On this site, a type scale decided at the start of the project lives today in var(--fs-38_). Nobody translated it again along the way. That is what happens when the decision and the stylesheet have the same author.

A classic web project, by contrast, passes through several steps: art director, UI, front-end, developer.

4 steps, 4 translations

Each handover is a translation, and a translation always loses something. The brief gets diluted, the mockup interprets the concept, the build interprets the mockup. The result resembles the original idea from a distance. Rarely up close.

Nobody is at fault. That is what the division of labour does, and the client pays for that friction in the back and forth and the compromises, without ever seeing it appear on a quote.

The same page redrawn at each handover On top, five page silhouettes at the same scale, aligned from left to right and linked by arrows. Each holds the same three blocks: a banner at the top, a large block on the left, a smaller block on the right. From one silhouette to the next, the banner shortens and drops, the large block shrinks, the small block grows. At the bottom, an enlarged silhouette overlays the two extreme states: the blocks of the first one as dashed outlines, those of the last one as accent fills, with three thin strokes joining the corners that correspond. THE ORIGINAL IDEA THE RESULT at each handover FROM A DISTANCE RARELY UP CLOSE the original idea the result
None of these steps is at fault, it is their number that opens the gap.

AI takes the execution, not the continuity

Since 2004 I have learned every link because the trade pushed me into it, from Flash to AI. Today I hold the chain from one end to the other: the angle, the art direction, the design system, the build, the deployment. An intent survives better when it does not change carrier.

The flow of a four-step project, then that of a chain held from one end to the other Two stacked rows. On top, four aligned boxes named art director, UI, front-end, developer, each linked to the next by an arrow. Below them, a horizontal band starts thick on the left and loses height at every interval between two boxes, marked by a dashed vertical stroke; by the time it reaches the right it is markedly thinner. At the bottom, a second band of the same length keeps the starting height of the first one from end to end, with no interruption at all. A CLASSIC WEB PROJECT FOUR STEPS art director UI front-end developer a little of the intent evaporates ONE PAIR OF HANDS NO SEAMS from one end to the other
The route does not get shorter, it is the handovers that disappear.

AI has made that possible at the scale of one person, and that is new. It executes fast, without tiring of repetitive work. On the other hand, it does not know why this type scale was chosen over another, so it cannot defend it three months later against a request it would find convenient.

This site compiles 242 pages at every build, in two languages, with a single width media query across the whole of it.