Frontend Design Standards

Expert-level design guidance for creating memorable, production-grade interfaces.

Core Design Principles

Intentionality Over Trends

Every design decision must be purposeful:

• Why this color? → Brand meaning, accessibility, contrast
• Why this font? → Readability, personality, performance
• Why this animation? → User feedback, spatial understanding

Distinctive Over Generic

Avoid "AI slop" aesthetics:

• ❌ Default purple gradients, Inter everywhere, card-with-shadow templates
• ✅ Committed aesthetic vision, unique typography pairs, contextual layouts

Technical Excellence

High-quality design = high-quality code:

• Semantic HTML first
• CSS custom properties for theming
• Performance-minded animations
• Accessibility as foundation

Tools

Tool	Purpose	Rule
generate_image	UI icons, avatars, backgrounds, illustrations	Follow .agent/rules/nano-banana.md

Asset Creation Capability

The designer skill includes a specialized workflow for creating high-quality, transparent assets (icons, avatars, game sprites) using the generate_image tool and a custom background removal script.

Workflow

1. Prompt Engineering:

   • Follow the formula in .agent/rules/nano-banana.md: [Core Subject] + [Visual Style] + [Lighting/Color] + [Technical/Quality specs].
   • Ensure the visual style is compatible with extraction (e.g., "clean background", "minimalist").

2. Generation:

   • Use generate_image to create the initial asset.
   • Save it with a descriptive name (e.g., hero_robot_raw).

3. Transparency Processing:

   • Run the helper script to remove the background:

     python3 .agent/skills/designer/scripts/remove_background.py <input_path> <output_path>
     

   • Parameters:
     • <input_path>: Path to the image file you want to process.
     • <output_path>: File path where the result should be saved.

Example

To create a "Blue Potion Icon":

1. Generate: "Blue glass potion bottle, round shape, cork stopper, flat vector style, soft blue lighting, white background, detailed 4k" -> leads to blue_potion_raw.png
2. Process: python3 .agent/skills/designer/scripts/remove_background.py blue_potion_raw.png blue_potion_final.png

Integration

Works with frontend-developer skill for implementation handoff:

• Designer Role: Creates visual designs, tokens, and Motion Specs.
• Frontend Role: Writes the actual CSS/JS code based on these specs.

References

Load references based on task context:

Reference	Path	Purpose
Branding	references/branding.md	Creating logos, visual identity, brand guidelines
Color Theory	references/color-theory.md	Choosing palettes, dark mode, semantic colors
Typography	references/typography.md	Font pairing, scales, text rendering
Layout	references/layout.md	Grids, spacing, responsive design
Motion	references/motion.md	Micro-interactions, transitions, performance
Accessibility	references/accessibility.md	WCAG compliance, keyboard nav, screen readers
Design Systems	references/design-systems.md	Design tokens, component patterns, documentation
Trends	references/trends.md	2024-2025 trends, emerging CSS features
Creation	references/creation.md	New components, pages, creative direction
Review	references/review.md	Code review, compliance checks, quality audit

Concepts

Distinct visual aesthetics to drive design direction:

Concept	Path	Description
Apple Glassmorphism	concepts/apple-glass.md	Premium, translucent depth (VisionOS Style)
Neo-Brutalism	concepts/neo-brutalism.md	Raw, high-contrast, bold borders
Claymorphism	concepts/claymorphism.md	Soft 3D, inflated shapes, tactile feel
Aurora Gradients	concepts/aurora-gradients.md	Ethereal, moving blurred color meshes
Bento Grids	concepts/bento-grids.md	Modular, grid-based content layout

Templates

Template	Path	Purpose
Motion Spec	templates/design-motion-spec.md	Motion Specification - animation timeline, triggers, easing. Use for handoff animation specs to frontend