©2025. Designs for AI (and beyond) that people actually use. Made by ➫ Crucial.Design

if you’ve played Dark Souls and actually beat it, i’d bet you’re doing great at running your design agency. and earning 6 figures $$$. because the kind of person who can beat Dark Souls is the kind who can survive business. when you start, the game kicks your a**! it is brutal, it is confusing, there is no clear path, no map, you get lost instantly. most people quit there. same with design business. most give up when growth gets hard, repetitive... because they’re weak. if you can’t yet: build the resilience to take hits repeat until you master it stay calm under chaos grow confidence through pain then play Dark Souls. if you can finish it, you can build your design business. i didn’t waste a minute playing it. unlike most video games. every single minute was an investment in myself. now; go and start your journey with Dark Souls 1 (or Bloodborne) see the end credits once then tell me you didn’t come out stronger tell me you can’t bring that same strength to your design business!

and yes we used to take photos of our designs back then 😁 we should bring that back 👀 dribbble.com/shots/1193991-M…

i’ve been designing for 25+ years. earned millions $$$ from hundreds of projects at every scale you can imagine. and yet… this random design from 2013 @dribbble post is the one brought me more clients than anything else I’ve ever done publicly😂 you never know🤷‍♂️ keep sharing!

you dont need a lot of clients, you just need "better" clients.

still relevant. still working. still getting designers hired. 👇🔥

designers, do not forget; we are not answering our clients' wants! but their "needs".

who-needs-colours-anyways

it looks like you all found this useful 😅 interesting! i’ve got plenty more tiny tips that make your design just a bit smarter. follow along at @oykun to catch the next one

WIP brand and web design for an AI product solving the coordination challenges of the agentic era

designers, a little tip for you Login = noun (title) Log in = verb (button) you are welcome!

it is better to give small design updates frequently than waiting for days in silence to give one big update to your clients. (in most cases) - keep the momentum be visible don’t let your client wonder what is going on

good morning to designers who take design seriously, but still make it play.

double the price. half the clients. half the time on the laptop. double the time with family. same profit. "better" life. 🫶

brand explorations for an AI product that brings a collaboration "layer" for engineering teams.

you would not believe how much money there is in the design business!!! 💰💰💰 im not talking about your boy around here posting $10K for landing page kind of money. i mean "money" money!!!! charging multi six figures for a few days of a design sprint, or a consultation for a specific small user journey, or a (sub) brand for a fortune 100 company or ... $$$ you see in design x, next to the real world becomes laughable. don't get me wrong, i don't mean to talk down to the £10Ks, £30Ks here, it is a big money for the most. i just want you to understand what is happening outside the x bubble.

kanban tasks baked into your ai workflow with project "mod".

👉 crucial.design for truly clean designs that people naturally know how to use

i've been building and training OykunAI -yeah a cringe name- with @OpenAI API and @cursor_ai for the past few days! feeding it everything i have ever written; all my tweets, articles, interviews, notes, my design service details and more... it needs more tweaking to make it feel/respond more like me, but it's getting there : ) i'm going to share all the technical details in the coming days. so that you can build it for yourself or your design agency as well ; ) and no, you won't need to know how to code.

ai agent searching for restaurants... 🔎🍣

any designers here paying for @cursor_ai Pro? drop a 👋 below, please. i want to connect with designers who go beyond @figma i want to hear about what you are building you've got my respect and admiration 🫡