Second Brain

Claude Code seemed like a developer thing. Terminal windows, command lines, technical stuff. I'm "just a designer." Cursor worked fine for my needs. I could build simple iOS apps and the occasional React app. Plan, build, iterate, commit. A nice linear workflow.

It wasn't the "I built this enterprise app in 5 minutes and made $100K in 5 seconds" speed I see all over X. But it worked.

Eventually curiosity got the better of me. I started dabbling with Claude Code and some simple MCPs (Model Context Protocols, basically plugins that let Claude talk to other apps).

My mind has been blown.

Cursor, I'm sorry. You were my first true love. But I think we should see other people.

I had a vibecoded Expo app. It worked, but the styling was a mess. Random hex codes instead of native iOS colors. Custom components where native ones should be. Navigation that didn't feel right.

Fixing all of this manually would have taken hours. Realistically, I would have skipped it and told myself I'd clean it up in a later version. You know how that goes.

I installed a skill that goes through the app and enforces native styles. Proper system colors. Native navigation bars. Correct text styles.

Claude Code fixed everything. It just worked.

WTF.

An old client of mine called asking for help with a presentation video. Normally I'd fire up After Effects or Jitter and start keyframing away. Hours of work for a few minutes of animation.

Instead, I tried the Remotion

In a few minutes I had a working animation. Text and images pulled directly from the client's website. Ready to render. It took a few prompts after that to get the timing right, but the rest was a one-shot.

It was the first time in years I audibly said "WTF" when I played the animation back.

Something clicked.

Claude doing magic in Framer

I had a design in Framer that needed some cleanup after importing it from Figma. Text elements without proper styles applied. Copy that needed to change to a different topic.

The old way: click through every text element, apply styles, rewrite copy. Tedious. Slow. The kind of work that makes you question your career choices.

With Claude Code and the Framer MCP, I told it to apply text styles to all text elements and change all the copy to a different topic.

It just did it. The whole site. In seconds.

I sat there staring at my screen.

I'm currently digging into Figma and Framer MCPs to see how much tedious work I can offload.

For Framer, I want Claude to handle:

Renaming layers properly
Fixing responsiveness across breakpoints
Applying consistent styles

For Figma, I want to use it for design system maintenance:

Writing component descriptions (the documentation nobody wants to do)
Reviewing files for missing styles or incorrect colors
Cleaning up the mess that accumulates when multiple designers work on the same system

The goal is simple: let AI do the boring stuff so I can focus on the fun stuff.

If you're a designer looking at Claude Code and thinking "that's not for me," I get it. I was there.

Here's what I was missing:

It's not about writing code from scratch. It's about having an assistant that understands your entire project and can make changes across dozens of files in seconds.

Skills and MCPs change everything. Claude Code on its own is powerful. Claude Code connected to Figma, Framer, Remotion, or your codebase is something else entirely.

The speed isn't hype. I was skeptical of the "built this in 5 minutes" posts. But when you experience a task that would take hours getting done in seconds, you understand. It's not exaggeration. It's a different way of working.

You don't need to be technical. I'm a designer who codes, not a developer who designs. Claude Code meets you where you are.

I'd be lying if I said this doesn't make me a little nervous about the future of my profession. When the tedious work disappears, what's left? When anyone can build what used to require specialists, what happens to the specialists?

I don't have answers. Progress is inevitable. Trying to stop it would be like trying to push the tide away with a broom. I'm choosing to ride the wave rather than stand on the shore watching it come.

But I'm holding both feelings at the same time: excitement about what I can build now, and uncertainty about what it all means later.

For now, I'm focusing on the excitement. The tools are incredible. The possibilities keep expanding. And I keep finding myself saying "WTF" out loud.

That feels like a good sign.