My AI Design Workflow That Doesn_t Ship Slop

Creating with AI is easy—but creating high-quality work is a different story. In this episode, we break down a practical AI design workflow that helps you avoid low-effort, generic results and consistently produce polished, professional designs.
You'll discover how to write better prompts, refine AI-generated outputs, use the right design tools, and apply human creativity to elevate every project. Whether you're a designer, creator, entrepreneur, or AI enthusiast, this episode will help you build a workflow that delivers quality instead of "AI slop."
🎧 Tune in to learn the habits, tools, and techniques that turn AI into a powerful creative partner—and create designs you're proud to publish.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

There's a way to create beautiful designs, beautiful websites, beautiful apps, beautiful motion. And I just learned about it. And it's through this thing called Google MD. It's using skills. And the entire process of this is what we explain on this podcast. I had my friend Meng To, who's one of the best designers I know, come on and share his entire workflow to how to create jaw-dropping, beautiful designs that by the end of this episode, you will become a designer. You're going to be able to create better design than 99.99% of this planet. And what does that mean? That means that your startup, your idea, your app is going to have a higher chance of getting people to install it, to buy it, to share it. And we all can use that. So enjoy the episode, and I'll see you in there. Ming, welcome back. Second time on the pod. By the end of this episode, what are people going to get out of this?

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Google just came out with design.md. And this is one way to create a blueprint, to take one beautiful design, whether you made it or not, and then spread throughout all the formats and the mediums for your startup idea. And then you can turn that into motion design, a landing page, different sections of the landing page, mobile design, and so on. So a lot of people struggle right now with this idea. They start really strong with one shot, and then suddenly they get into the other pages, and they suddenly have something more and more generic. So this is what we're going to be learning. I'm going to teach you all the tricks, remix, iterate, what is the design system, typography, colors, all the things that people struggle in design.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Perfect. In your world, I feel like a lot of people are talking about design MD. In my world, not that many people are talking about it, but they want to be able to create draw, dropping, beautiful designs, even if they're not a designer, because they're, you know, we're using agents now, we're building startups, we're taking ideas out of our head, but you know, we don't want a purple vibe-coded website or app. We want something that's beautiful, that's consistent. And so I'm excited for you to explain what Design MD is. I'm excited for you to explain how you can actually get inspired by other designers and use some of their systems to create something of your own. Ming, thank you so much for being generous with your sauce and tactics and tips and tricks. Uh there's no one I look up to more than you in this in this regard. So uh thank you.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Yeah, I just want to mention something before we start. People don't realize how hard it is to get the right distribution, the marketing. And I want to thank you, Greg, because you know, remember the first time I came to your podcast, I started with a $3,000 MR and it shot up to $15,000 MRR just by going through your podcast. And obviously, there's a ton of value over time. So, you know, to those who don't know, like going to you know, Greg's podcast is like the bucket list, like the number one thing you want to uh you know reach towards too. And yeah, I prepared presentation, you know, slides and all that stuff because like you know, Repli just introduced slides and you know, we started doing uh you know hyperframes, we started doing uh uh remotion. So I prepared all of this. Uh as a designer, I feel very strongly about this. So let me just share my screen. First things first, I realize a lot of people are vibe coding their apps, they're vibe coding their startup marketing, and so on. Everything I do today, including this tool that I'm showing you, which is my own notion with slides, is vibe coded, and I made it by myself. So I also want to say that all of these images are all generated using the context of the title, and I'm using the new GBT uh image too. So, with that said, you know, I prepared the slides and I want to go through one by one what is design.mt. So, but first of all, you know, I just want to also preface on what we're gonna be discussing, you know, the things that I want to teach everyone about design and how we get there, and then we're gonna end with a demo. So these are the kind of five main points I want I want to go through. And then we we're gonna get started. Uh design, as I mentioned before, design.md is just open source, and I can find the tweet right here. They have a 10-minute video, you can watch it. Essentially, what it means is that just the same way a lot of people are using agents.md or skill.md or soul.md for those who are using CloudBut or in this case is OpenCloud now. So basically, this is for designers. And if you want to take the soul of the design and you want to bring that to the agent, and you want to bring a design system, the colors, the typography that makes the design beautiful, well, you port it and you put it all into an MD file, and then you put it into your prom as an attachment, and then boom, you have a beautiful design. So, this is what design.md, and you will see extremely efficient ways to use this across multiple media, not just web design, but also, you know, like you know, like motion design nowadays and slides.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

So, you know, for example, quick break in the pod to let you know about a free workshop I'm doing that answers some of your biggest questions. The first is in the AI age, what are some categories that are ripe for startup ideas? I'm gonna outline a bunch of those different categories, the ones that I think the most opportunity is. Second, is there's a million AI tools out there, which are the ones that matter when I'm trying to build a business? I'll walk you through that. And lastly, how do you actually build a business with some of these AI tools? So I'm actually gonna show you live how I do this with my ideabrowser.com team, and I can't wait to see you there. It's this Thursday at 12 p.m. Eastern. And if you go to the show notes, if you go to the description, you can click a link, RSVP, and learn a few things. I hope it'll get your creative juices flowing, and I'll see you back at the pod.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

