Direction for AI-built products

Approach

Design direction as code

Cursor, Bolt, Lovable. They’ll give you a working product by Tuesday. They won’t tell you whether that product actually makes sense. The gap isn’t production anymore. It’s judgment.

Whether a feature belongs in the first release or is scope creep. How to restructure an onboarding flow so people actually finish it. Which hue belongs to your brand and why. Where the spacing breaks rhythm to create emphasis. When a settings screen needs hierarchy and when it needs fewer options. These aren’t preferences. They’re product design decisions that compound. Get them right early and everything your AI produces from that point forward works well and looks intentional. Get them wrong and you ship something that feels like a template with your logo on it.

You don’t need a full-time designer. You don’t need a design system built for documentation. You need someone who’s spent 20 years making these calls to work with your product and turn judgment into infrastructure your AI can follow.

What you get

The deliverable isn’t a Figma file. It’s design decisions, both structural and visual, encoded for the way you actually build:

• Product design direction – which features belong, how flows should work, where to simplify
• Visual identity – palette, typography, spacing, component tone, and the reasoning behind each choice
• Component and interaction patterns – how navigation, forms, data display, and error states should behave in your specific context
• LLM rules – design constraints your AI coding tools follow automatically
• Design tokens – your palette, type scale, spacing, radii, and shadows as code-ready values

From that point on, your AI produces consistent, branded output. Not because it learned taste, but because you gave it guardrails built by someone who has it.

Cases

Impact through design

20 years of product design for organisations like Bang & Olufsen, Novo Nordisk, H&M, Adidas, and BMW. Six years as an independent fractional design leader, embedded in small teams where design decisions happen alongside founders and engineers.

The work has always been about the same thing: making the calls that turn functional products into considered experiences, from how features are structured to how they look and feel. What’s changed is the delivery format.

Recent work includes

• Heco et al: Dual-platform strategy with consumer savings app paired with B2B market intelligence
• Upright Music: Distribution platform serving musicians with TV, film, and commercial licensing
• Bang & Olufsen: Merging a fragmented app ecosystem into a single, coherent product experience

Work together

Let’s talk about your product

I work with a small number of clients on an ongoing fractional basis. We start with your product as it exists, I work through the full scope of product design, from feature decisions and user flows to visual identity and component design, and then I stay involved as you grow. New features, new product areas, new decisions that need someone with context and judgment.

What to expect

• 30-minute discovery call to understand your product and position
• Initial review of your product, making foundational decisions your tools understand
• Ongoing design direction and review as your product evolves

€1,080 per day, typically a few days a month.