The AI Aesthetic • Hacker News Board

Re: The AI Aesthetic

#51

Post by floam » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 1:32 AM UTC

jjcm wrote: post #10

> There are other aesthetics my brain associates with AI, like beige/cream colors, orange accents, and serif typefaces Something to consider regarding the narrow space AI-created designs align on: LLMs are trained to write consistent code. This makes sense for something like a billing or a backend function - you want that code to be consistent. The problem though is that LLMs write code to represent designs as well,…

I tried your tool just now, on my iPhone. I am really kind of stuck and frustrated. I cannot get that first box, the one you can type into, that’s on a grid into a state where I can interact with it.

Stuff is jumping around after I try to move the canvas around, unexpected stuff. I can’t figure it out.

Re: The AI Aesthetic

#52

Post by john01dav » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 1:32 AM UTC

blfr wrote: post #46

I think that most early AI aesthetic will go the way of bootstrap and become associated with ultra utilitarian software where no one thought about intentionally making a design. Fable can easily generate something like a design system for itself from whatever starting point you give it. So if you want different aesthetic, you can bang out the aesthetic first in Claude Design and then serve it to Claude Code to follow…

I disagree because they communicate different things (to me).

Seeing Bootsrap for some custom software at my university pre-llm: "I think that a programmer made this and didn't have a designer helping them so they just used a library"

Seeing vibe-coded frontend: "This app may be entirely vibe coded so I am deeply suspicious of it, or it could be a programmer who didn't have a designer helping them and thus used Bootstrap"

Re: The AI Aesthetic

#53

Post by smoe » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 1:33 AM UTC

blfr wrote: post #46

I think that most early AI aesthetic will go the way of bootstrap and become associated with ultra utilitarian software where no one thought about intentionally making a design. Fable can easily generate something like a design system for itself from whatever starting point you give it. So if you want different aesthetic, you can bang out the aesthetic first in Claude Design and then serve it to Claude Code to follow…

I would say by default, the AI aesthetic is the opposite of utilitarian. It adds so much unnecessary bits and bobs everywhere, random things that look reasonable at first glance but often are nonsensical noise. The visual equivalent of the endless yapping in chat.

For me it was a lot of work with Fable to keep it focused on producing a minimal, medium-high information density system. Sure, it works very well if you are just IP laundering another product, less so for more niche applications. Still super useful, but I haven't seen it produce much "intentional" design on its own.

Re: The AI Aesthetic

#54

Post by keithnz » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 1:34 AM UTC

jjcm wrote: post #10

> There are other aesthetics my brain associates with AI, like beige/cream colors, orange accents, and serif typefaces Something to consider regarding the narrow space AI-created designs align on: LLMs are trained to write consistent code. This makes sense for something like a billing or a backend function - you want that code to be consistent. The problem though is that LLMs write code to represent designs as well,…

maybe, but you can do wacky things, eg I put together https://scores.lazer-kiwi.workers.dev/ It's a dota2 guild (#1 guild in autralasia) website and I have a bot that extracts the scores and publishes peoples progress on the website with a relatively basic table and stats, as a random side quest all kinds of weird stuff got built in ( you can shoot all kinds of things, if you hover over the number in the # column of the members and it turns into a gold sights, then you can click that and there are all kinds of weird cinematics. Lots of semi crude humor and Kiwi / Aussie rivalry Jokes and internal digs at some of the players. The art is...errr... basic. There's a secret counter down the bottom left so you can tell if you have seen all the weird things or not. Note, on mobile it doesn't include the extras.

Re: The AI Aesthetic

#55

Post by abrowne » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 1:39 AM UTC

collingreen wrote: post #18

AsyncBanana wrote: post #8

A lot of these things are continuations of previous trends too. The shimmering text effect is strongly reminiscent of skeleton UI, only repurposed for chat interfaces. As always, design is more continuous evolution than discrete shifts.

As the saying goes: Slowly, then all at once.

“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.

“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”

— Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises, https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/ernest-hemingway/the-sun-a...

Re: The AI Aesthetic

#56

Post by internet2000 » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 1:40 AM UTC

jjcm wrote: post #10

> There are other aesthetics my brain associates with AI, like beige/cream colors, orange accents, and serif typefaces Something to consider regarding the narrow space AI-created designs align on: LLMs are trained to write consistent code. This makes sense for something like a billing or a backend function - you want that code to be consistent. The problem though is that LLMs write code to represent designs as well,…

The ramen one looks extremely AI. It's mostly the atrocious copywriting, and wonky responsiveness, but even overlooking those things you can tell.

On the Tarot one, the 3D card in the bottom is both very elaborate and also pointless. No human would've put effort into making that. Not bad per se! But AI.

Re: The AI Aesthetic

#57

Post by ajkjk » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 1:47 AM UTC

For as long as the sparkle emoji has been in use I have taken it to be a red flag, the telltale sign of "buttons not to click". I can't imagine how a designer could justify including it at this point.

Re: The AI Aesthetic

#58

Post by data-ottawa » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 1:49 AM UTC

AsyncBanana wrote: post #8

A lot of these things are continuations of previous trends too. The shimmering text effect is strongly reminiscent of skeleton UI, only repurposed for chat interfaces. As always, design is more continuous evolution than discrete shifts.

I actually like the shimmer effect, I think it’s preferable to almost all spinners.

If the agent is set up to properly show intent then this is better than spinners or exponentially decreasing loading bars.

Re: The AI Aesthetic

#59

Post by Retr0id » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 1:50 AM UTC

websight wrote: post #45

jjcm wrote: post #10

> There are other aesthetics my brain associates with AI, like beige/cream colors, orange accents, and serif typefaces Something to consider regarding the narrow space AI-created designs align on: LLMs are trained to write consistent code. This makes sense for something like a billing or a backend function - you want that code to be consistent. The problem though is that LLMs write code to represent designs as well,…

I don't think these look "bad" exactly, but they do look like AI, and I don't think that's just because I know they are.

I don't think I'd clock the ramen one as AI, if not for the main image being AI generated.

Re: The AI Aesthetic

#60

Post by yieldcrv » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 1:56 AM UTC

loooooooooooong landing pages is a sure tell sign of vibe coded slop, the new geocities

“you know what, ten more sections to get the point across is absolutely the right move, you’ve nailed it, and frankly, that’s rare”