What’s inside

One SKILL.md (the playbook) + one starter template. A preview:

Skills for Designers

When to use

• You're a product, brand, or UX designer whose portfolio is a folder of screenshots with no story behind them
• Critique sessions drift into taste arguments ("I like the blue one") instead of decisions about what the work must do
• Handoffs to developers keep bouncing back with "what happens when this errors / loads / is empty?"
• You need a reusable kit — not one-off prompts — that covers case studies, rationale, critique, and specs to the same standard
• You're assembling a team or studio practice and want every designer producing the same caliber of artifacts

Workflow

1. Audit the real work (input: your recent projects and artifacts → output: work inventory)
   List the last 6–12 pieces of work you actually shipped or are shipping: screens, flows, brand systems, prototypes, research syntheses. For each, note its current state — screenshot only, half-written rationale, spec in a Figma comment thread, nothing at all. The audit decides what the kit must cover; a kit built for imaginary work gets used once and abandoned. Gaps cluster in predictable places: rationale is missing, edge cases are undocumented, and the portfolio tells what was made but never why.
2. Scope the kit around the portfolio–critique–handoff loop (input: work inventory → output: kit scope)
   A designer's kit has one spine: work gets critiqued, the critique sharpens the rationale, the rationale becomes the case study, and the case study's decisions become the handoff spec. Scope exactly seven skills around that loop: case study builder, design rationale writer, critique facilitator, dev-ready spec writer, portfolio curator, feedback synthesizer, and presentation builder. Anything outside the loop — trend reports, moodboard generators — is a distraction; cut it. Each skill gets one job and one artifact, so the kit stays usable under deadline pressure.
3. Set the quality bar (input: kit scope → output: quality standard)
   Every skill in the kit must meet the same bar before it ships: every claim about a design decision names the constraint or evidence behind it (user insight, technical limit, brand rule, business goal); every artifact names its audience and its decision (who reads this, what do they decide from it); every spec covers the unhappy paths — loading, empty, error, long content, small screen, keyboard-only. Write the bar down as a checklist and run each skill's first output through it. A kit where the case study is rigorous and the spec is sloppy is a kit nobody trusts.

Template preview

Skills for Designers — Kit Template

One kit = seven skills around the portfolio–critique–handoff loop. Fill this in from a real audit, then build in loop order.

1. Work inventory (audit of your last 6–12 projects)

Gap pattern: {e.g. rationale missing, edge cases undocumented, portfolio tells what not why}

2. Kit scope (seven skills, one job + one artifact each)

Cut list (outside the loop): {e.g. trend reports, moodboard generators}

3. Quality standard (checklist — every skill's output must pass)

[ ] Every decision names its constraint or evidence: {user insight / technical limit / brand rule / business goal}

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