these if:

• you want to work with real design systems,

• contribute code to an existing product,

• or maintain shared components.

If you’ve never seen code before and this topic already makes you uncomfortable, don’t start here. That discomfort is a useful signal.

If you are curious and already somewhat code-literate, these tools are incredibly powerful. I use Cursor to rebuild design systems and Claude Code to contribute directly to product code. It’s scary at first. You’ll break things locally. That’s part of the learning.

But this layer only makes sense once you actually need it.

3. Niche, single-purpose tools

Examples:

• Unicorn Studio (WebGL shaders, effects)

• MagicPath (design-to-code hybrids)

These tools solve very specific problems. They’re often less prompt-based and feel more like traditional design tools.

They can be fantastic — if you have a concrete use case.

If I need a complex shader or visual effect, I’d much rather use Unicorn Studio than burn tokens trying to describe it to an LLM. But unless you’re already deep into the earlier layers, this is not where your time should go.

For most juniors: ignore this category for now.

What This Means for Junior Designers

Here’s the part that often gets missed.

This shift is actually an advantage for juniors.

Senior designers are retrofitting these tools into existing workflows. You get to learn them as defaults. That’s powerful.

But there’s one important rule:

Do not touch any of this before you understand design fundamentals.

Hierarchy, typography, colour, layout, UX patterns — these still matter more than any tool. AI can generate average work effortlessly. It cannot fix bad judgment.

If you skip the foundations, these tools will amplify your weaknesses, not hide them.

That being said I’ve seen amazing vibe coded projects being included in portfolios already (here or here for example)

So What Should You Actually Do?

• Accept that upskilling is part of the job. It always has been.

• Start with low-threshold tools like Lovable.

• Use vibe coding to prototype, experiment, and build intuition.

• Don’t rush into code-adjacent tools unless you need them.

• Treat AI as infrastructure, not an identity.

• Let your design skill remain the centre of gravity.

The hype will settle. The tools will normalise. The designers who win will be the ones who combine solid fundamentals with thoughtful adoption — not the ones who panic first or refuse to adapt.

If you take that approach, you’re not late. You’re right on time.

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👀 Portfolio Showcase

Today: Emmi Wu

This week’s portfolio review is Emmi Wu, a design and consumer psychology student at University of Pennsylvania. Her work first came onto my radar through Michael Riddering — which, frankly, is already a strong quality signal — and from there it was immediately clear why. Emmi is also currently a design intern at Perplexity, which says a lot in itself: their design bar is exceptionally high, and you don’t land there by accident.

What makes Emmi’s portfolio special isn’t just that it’s polished or visually impressive — plenty of portfolios are. It’s that it’s deeply intentional, playful without being frivolous, and ambitious without becoming scattered. She calls herself an interdisciplinary designer, which is usually a phrase that makes me cautious — but in this case, it’s earned.

This is a portfolio that shows rare range without losing coherence.

As always, I’ll break this down into two strong positives, followed by two potential improvements, and then wrap it up.

That’s it for this week—thanks so much for the support! ♥️

Do you want your own portfolio reviewed in-depth with a 30-minute advice-packed video review? Or do you require mentoring to figure out a proper strategy for your job search?

I got you!

• Book an in-depth portfolio or resume review with me

• Book a mentoring session with me

• Book a quick 15 min chat to ask a question and see if we vibe

Keep kicking doors open and see you next week!
- Florian