About Design Notes

The system I built to track my AI learning became the learning itself.

I started using Obsidian to document which projects I shipped, which tools I kept, and which workflows created friction. That telemetry, observing patterns across my own work, taught me what design systems practitioners already know: you don't understand a pattern until you've seen it multiple times.

This is Design Notes. Where I document the systems I'm building, the patterns I'm discovering, and what happens when you apply design thinking to everything.

I'm Steven. I've spent 12 years in product design and design systems. The last 3 years building with AI. What started as curiosity became capability.

Now I'm documenting the playbook.

What you'll learn here

Building with AI — How to build Figma plugins, deploy cloud infrastructure, and create automation workflows without being a developer. Three years of documented evolution from skeptical experimenter to builder. The "learn just enough" framework applied to real projects.

Systems Thinking Everywhere — Design systems principles applied beyond design. Content pipelines, knowledge systems, workflow automation. Everything is a system if you look closely enough.

The Builder Mindset — Honest documentation of knowledge gaps, permission problems, and what it looks like to ship things you've never built. The messy middle nobody talks about.

Tools & Workflows — The specific how-tos. My Obsidian setup. Claude Code workflows. The tools I pay for and why. Automation that actually works.

What makes this different

Most AI content is either "look what's possible" (inspiring but useless) or "here's the code" (useful but intimidating). This is the middle ground.

I'm a design systems person who became a builder. I understand component architecture, token systems, and design at scale. I've also built research automation agents, deployed Ghost blogs on EC2, shipped iOS apps, and created multi-agent investment systems.

The cross-domain thinking—design systems, AI, and technical implementation—creates a unique lens.

Every piece here is backed by shipped work. Real infrastructure. Production code. Systems running themselves.

Not because I had it figured out. Because I gave myself permission to start before I was ready.

If you've spent time thinking "I should know this already" or "I'm too far behind"—this is for you.

Subscribe to join designers, builders, and systems thinkers who are learning that knowledge gaps are bridges, not walls.