How to Design in the Agent Era

Design Tools Should Speak HTML To Agents
- Paper uses HTML and CSS as its rendering engine so agents can read and modify designs directly without translation.
- Stephen says this reduces token spend, speeds agents, and improves accuracy compared with custom renderers. (Time 0:01:06)
Use Shaders As Marketing Not Just Decoration
- Use shaders to create distinctive, shareable brand visuals instead of buying ads.
- Stephen explains the open-source Paper Shaders library creates retro and subtle animated effects designers love and that spread virally. (Time 0:05:16)
Paper Mono Was Built As Marketing
- Paper built Paper Mono as a marketing and product asset because no all-round monospaced font existed for brand+code.
- Stephen says they spent time on number legibility and shipped limited merch to drive community attention. (Time 0:10:20)
Ship Designs As Real Code With Agents
- Let agents write HTML/CSS into Paper and then export as React or Tailwind to eliminate translation and speed handoff.
- Stephen showed an agent using Paper’s MTP to write HTML that the canvas renders directly. (Time 0:11:42)
Iterate Live Sections With Paper Snapshot
- Use Paper Snapshot to pull live site sections into an editable canvas and ask agents to generate multiple variations overnight.
- Aaron and Stephen demoed grabbing a hero section, leaving comments, and having agents iterate and fix alignment or overflow. (Time 0:18:44)
Scale Yourself By Having Agents Generate Variations
- Treat agent outputs as a curation problem: run many parallel agents overnight and then curate the best iterations.
- Stephen shows agents generating hundreds of variations while designers combine ideas and refine the chosen direction. (Time 0:21:10)
Remove The AI Tells From Your UI
- Avoid the common AI tells: overbold headlines, too many font sizes, purple gradients, countless cards, and decorative widgets that don’t communicate.
- Stephen recommends simplifying weights, limiting sizes to three, and deleting filler to regain trust. (Time 0:32:40)
Design Is A Competitive Differentiator
- Exceptional design is a lasting company differentiator and makes a startup feel intentional and trustworthy.
- Stephen argues founders who want enduring companies must put care into design rather than accepting generic AI output. (Time 0:32:55)
Agents Accelerate Tactics Not Design Judgment
- Agents speed up tactical tasks (resizing, translation) but cannot replace the human role of design decisions and organizational judgment.
- Stephen expects models will improve on tactics but believes human designers remain essential for product thoughtfulness. (Time 0:41:00)
Designer Built Paper’s Site End To End In A Week
- Agu, Paper’s brand designer, built the entire Paper marketing site in about a week using Paper and agents.
- Stephen notes Agu designed shaders, animations, and turned the Paper file into a Next.js site with a single-person workflow. (Time 0:44:51)
Talk To A Designer Every Single Day
- Talk to users daily in early stages to avoid the curse of knowledge and guide product decisions.
- Stephen required himself to speak to at least one designer every day during year one and credits that with shaping Paper. (Time 0:51:14)