Marvin Schwaibold, who leads Shopify's product design studio, says designers now act like editors, curating AI output because AI can write code but cannot judge what looks good.
Schwaibold says Shopify leadership decided last year that the company was entering a new era that needed design, and that prototypes persuade far better than product requirement documents.
Schwaibold advises designers to be infinitely patient with AI and to learn by copying existing work, a tactic he used to build a grass shader with about 217,000 blade variations in Codex.
Designers Become Editors as AI Builds the Prototypes
AI has changed what a designer does more than how a designer thinks. Code and prototypes now come cheap, so the scarce skill is taste, meaning the judgment to edit output and sweat the details. Schwaibold shows this through his Shopify work, his Molly studio past and live critiques of startup sites.
Takeaways
Designers have become editors of AI output. Schwaibold still works iteratively, but tooling moved from Figma canvases to AI workflows. AI writes code yet does not know what looks good, so the designer's job is to judge and curate what it produces.
Working demos now replace static mockups. He uses Figma only as a scratch pad, then builds demos in Codex and Claude Code and tests them on a phone or computer. Prototypes persuade far more than product requirement documents, so his team shares them by link for others to branch.
Shopify now puts design in the foreground. Leadership, including Toby, decided last year that the company was entering a new era needing design. Schwaibold's studio redesigns key surfaces such as the admin, mobile app and Sidekick. Design had only recently played a bigger role at Shopify.
Craft details signal quality to clients. At Molly, the gradient borrowed from ambient TV backlighting, and Collins' bookshelf interaction used a handcrafted bounce animation. Schwaibold argues such small touches show clients that care went into the work.
AI building rewards patience and copying. His grass shader came from feeding a video into Codex, which reported about 217,000 blade variations, with DialKit exposing the values for tuning. A carousel took 91 prompts. He advises infinite patience with AI and learning by copying existing work.
Website critiques centered on clarity and restraint. Common faults were overloaded pages, unclear main goals, small type, too many font sizes, placeholder text and scroll jacking. Schwaibold says a designer's job is to reduce complexity and show one piece at a time.
Website review fixes
nStack: the home page overloads visually, and Epstein cannot tell its main goal.
SkillSync: fonts are too small, so Schwaibold suggests a three-feature summary. Epstein wants hidden tab content moved onto a longer page.
Instaplay: the homepage lacks copy, and the explorer page removes the input field, so users cannot create a game there.
Nullify: lead with a video of the product before any text, and drop smooth scrolling, which Schwaibold calls a disaster in the industry.
Instinct: the logo, typography and colours compete with the message. Schwaibold suggests a live 3D moon.
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