design-engineering

# Design Engineering Skill Based on Emil Kowalski's design engineering philosophy — UI polish, component craftsmanship, and the compound value of invisible details. ## Core Principles - **Taste is trainable.** Develops through studying exceptional work, reverse-engineering animations, and intentional practice. - **Invisible details create love.** Most UI refinements users never consciously register — but combined they produce something stunning. - **Beauty differentiates.** When functionality is table stakes, aesthetic excellence becomes genuine leverage. ## Anti-Slop Visual & Structural Checklist Defaults that signal machine-generated UI ("AI slop"). Each is a falsifiable rule to uphold: - **Avoid** full-bleed saturated gradient backgrounds (purple-to-pink/blue hero washes) and gradient headlines (`background-clip: text`). Use solid ink or warm neutral tinting. - **Avoid** emoji as load-bearing decoration (emoji as icons, bullet markers, or section badges). Use a real icon set (Lucide/Phosphor/Heroicons) or typographic hierarchy. - **Avoid** the 3-equal-column card grid with icon-above-heading tiles, nested cards-in-cards, or cards with thick coloured left-edge side stripes. - **Avoid** hand-drawn fake imagery in SVG (synthetic "photos", invented logos, faux screenshots). Use a real asset or an honest labeled placeholder. - **Avoid** fake re-drawn UI chrome (mock browser bars with traffic-light dots, mock IDE title bars, faux phone frames). Let content stand cleanly or...