I'm gonna give you just some quick examples of what I created. So, for example, when you have a design, right, you can sort of like take one design and using whatever medium, like vertical whether it's React or HTML, you can create like a nice promo video, or you can create like a slide. And this is all using the same DNA, which is the design.md. So as you do this, for example, this is a slide and this is a promo video. You can see that this is two different approaches to a design. And this is the result, and uh if you want, there's a ton of resources that allows you to save those design.md. So one of them, obviously, I create them myself, but they're totally free. You can just download them. Uh, right now my internet is super slow, so here you can see we have a lot of these design systems and it's essentially just one file. You click here, you download it, and it it contains all of this visual stuff typography, colors, spacing. And if you look at the you know the the the markdown itself, if you've used markdown, it's essentially a structured text with tables, uh titles, and code. And you can if you read through all of this, you have the weapons and the arsenal to essentially prompt efficiently. And you can sort of commit this to memory, and then it becomes your design. So it's very simple. You add all of this to prompt, right, and it be it becomes the the HTML or the design.md. The HTML is more like the sort of finished dish, and the MD file is more like the recipe. The skills are like the ingredients. So you put it all together and it becomes your design, which is what I just showed earlier.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

And that's a big deal because um, you know, why like honestly why I wanted to have you on the pod is you know, it's such an advantage to having scroll stopping design. Like the video you shared, like the the the MP4 there that you shared, like that was that was beautiful. Um and so I guess my question is like how do you, if you're not a designer, coming up with these um systems yourself like from scratch is really hard. So how do you what's the process for for for finding you know for finding brands and identities that resonate with you?

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Right. So you know, coming back to the slide, right? Oftentimes, you know, people they one-shot something. They saw like a beautiful prompt, oftentimes it's bigger than the code, they copy and paste that, they have no idea how it's done. And they also have no leverage on how to change it. So the first screen is not the hard part. So, you know, right nowadays you kind of feel like you're the one who's always like telling AI what to do, and you don't have control. And the question is like, how do you solve this problem, which is a design drift? Okay, you you you start something, you're kind of satisfied with it, but then you get into the other stuff and it becomes completely different. So that's that's why we need design.md. And you know, you don't want to end up something like this. You want to end up with a system, a process, where you can bring whether it's a screenshot, an HTML, a design.md, or all of those ingredients and recipes. And back to your question, Greg, there's a ton of resources that share all of these things. But design.md is new. Most places they share templates, right? We all know uh, you know, like you go to a template, and obviously I'm taking my mine as an example, but you can go to any of the templates that you find on V0, Lovable, you know, all of these other places, frame, Figma community for people who are more familiar with designs. And the problem with those is that they are highly close behind the techniques and the rectangles and the pixels of Figma or Framer of Webflow. But you know, then how do you tell that to an agent? And that's the big question. So nowadays you can go to new communities that share the actual blueprint, which is a design.md. So, for example, I want a design that looks like this, that has this animation, that has the blue color, that has these systems of uh you know, beautiful typography and selections and buttons that you know I don't want everything, I don't want a whole template, I just want something to start with that I can tell my AI to start with at and then be consistent across the board. Now, if you only provide a portion of it or something too specific, the AI tends to sort of like take that too literally. But if you provide something more uh like a foundational system, like a process, agents.md and what and whatnot, then you get something that gives more flexibility to your system when you're gonna be uh working on new designs or new uh mediums, or you know, you want to be consistent across the board. Cool.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Yeah, I mean when I see this, like, first of all, this is gorgeous. Um but what I would want to refrain from is like to your point, duplicating that and just creating the same cookie cutter website, you know, because there's I'm sure you see this all the time. Like you, you know, you come across a website, it's a Shopify, it's a WordPress, it's a Framer, it's whatever, and you're like, I've seen this website before, right? I've seen this website, um, but it's another brand, right? And that like cookie cutter doesn't work anymore. Um and it's the same reason, like you know, you go into a downtown core city and like all the buildings look the same, right? And and you feel like this like hum uh homogeneous cityscapes that that are existing now.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

