Where AI Helps in Branding, Web Design and Development

Blaze here for Week 12,

I have AI fatigue, I know how it looks, but people keep asking what use cases are, and I keep discovering some very useful workflows.

It's pretty obvious it's not going anywhere, but it's also pretty obvious that people are overhyping and overusing these tools. Let me lay out Shovel's entire brand, web design, and development process and then show you where AI is useful.

I'm going to show behind-the-scenes design with Hours and Diamond Cross Ranch.

Very loose concept for wim, my new side hustle ^ more to come in the next year

Shovel’s 3-step branding sprints

These start with exploration between 2 to 6 initial concepts. The goal is to convey multiple looks and feels that make sense for a brand through simple word marks, icons, and layout applications.

I think this is where AI is least useful and where taste is most important. This is where brand context and Shovel’s imagination combine.

The best use case for AI here is image generation in placeholder mockups. It's generally better to buy a mockup and have the Photoshop file where you can more precisely apply digital design to physical layouts. I think being able to take client products, settings, and models can really give important context to what we pick for a concept.

AI is especially useful if this is a new brand with no photography at all. Either way, you can establish a direction for a real photographer to follow.

Recently I've thought Midjourney is the strongest image generation tool I’ve used.

Absolutely do not use AI to set your layouts, create your wordmarks, or pick your colors. This is where I think a human will have stronger leverage in quality. Real human experience and curation matter more to me here.

Initial concepts for Hours last year ^

The next step is to narrow and refine these concepts. The majority of this work is reliant on human relationships. This is where communication skills are absolutely needed. I find that the best designers here are asking very tactical questions to figure out what is liked and what's not liked.

I use Notion AI notes quite religiously to make sure we can have our next actions on paper.

This is why I say design is only 20% of the work we do.

Refined concepts for Diamond Cross Ranch this Summer ^. We started at six design ideas that narrowed down to two.

For this final step, this is where you take the final concept and formalize it into a brand book.

The best use case for AI here is possibly creating a deck outline template, but really you can do that by hand, no problem.

Final brand book sample for Diamond Cross Ranch this Summer ^

Shovel’s 3-step web design sprints

The first step of web design is to create site maps and wireframes, and I think this is where AI has the strongest use case in any design practice because data purely informs this.

For example, we do a lot of Shopify e-commerce redesigns, and there's a lot of data in terms of how products are sold that is extremely informative to how we create the UX. Shopify’s dashboard AI tool has improved drastically this year.

This is an iterative phase, so there is feedback and human communication yet again. You really need to learn about what's coming up in the pipeline for promotion and campaigns that will inform the layout by launch day. That's data you can extract from a call recording and then feed back into AI for more context.

Claude or GPT are excellent at making visual flows of sitemaps and content maps.

Sitemaps and content maps for Diamond Cross Ranch this Summer ^

Now after this is my favorite work in the entire world. High fidelity mockups. I think it's probably useful for traditional agencies to AI-template this process if they're very performance-driven.

Shovel very much sits between brand and conversion. This is very similar in the brand phase where you're creating foundations. Human taste is a major factor here. There is currently no model trained on sites that I think are good to my design standard.

To think of AI use cases here, it's pretty simple within imagery and copywriting. You can just use Claude or GPT.

I would not recommend AI to make initial choices in layouts, spacing, rounding, typography, etc. That can come after when we start the design system phase, which I'll talk more about in a second.

Like always, this is another major feedback phase. The best designers know what to simply ask. Clients hire a real human to talk to, not a LLM.

Final export sample for Hours ^

With this final step, this is actually a recent learning I've had. I think Figma’s AI is excellent here.

Shovel did have a template design system that would be adjusted by hand. But now you can literally just select all high-fidelity screens in Figma and then tell the LLM to make all of the correct variables based off of that.

That is very tedious work that can take so much time. Now it's work you can turn around in a few hours.

Design system sample for Hours ^

Shovel’s 3-step web development sprints

AI has completely disrupted agencies that offer this service in the last few years. Agencies that were mostly niched in the service are starting to climb up the ladder and to design and strategy services.

Figma's MCP is so powerful in core development, you can literally just copy and paste a design system. I still believe a developer's problem-solving mind is very valuable here and gives you a better output.

Shovel looks for developers who have a strong attention to detail in these design systems, and it's even better if you have a grasp on motion and interaction.

Final website views for Diamond Cross Ranch this Summer ^

LLMs by no means one-shot a website in one prompt. There's definitely a back and forth decision process that you still spend weeks perfecting. Meanwhile, in the QA phase, go back and forth via email or Slack, correcting every little error or missing detail.

I've had to work with developers that respond to emails in AI, which completely disrupts us. I cannot stress how important it is to be a human to other humans.

This is the very last step. Documentation of the website. I love using AI here, but I do think it requires a human regardless.

I like to record Loom videos that break down step-by-step how to essentially edit content on the website. Loom lets you export those transcripts, and I put those into Notion AI, which creates a digestible checklist.

Okay cool.

That's pretty much it. Those are AI use cases in Shovel’s three core services.

Microtools I’ve built that improve my studio workflow

Above is a pricing calculator tool. It quickly lets me send proposals and draft contracts for new leads to review.

Before I built this, I put my offer into a pretty bulletproof MD file and that's essential context you need to have to build something like this.

I use this every single day. You'll notice these tools are branded to shovel because Claude and GPT have strong context to my design system CSS (that I created by hand, if that even matters).

Above is a GEO tool that I use for search rankings across GBT, Perplexity, and Gemini.

Above is a tool that helps me with the new content format where I choose between two websites and have a final winner. I'm not going to be surprised if people run this format after I show this.

Brands I love recently

So after I hit 100,000 followers on Instagram, all of a sudden my dream brands were just sending me stuff. It's not a brag, but more of an appreciation I want to show to them here because I’ve posted some of these brands multiple times. I simply believe they're doing something cool. All of these are major inspirations for the new brand I'm making myself.

Starting with Koppen, I think they're positioned so uniquely in their category that it's undeniable they will succeed. Now being able to try the product, this is something that I believe fits into my daily life.

Also, I think they have the best web design to launch this year, and that’s not a biased take. I've made that statement before they sent me this.

OEM has built a world I'm so engaged in. I find myself constantly referencing it in work. They're one of the few brands that religiously use Are.na and I'm such a nerd about that. The product and collaborations are just so unexpected, which targets me completely.

Post Archive Faction x OEM is the collaboration of the year.

Of course, they have one of the best websites of all time. I've posted about this too much now.

Var is a new friend I met in Cannes year. I genuinely believe she has one of the most interesting lives coming from a tiny island called Svalbard. I actually found it very relatable growing up in the middle of nowhere but being up-to-date with culture because of the invention of the internet.

Her family runs a skincare brand called SVALR. There's such a unique/wholesome perspective that I don't think many people can have for something like this.

I also really appreciate that she sent double of each item for my girlfriend to enjoy as well.

Take note brands, if you’re seeding out product, that has a major impact if you're actually seeding it to their families as well. You will be seeing some sauna content from me soon.

This last one is coming from someone I believe to be one of the best graphic designers and artists coming up right now. His content is crushing, and that's how I found him. I actually commissioned a custom-printed rock from him after we launched Hours lol.

After that I just kept seeing his graphic design through the medium of posters and knew I needed to furnish that. Massive shout out to Kleinian for hooking me up.

Okay, that's all I have planned for this newsletter.

Feel free to reply to this email with any recommendations you may find valuable here.

Talk next week! - Blaze