We need to talk about Claude Design
Okay, friends — we need to talk about Claude Design.
I’d been ignoring it until my friend Andie Huber wrote a great piece on LinkedIn calling out the hypocrisy of people complaining about written AI slop while happily hopping on the AI design slop bandwagon.
And ooh — do that design slop be slopping.
I know because I tried it myself.
I recently launched a new brand and website for a coach, facilitator and speaker who specializes in workplace culture. So I decided to feed that client’s creative brief, color palette, and brand photos into Claude Design to see what it could come up with.
It was fine. Not super inspired and the copy wasn’t great. But I wouldn’t say it was embarrassing.
Claude Design
(MODERNIST TEMPLATE)
Claude Design’s homepage for my client — a coach, facilitator & speaker
My Design
(NO TEMPLATE)
For comparison, here’s my design
Continuing the experiment
So then I tried it with two more clients.
I ended up generating five designs for three women, using 3 different Claude templates.
Claude Design
(MODERNIST TEMPLATE)
Claude Design's homepage for a different client — a civil rights attorney
Claude Design
(CLASSICAL TEMPLATE)
A different Claude Design template for the civil rights attorney
My Design
(NO TEMPLATE)
For comparison, here’s my design
Claude Design
(MODERNIST TEMPLATE)
Claude Design's homepage for a speaking coach, author, and TedX Speaker
Claude Design
(NOCTURNE TEMPLATE)
A third Claude Design template
My Design
(NO TEMPLATE)
For comparison, here’s my design
Summary: Claude Design
(3 DIFFERENT TEMPLATES FOR 3 VERY DIFFERENT WOMEN)
All 3 of these women have dramatically different businesses, personalities, and brand identities. And all of those differences were spelled out clearly in the creative briefs I uploaded.
And yet…
All of the Claude designs look remarkably similar. And seeing them all together, they’re looking a little more embarrassing 😬
Summary: My Designs
(3 KICKASS WOMEN DESERVE 3 UNIQUE DESIGNS)
The case for human taste & design
I posted about this on LinkedIn last week and one designer commented that he does his initial designs in Claude and then cleans them up for his clients (fixes bad line breaks, for example).
Around the same time, someone in one of my online communities asked for recommendations for an AI design tool that could create creative, professional graphics that don’t look generic.
Those two situations get at an important point. If the goal is polish, Claude Design (with the help of a designer) can probably get you somewhere. But if you want anything remotely distinctive, it just isn’t there yet.
One more note: I’m only sharing homepage hero banners because it’s easier to show at a glance. But the homogeneity between the Claude Design layouts was even more stark in the full site designs. And I couldn’t see any meaningful storytelling strategy in how the pages were laid out.
And since everyone has been busy cataloging the tells of AI writing, you might be curious about the Claude Design tells that showed up in all five full-page renderings. Check out Andie Huber’s post where she lays it all out clearly.
Why do you think we’re so quick to call out AI writing slop, but then give AI-generated design a pass?
Goodies Just For You
WHAT I’M THINKING ABOUT:The Midlife Truth Project is a limited series podcast hosted by one of my clients, Julie Flakstad, and Dr. Taz Bhatia. Each episode explores a different aspect of midlife – topics like sex, friendships, family relationships, and of course, menopause. Guests include Gabby Reece, Sara Blakely, Dr. Sharon Malone.
WHAT I’M MAKING:Chicken Breasts with Miso Garlic Sauce. I’d forgotten about this one and I’m bringing it back into regular rotation now. It’s amazing as written, BUT doing the whole chicken prep in the recipe is a little time consuming for a weeknight. My shortcut: you can brown the chicken breasts with salt and pepper in a pan and just make the sauce. Because it’s the sauce that’s the true showstopper.
WHAT I WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT: I get a lot of questions about Substack vs. other email platforms, so I wanted to share this:
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On September 3rd, my friend Melanie Benson is hosting a free masterclass called Your Invisible Substack Sales Force. She’ll show you how to use Substack to get discovered, build trust through your content, and create more ways for the right people to become clients.
If you’ve been curious about whether Substack could work for your business, this is worth checking out. Register here.