Yeah, I and I fully agree with you. Everything is so high, like the baseline is so high nowadays, but also the baseline is also very generic. What used to be wow five, ten years ago now is generic, which is funny because like if you look at the purple gradient, everyone was like, wow, purple gradient, I want to use that. But nowadays, if you see something with you know purple gradients, you just run. Uh so I guess what I'm trying to say here is that we have evolved so much, and humans have a way to solve new problems and to adapt. And I think that's the real intelligence. And so I think the question nowadays for me is how do you deal with taste, right? How do you design something? How do you make ultra quick decisions, right? To uh take something, whether it is the ingredients, the recipe, the secret sauce. For me, the secret sauce is the design, right? Because you know, you don't want people to run away from your landing page. You don't want them to uh to look at your brand and like, oh shit, this feels like you know, just like the 1,000 startup that I've seen over the past week. So if you s if you focus on design enough, right, if you find these systems that you can uh bring to your own system that is flexible enough, then you can create something way more powerful. So I like to think of design.md like a design memory, and this is great because it it can transfer between platform. So if you're working in lovable and you like what you've done, or in cloud design, and then you want to move it to Figma, or you won't want to move it to uh you know to cursor or to you know, nowadays I use codecs a lot. I know a lot of people use cloud code, but you can totally do all of that stuff because you can carry this this design.md, and then you can commit it to memory by telling your AI, your agent, to remember. I mean, I do that all the time. Remember this, remember that. And I think agents nowadays are doing a pretty good job at um you know trying to remember the workflow that you've just done, right? Because that workflow is unique to you. Like a lot of things that I make nowadays, I'm sure it applies to everyone out there who is making their own apps. Uh, first of all, for me, when I make apps, I look at what is the mode? What is something that I can do with my app that Notion cannot do or Figma cannot do? For me, that mode right now is the fact that everything is local. So, for example, this is all local. And because it's local, it it generates these MD files across folders and nested folders that I can just open in codex and open that folder and tell my agent: look, I have a Greg Eisenberg uh podcast. I want you to prepare all of these screens, I want you to prepare, you know, 10 sections or 10 notes or do research, and it has all of that knowledge and it can create all of those files in one single go, which I think is such a big mode nowadays, right? You can't like sure some tools can do that, but one, you have to deal with tokens, you have to pay for them, you cannot run locally, and you don't have your own workflow embedded into it. But nowadays you have something like OpenClaw or Codex or Cloud Code that can do all of that, and it's so scary how good it is.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

100%. So what you know, you mentioned uh you know, cloud design, you mentioned you know all these different platforms, you know, we're talking about Google, so Google Stitch is another one. Like can you show us how we can how we can go from MD file plus HTML to creating something?

SPEAKER_01 18:55

Sure. Uh first of all, I just want to start with sort of like you know getting the MD file, but also focusing on the design aspect. For me, it's really important, but not everyone's gonna do that. But I think it makes sense to start with that. So for example, you know, I don't know if you know Variant, Variant is also very good. Yeah. Uh, variant.com. Uh you know, I like tools like this because they allow me to get into the sort of uh uh creative stage, which I think is incredibly important. And essentially what you want to do is just to remix, you know, click one button, remix, click one button, remix. You find something that you like, you remix, and so on and so forth. So that's why, you know, for me as someone who builds Aura, I also find it incredibly enticing. So I go to community, right? And I find something that I like, and uh, you know, I just I just remix it uh really quickly. In one click, I I have a bunch of skills. Like I mentioned before, skills are like ingredients. And you know, if you go to to some of these skills, you're gonna see that some of them are so so powerful. And this is your moat in design because you don't want to look generic, you don't want to have purple gradients. So the only way to do that is, for example, you you create a skill for lasers. Okay, so I know it sounds funny, but whenever I create a landing page with lasers, everyone clicks on it. I don't know why, but people love it so much because they love special effects, right? You go to a movie, what you know, you want to see special effects, you want to see you know the Avengers kind of you know doing these grand things. So that's the mode, right? Like nowadays, just having the typography, just having the colors is not enough unless it's a secondary page or unless it's something that is very serious. But if you're talking about a landing page or a promo video or you know a slide, you need a moat. So uh yeah, you know, like remix super fast, blah blah, you know, like uh you're gonna remix this, click one button, you know, and then do that until you're happy. Once you're done with that, with that flow, then you get into the prompt, right? So each skill has a prompt, so you can copy this. And anything, all of that stuff, like design MD and skills, are free. And uh this is not why you should be paying money. But you you pay money because of the tokens, you pay money for the finished results, such as a template and sort of like the whole sort of uh automation and whatnot. So, you know, you're gonna go to a template, you know, like uh, I don't know, let's go to this one, and and then you're gonna download both the HTML and the design.md. The reason why I'm saying HTML is that's you know, design.md may not hold all the information that that you need to create your first result. It does hold sort of like the typography, colors, the foundation, the spacing. Some of them, including my own, holds also the WebGL, which I find for those who don't know, WebGL is the animation that powers the laser, right? Without WebGL or 3GS, which is for 3D, you don't have any of that stuff. You only have the typography and some of the reveal animations and some of the rules. So that's why these two elements here for me is really important, and that's what gives you these beautiful animation that makes your site a lot more unique. It goes from you know 0 to 50 or 50 to 80 real fast. And so, yeah, I would download the two of them and you know, back to here. So we're already at the demo, so I might as well show you guys. Uh, on Aura, you can go to design.md. This is where you're gonna find all of this stuff, the design, and then you you take something that you like and you add that to your prompt. So the same way that I download design.md and HTML, I add it to my prompt, and now I'm ready to tell what I want for my landing page. So, for example, I can say something like okay, create a landing page for my startup called, you know, uh, I don't know, like Aura. And uh I know, really original. So, and then it's going to be a chat app that is um you know that that is using AI and that it ships stuff to people uh to their email, whatever.