Vibe coding is not an excuse to rush unfinished work. It is a discipline of intuition: letting intention come before syntax, then bringing structure back at the right moment.
Why this term
“Vibe coding” has become shorthand for a more intuitive way of coding with AI tools: describe an intention, generate a base, test quickly, correct, and repeat. For a design studio, this is not only a technical method. It is a way to bring visual thinking closer to its real medium: the browser.
In software development, the term can sound loose. In experimental web design, it names something precise: the moment when an interface starts to develop presence, texture and rhythm. Before it is clean, it becomes felt.
The question is not whether this approach is valid. It is. The real question is how far to push it, and when rigor needs to take the lead again.
Code can first be an expressive material. Like ink, like light.
What vibe coding changes in the design process
The end of the endless wireframe
For a long time, the classic web design workflow looked like a straight line: research, wireframes, high-fidelity mockup, approval, implementation. This process creates clarity, but it delays the moment when the interface truly exists.
A mockup can be perfectly composed and still lose its force at first contact with code. Scroll behavior, real density, mobile constraints, appearance speed, hover friction: none of these are fully felt in a static image.
Vibe coding reverses that logic. You start earlier in the browser. You write, generate, test and adjust. The interface takes shape in its natural environment, not inside a simulation tool.
Prototyping becomes exploration
In a traditional workflow, a prototype represents the final interface. In a vibe coding approach, the prototype is already an interface. It may be imperfect, but it is alive.
This changes the quality of decisions. A CSS animation tested live reveals things no mockup can show: how timing affects perception, how a transition can clarify or blur an action, how the eye follows a moving element.
For a designer sensitive to motion, this is a valuable tool. You can test several easing curves, scroll rhythms and hover states without waiting for a late implementation phase.
The tools that make this method possible
Vibe coding only becomes a real design method because the tools have changed. Code models, prototyping environments and animation libraries make it easier to move from intuition to real interaction.
Claude / Cursor
Generating HTML structure, components, animation or JavaScript behavior from a clear design intention.
Framer
Composing living interfaces directly, especially useful for landing pages and highly interactive brand websites.
CodePen / StackBlitz
Testing an idea without friction, isolating an effect, studying an interaction or exploring typography in motion.
GSAP + Lenis
Controlling motion, scroll, transitions and the micro-rhythm of an interface with precision.
The right combination is not “let AI make the website.” It is using AI to accelerate structure, then letting the designer take back form, rhythm and choice. This is not laziness. It is attention management.
Creating interfaces with presence
The idea of vibe in interface design
An interface with a vibe communicates something before it is even used. The grain of a typeface, the density of a grid, the reaction of a button, the pace of a page transition: these details build the overall feeling.
Memorable interfaces are not always the most complex. They are the ones with a point of view: an opinion about space, movement, speed, silence and friction.
Vibe coding helps test these opinions quickly. It lets you refine a feeling, reject it or make it sharper before locking it into a system.
What AI can do
Produce variations quickly, generate the code for an interactive state, refactor a responsive base, or help move past a technical block.
What the designer keeps
The judgment on timing, hierarchy, the accuracy of a state, the weight of a typeface and the coherence of the visual language.
Rigor as the final act
The faster you move at the beginning, the more demanding you need to be at the end. Intuition creates possibilities. Rigor chooses among them and makes them durable.
A website designed through vibe coding but left unfinished is easy to spot: motion that drags on mobile, inconsistent spacing, forgotten focus states, fragile typography, heavy performance. These are not flaws in vibe coding. They are signs that the process stopped too early.
Intuition gives the form. Care gives it duration.
Pre-launch checklist
- Do all animations respect prefers-reduced-motion?
- Have transitions been tested on a real device?
- Does the typographic hierarchy stay consistent across pages?
- Do spacing decisions follow an identifiable system?
- Are hover, focus and active states defined and accessible?
- Does the site remain readable without its animations?
- Does the grid hold at 375px, 768px and 1440px?
Before, now
Before: a linear workflow
Brief, moodboard, wireframes, Figma mockup, approval, implementation, tests. This workflow is reassuring, but it often discovers too late that the imagined interaction does not really work.
Now: a hybrid workflow
Brief, direct code exploration, interactive prototype, approval on living material, consolidation into a system, clean delivery. The client no longer validates an image of an experience, but an experience already taking shape.
/* Testing a feeling in a few minutes */
.card {
transform: translateY(0);
transition: transform .4s cubic-bezier(.16, 1, .3, 1);
}
.card:hover {
transform: translateY(-6px);
}
/* Then judge it: too visible? too slow? too decorative? */Vibe coding and web identity
For a studio working across visual identity and web design, the browser becomes a brand expression surface. An animation can be on-brand. A scroll behavior can have personality. A transition can translate the same values as a typographic choice.
Vibe coding makes it possible to explore these expressive layers before formalizing them. You look for the vibe of a brand in the browser. Only then do you document it, give it rules, and make it usable by a team.
Going further
Vibe coding is not an isolated trend. It is a response to a real problem: reducing the gap between what we imagine and what we can render. With current tools, the question is no longer only “can I make it?” It becomes “can I finish it properly?”
The most interesting interfaces will be thought quickly, explored in their natural environment, then finished slowly. Vibe first, care after. In that order.
