Vibe Design

The Adoption of the Term

Andrej Karpathy (February 2025): Coined the foundational "vibe" tech paradigm. He described it as fully giving in to the vibes, leveraging exponentials, and letting AI handle line-by-line execution.

Early Design Bloggers & UX Pioneers (March–May 2025): Within weeks of Karpathy's post, UX professionals like Johan Sjöstrand and publications like UX Tigers began using "vibe design" to describe AI-powered, intent-first visual creation. Notable UX pioneer Jakob Nielsen
also analyzed the shift in early March 2025.

Google (March 2026): Solidified and mainstreamed the term commercially by introducing its AI-native UI creation tool, Google Stitch, specifically framing its prompt-to-interface canvas around the concept of "vibe design".

Definition

Vibe designing is the practice of using multi-modal AI design tools to generate and edit UI designs through text, images, URLs, or even diagrams. In vibe design tools, these AI features complement drag-and-drop interfaces, design pre-sets, and customizable elements to allow non-designers and designers alike to control the look and feel of UI wireframes and prototypes. The combination of AI and simple design tools create a balance between speed and flexibility, which is at the core of the vibe designing experience.

The emergence of vibe designing has been fueled, at least in part, by the frustration of non-designers unable to convey their product ideas adequately due to the complexity of modern design tools. By using AI to fill the knowledge and skill gaps of non-designers, vibe design tools have become deeply integrated to the modern product design and development process, especially among software product managers, business analysts, designers, and engineers.

By Visibly.ai

Workflow

Vibe designing is inherently iterative, AI-assisted prototyping means anyone on the team can update or modify designs instantly, making it a tool for ongoing collaboration, not just a one-time step. A typical workflow:

Gather inspiration — Collect screenshots, competitor URLs, or sketches that capture the intended feel.
Choose a vibe reference — Pick the image, template, or diagram that best communicates your idea.
Generate — Use an AI tool like Visily to instantly transform that input into a wireframe or prototype.
Customize & iterate — Use AI for big changes; refine details directly on the canvas.
Share — Invite stakeholders to comment or edit, keeping everyone aligned on the product vision.

AI handles the heavy lifting; manual canvas tools keep refinement precise. The result is a flexible, low-friction path from idea to prototype.

Best Practices

Use it throughout the process — Not just during ideation; vibe designing is quick enough to revisit at any stage, especially when the team feels stuck.
Pick the right input method — Text prompts aren't always best. Use canvas tools for precise, one-off edits and learn which input types get the results you want in multimodal tools.
Keep your inspiration organized — A well-curated repository of ideas and images makes vibe designing faster and helps you achieve higher-quality output.

Tools

Purpose-built Vibe Design Tools

- Visily — The closest to a true vibe design tool; multimodal AI lets you go from screenshot, URL, or sketch to wireframe instantly, with drag-and-drop refinement on the same canvas.
- Google Stitch — The purest vibe design tool; best for exploration and closest to the "describe a vibe, get a design" vision. Ideal when you don't yet know what you want. Nxcode
- Figma Make — Figma's response to the vibe design movement; accepts text prompts and existing Figma frames as input, and inherits your design system's styles and libraries. Toools.design

Vibe Coding Tools (design → working product)

- v0 by Vercel — The developer's choice; best for production-quality React components that integrate with existing codebases. Nxcode
- Lovable — Best for non-technical builders who want working applications, not just mockups — goes from idea to deployed product without writing code. Nxcode
- Bolt.new — Best for rapid prototyping, especially for mobile apps, with speed and flexibility. Nxcode

Vibe Design for Learning Experiences

Real World Examples

Sushumna C

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