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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.