Most developers treat design as an afterthought. Most designers treat code as someone else\'s problem. I have always found myself somewhere in the middle — equally fascinated by clean CSS and beautiful typography. Being both a developer and a designer has given me a perspective that neither group fully has on its own.
Why the Developer-Designer Split Hurts Products
When design and development are handled by completely separate teams, a subtle friction emerges. Designers create visuals without understanding technical constraints. Developers implement layouts without grasping the intent behind spacing, color, or hierarchy. The result is a product that technically works but never feels quite right.
I have seen beautiful Figma mockups fall apart in the browser because the designer did not account for responsive breakpoints. I have also seen developers sacrifice visual polish for implementation speed, stripping away the very details that made the design special. The gap between design and code is where product quality dies.
Design Systems Are Contracts
The most effective tool I have found for bridging this gap is a design system. Not just a component library — a shared language of colors, typography, spacing, and behavior that both designers and developers agree on.
When I build a design system, I think in tokens. Colors are not "blue" — they are "primary-500." Spacing is not "16 pixels" — it is "space-4." These tokens become the contract between design and code. A designer changes a token value in Figma, and the developer updates one variable in CSS. The entire product shifts consistently without manual hunting and replacing.
Designing With Constraints, Not Against Them
Knowing how to code makes me a better designer because I understand what is genuinely hard versus what just looks hard. Animations that seem complex might be a single CSS keyframe. Layouts that look impossible might just need the right flexbox strategy. Conversely, seemingly simple features like real-time collaborative editing are engineering nightmares.
This knowledge helps me design within constraints rather than pretending they do not exist. I can have productive conversations with engineers about trade-offs. I can suggest alternative approaches that preserve the user experience while respecting implementation complexity. Design and development become a collaboration, not a handoff.
Brand Identity Is Storytelling
Working as a graphic designer at Be Alyv and previously at Prakroot taught me that brand identity is not just logos and color palettes. It is storytelling. Every visual choice communicates something about who you are and what you value.
When I design brand identities, I start with words, not visuals. What is the personality? Bold or understated? Playful or serious? Tech-forward or timeless? These adjectives guide every decision — from typeface selection to photography style to tone of voice. The visual system is just the translation of that personality into pixels and paper.
The Portfolio as Proof
Your portfolio is not a gallery. It is evidence. Every project should tell a story about a problem, your process, and the result. I structure my portfolio pieces around three questions: What was the challenge? What did I do? What changed because of it?
This approach applies whether you are showing a SaaS dashboard redesign, a brand identity system, or an AI tool interface. Process matters. Context matters. The final screenshot is just the tip of the iceberg.
Design Is Never Done
The best products I have worked on treat design as a continuous practice, not a phase. User behavior reveals flaws that no amount of prototyping can predict. Analytics show where people get stuck. Support tickets surface confusion that seemed obvious to the team.
I design in iterations — launch, observe, refine, repeat. Perfection is the enemy of progress. A good design that ships today beats a perfect design that ships never. The goal is to keep improving, one small change at a time, guided by real user feedback.
Darjee Ronak
Graphic Designer at Be Alyv. Founder of HackersMeet & Renron Energies. Developer, designer, and product builder.
