Design Engineering
Where design judgment meets engineering rigor. Typography, color science, performance, accessibility, and the craft of building interfaces that respect their users.
8 articles
Featured Guides
GLSL for Builders: A Shader Lab You Can Actually Use
A practical GLSL playground with live controls for learning shader intuition fast. Presets, uniform manipulation, and zero-framework WebGL in the browser.
The No-Build Manifesto: Shipping Without a Bundler
FastAPI + HTMX + plain CSS with zero build tools and perfect Lighthouse scores. Real production numbers, honest tradeoffs, and a clear decision framework.
Design Systems for Startups: How I Built Mine Backwards
I built my design system backwards: tokens first, components never. A CLS bug taught me the cost of skipping tokens. I stopped debating when to invest.
Color Science for Interface Designers: What I Learned Building a Zero-Color Site
I built a site with no colors — just white on absolute black with four opacity layers. Here's the color science that made the decision work.
The Design Career That Survives AI
After 12 years as VP of Product Design, I watched three paradigm shifts. The skills that survived every one are the same skills AI can't replace.
Type Scales: How I Chose 13 Steps and Why the Ratio Matters
My site uses a 13-step type scale from 12px to 80px. How I chose the ratio, why system fonts outperform custom fonts, and what the squint test reveals.
Beauty and Brutalism: How I Designed blakecrosley.com at the Intersection
I built my site at the intersection of beauty and brutalism: structural honesty with precise typography on absolute black.
From 76 to 100: Achieving a Perfect Lighthouse Score
A FastAPI site went from Lighthouse 76 with 0.493 CLS to perfect 100/100/100/100. The fix: critical CSS extraction, a CSS variable bug, and async loading.