Redesign Skill

When to Use

• Use when the user asks to redesign, restyle, modernize, polish, or improve an existing website or app UI.
• Use when the task is to audit current frontend code and make targeted visual improvements without changing the product architecture.
• Use when the design feels generic, AI-generated, poorly spaced, visually flat, or missing responsive, interactive, loading, empty, or error states.

Limitations

• This skill upgrades existing UI but does not authorize framework migrations, information-architecture rewrites, or product-scope expansion by default.
• Preserve working behavior, routing, data flows, accessibility semantics, and tests while making visual changes.
• Validate redesigned screens in the actual app across supported browsers and viewport sizes before considering the work complete.

How This Works

When applied to an existing project, follow this sequence:

1. Scan — Read the codebase. Identify the framework, styling method (Tailwind, vanilla CSS, styled-components, etc.), and current design patterns.
2. Diagnose — Run through the audit below. List every generic pattern, weak point, and missing state you find.
3. Fix — Apply targeted upgrades working with the existing stack. Do not rewrite from scratch. Improve what's there.

Design Audit

Typography

Check for these problems and fix them:

• Browser default fonts or Inter everywhere. Replace with a font that has character. Good options: Geist, Outfit, Cabinet Grotesk, Satoshi. For editorial/creative projects, pair a serif header with a sans-serif body.
• Headlines lack presence. Increase size for display text, tighten letter-spacing, reduce line-height. Headlines should feel heavy and intentional.
• Body text too wide. Limit paragraph width to roughly 65 characters. Increase line-height for readability.
• Only Regular (400) and Bold (700) weights used. Introduce Medium (500) and SemiBold (600) for more subtle hierarchy.
• Numbers in proportional font. Use a monospace font or enable tabular figures (font-variant-numeric: tabular-nums) for data-heavy interfaces.
• Missing letter-spacing adjustments. Use negative tracking for large headers, positive tracking for small caps or labels.
• All-caps subheaders everywhere. Try lowercase italics, sentence case, or small-caps instead.
• Orphaned words. Single words sitting alone on the last line. Fix with text-wrap: balance or text-wrap: pretty.

Color and Surfaces

• Pure #000000 background. Replace with off-black, dark charcoal, or tinted dark (#0a0a0a, #121212, or a dark navy).
• Oversaturated accent colors. Keep saturation below 80%. Desaturate accents so they blend with neutrals instead of screaming.
• More than one accent color. Pick one. Remove the rest. Consistency beats variety.
• Mixing warm and cool grays. Stick to one gray family. Tint all grays with a consistent hue (warm or cool, not both).
• Purple/blue "AI gradient" aesthetic. This is the most common AI design fingerprint. Replace with neutral bases and a single, considered accent.
• Generic box-shadow. Tint shadows to match the background hue. Use colored shadows (e.g., dark blue shadow on a blue background) instead of pure black at low opacity.
• Flat design with zero texture. Add subtle noise, grain, or micro-patterns to backgrounds. Pure flat vectors feel sterile.
• Perfectly even gradients. Break the uniformity with radial gradients, noise overlays, or mesh gradients instead of standard linear 45-degree fades.
• Inconsistent lighting direction. Audit all shadows to ensure they suggest a single, consistent light source.
• Random dark sections in a light mode page (or vice versa). A single dark-background section breaking an otherwise light page looks like a copy-paste accident. Either commit to a full dark mode or keep a consistent background tone throughout. If contrast is needed, use a slightly darker shade of the same palette — not a sudden jump to #111 in the middle of a cream page.
• Empty, flat sections with no visual depth. Sections that are just text on a plain background feel unfinished. Add high-quality background imagery (blurred, overlaid, or masked), subtle patterns, or ambient gradients. Use reliable placeholder sources like https://picsum.photos/seed/{name}/1920/1080 when real assets are not available. Experiment with background images behind hero sections, feature blocks, or CTAs — even a subtle full-width photo at low opacity adds presence.

Layout

• Everything centered and symmetrical. Break symmetry with offset margins, mixed aspect ratios, or left-aligned headers over centered content.
• Three equal card columns as feature row. This is the most generic AI layout. Replace with a 2-column zig-zag, asymmetric grid, horizontal scroll, or masonry layout.
• Using height: 100vh for full-screen sections. Replace with min-height: 100dvh to prevent layout jumping on mobile browsers (iOS Safari viewport bug).
• Complex flexbox percentage math. Replace with CSS Grid for reliable multi-column structures.
• No max-width container. Add a container constraint (around 1200-1440px) with auto margins so content doesn't stretch edge-to-edge on wide screens.
• Cards of equal height forced by flexbox. Allow variable heights or use masonry when content varies in length.
• Uniform border-radius on everything. Vary the radius: tighter on inner elements, softer on containers.
• No overlap or depth. Elements sit flat next to each other. Use negative margins to create layering and visual depth.
• Symmetrical vertical padding. Top and bottom padding are always identical. Adjust optically — bottom padding often needs to be slightly larger.
• Dashboard always has a left sidebar. Try top navigation, a floating command menu, or a collapsible panel instead.
• Missing whitespace. Double the spacing. Let the design breathe. Dense layouts work for data dashboards, not for marketing pages.
• Buttons not bottom-aligned in card groups. When cards have different content lengths, CTAs end up at random heights. Pin buttons to the bottom of each card so they form a clean horizontal line regardless of content above.
• Feature lists starting at different vertical positions. In pricing tables or comparison cards, the list of features should start at the same Y position across all columns. Use consistent spacing above the list or fixed-height title/price blocks.
• Inconsistent vertical rhythm in side-by-side elements. When placing cards, columns, or panels next to each other, align shared elements (titles, descriptions, prices, buttons) across all items. Misaligned baselines make the layout look broken.
• Mathematical alignment that looks optically wrong. Centering by the math doesn't always look centered to the eye. Icons next to text, play buttons in circles, or text in buttons often need 1-2px optical adjustments to feel right.

Interactivity and States

• No hover states on buttons. Add background shift, slight scale, or translate on hover.
• No active/pressed feedback. Add a subtle scale(0.98) or translateY(1px) on press to simulate a physical click.
• Instant transitions with zero duration. Add smooth transitions (200-300ms) to all interactive elements.
• Missing focus ring. Ensure visible focus indicators for keyboard navigation. This is an accessibility requirement, not optional.
• No loading states. Replace generic circular spinners with skeleton loaders that match the layout shape.
• No empty states. An empty dashboard showing nothing is a missed opportunity. Design a composed "getting started" view.
• No error states. Add clear, inline error messages for forms. Do not use window.alert().
• Dead links. Buttons that link to #. Either link to real destinations or visually disable them.
• **No indication of current page in