Steering AI Design with Adjectives and Verbs
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the gist
Impeccable is a design skill for coding assistants that replaces generic 'one-shot' AI design with a vocabulary of adjectives and verbs, allowing developers to steer models toward specific design outcomes rather than relying on default algorithmic aesthetics.
The Shift from One-Shot Generation to Steered Design
Design generation in frontier models often results in "algorithmic unilo," where outputs default to a specific aesthetic—such as the current trend of beige palettes, Instrument Serif fonts, and excessive italics—because the model lacks context for the specific project. Paul Bakaus argues that design cannot be solved in a single prompt because it is inherently context-rich, iterative, and requires human decision-making regarding emotional territory and audience. Impeccable functions as a design skill layer that sits on top of coding harnesses like Cursor, GitHub Copilot, and Claude Code to provide a shared language for design, moving away from fully agentic "auto-mode" workflows toward human-in-the-loop steering.
Applying Adjectives as Design Constraints
Instead of relying on generic prompts, Impeccable uses specific adjectives and verbs to map design intent to technical execution. Each keyword is pre-loaded with project-specific definitions that prevent the model from defaulting to common AI tropes like glassmorphism, gradients, or neon.
- Bolder: Resolves to hierarchy, scale, and decisive typography rather than visual effects.
- Distill: Focuses on simplification and removing unnecessary elements.
- Harden: Ensures design responsiveness and performance across devices, while cleaning up design debt.
- Overdrive: An experimental command used to push visual elements to an extreme, often used for creative exploration or shader work.
Workflow Integration
Bakaus maps the design process into distinct phases—initialization, shaping, crafting, iterating, and hardening—and injects these commands at specific points. The tool explicitly rejects "automatic mode" because the goal is to amplify the user's taste and craft rather than replace the decision-making process. By using these loaded terms, engineers can communicate design intent more effectively, ensuring that the model respects existing design systems rather than hallucinating new, inconsistent styles.