Ben Lau

My new portfolio is live! 🚨 Fractional design for early-stage startups. I’m open for 1-2 new clients. Case studies dropping soon. Link below 👇

@designbymeris Love it! Epic new portfolio my man

My new website is live. Took longer than I'd like to admit. Let's see how long it lasts. Slight rebrand, new domain. Moving away from my surname toward a simpler one-man design studio identity. This marks a new chapter of work. Heads down right now. I'll be sharing some updates on previous work soon, but new work will take time. Focused on making it count.

@oykun @claudeai I did the exact same thing 2 months ago, never looked back!

im slowly moving from chatgpt to claudeai nowadays by creating my "projects" in @claudeai i will be sharing here how it goes. and yes, i heavily use them in every aspect in my life and businesses as you can tell : ) which one do you use?

@designbymeris Fire 🔥

Designed a platform for in-house cinematic AI content creation. Small preview of the flow ↓

@RobRan6116 @Jason_Faber Constant integration sounds painful. Cheers Rob!

@benlaudesign @Jason_Faber This really humanizes why I think people hire experts... "Comfort" I've had experience with contractors where it was not the case and it was constant integration. So kudos to you for surfacing that

Got quoted in @Jason_Faber's blog post on How to Brand Yourself as a Fractional Consultant. I just use my name! Clients say this is a deciding factor for them: "I'm working with Ben. What you see is what you get" They want direct access. That's what I offer.

@uiwithjay @cursor_ai @framer I've not had success with this either, but willing to give it another try. I've found Figma to Figma make accuracy fairly reliable (probably because we are copying the actual design frames!)

Tried using @cursor_ai with Figma MCP to vibe code a website and honestly it doesn't make sense to me. Is it just me ? or just keep on prompting and make changes for a pixel perfect design feels just a waste of time ? @framer is way simpler and option to build websites imo.

@alexkehr Completely agree! What a time to be a designer.

Recording states WIP

@naoenomoto True. The difference being the barrier to entry has never been lower.

I admire people are starting to design in code, but just to be clear, this notion has been present so long since gui was invented, I suppose.

@dariusdan Love this! Simple wins.

Minimal isometric illustration.⚪️

@RobRan6116 Building is a commodity at this point, but the fundamental of problem first has always been the same regardless of org size.

In enterprise product work, you are forced to clarify the problem before you ship. In 0–1, it is tempting to skip that step because building is so easy. That difference explains a lot of failed tools.

@jinyongftw Final one looks great! Although I do like how the time contrasts in the first

Always iterate to get the best possible results. Here's some slides of a past project explaining the rationale behind each iteration — what worked, what didn't.

@david_nix But are they right? 😆

🌶️ take If you start with "According to Claude" I assume you have no idea what your doing or talking about.

@llsbetdigital This looks super useful!

Testing approaches to copy my published Design System to Figma. I used Claude against coded, documented DS to create a Json file with structured tokens, variables and styles. I then added this file into Tokens studio plugin and had all the styles and variables in my Figma.

@JanuBuilds Never too old! 30 is the new 20 Janu, you just getting started.

One of our devs just turned 23. He said: "I feel like I'm too old. I should have learned more in my teenage years." Almost everyone thinks like that. Here is some perspective. I am turning 30 this year. • Started coding at 11 • First developer agency job at 16 • Then wasted around 8 years in hell ADHD. University. Toxic relationship. No direction. At 24 or 25 something clicked. Self improvement. Fell in love with software again. Got obsessed with it. Hackathons. Agency jobs. Fast startup jobs. Learned everyting about Product. Learned how businesses work. At 26 I took freelancing seriously. At 27 I had the idea for FeatherFlow. At almost 28 it started getting traction and I started hiring. At 29 I went full time (that was ONE year ago). Right now? I earn less than most of my friends with regular jobs. Almost no savings. I pay myself as little as possible to reinvest into the company. We have an INSANELY talented team, who can make a living doing what they are good at and love. And I am insanely proud. Sure, I could have been a multimillionaire already if I had not "wasted" those years. I believe I will be a millionaire within 3 to 4 years. A multimillionaire within 10. But even if not, I am insanely passionate about what I am doing and building. My life is WONDERFUL even without the big money. That is the point. People overestimate what they can do in 1 year. They underestimate what can happen in 5 to 10 years. Everything compounds. You are not too old. 23 is young. 30 is young. Even 40 or 50 is young. Stack skills. Read. Train your brain. Build!! Take ownership!!! Do that consistently for years. You will not recognize yourself.

Onboarding letter 📩 AI products need human moments.

@Tanjim38 Spot on! Clarity first, always.

The best designer on your team can’t save a bad product decision. You can hire a $180K senior designer. Give them the best tools. Full creative freedom. They’ll make it beautiful. But if you’re building features nobody asked for, redesigning screens that aren’t the problem, or prioritizing what the CEO “feels” over what the data shows — no amount of design talent fixes that. I’ve seen this over and over: Founder says “redesign the dashboard.” Designer says “ok” and starts pushing pixels. Nobody asks why users are leaving in the first place. 6 weeks later you have a gorgeous dashboard that solves the wrong problem. Design without strategy is decoration. Your designer’s job isn’t to question your product decisions. But someone should. Before we design anything, we ask: Why this screen? What’s the user trying to do? What happens if we don’t redesign this at all? Sometimes the answer is “don’t redesign the dashboard — fix the onboarding.” That conversation saves you $50K and 3 months. The companies that win don’t hire the best designers. They make the best decisions about what to design.

@ryantandesign Great work Ryan! Smooth transitions 😮‍💨 Did you vibecode this?

Started as “just a basic onboarding”. Ended up spending time on transitions and tiny details at 2 am. Worth it.

@eternal_arka I see the designer in you!

#NewProfilePic Just keeping all of you updated!

@SaidAitmbarek Building something new Said?

You can now build crazy thing with Opus 4.6: > 3-4 prompts, visuals. > Post on socials: X/Reddit. > Repeat. > MVP works, launch it officially. Just build in public. Nobody judges. This WILL lead to paid users.

@jonsommet Epic! Love the retro vibes. What was the build process like Jon?

I made this personal site with Claude to help me keep track of my collection when I'm out looking for stuff. I wanted a ps2 inspired splash screen and a smash bros credits game. It did NOT disappoint. This is the type of stuff that gets me excited about the future of technology.