"Variant, a generative design tool that promises endless UI exploration, recently introduced a feature most creative people and designers have used for decades: the eyedropper. In Variant, the tool picks vibes: It lets you click on one AI-generated interface and inject its aesthetic DNA-typography, spatial relationships, and color palettes-into another. After so much hype around "vibecoding" and its text-based imprecision, seeing a familiar, direct manipulation tool applied to generative AI feels great."
"The new AI modality takes a nice step to close the gap between the impenetrable ways of large language model black boxes and the tools designers actually use with their eyes and hands. Adopting a universally understood tool to control AI in any way other than words is exactly the kind of innovation the sector needs now. It's just too bad that Variant itself is the vessel for it."
"That said, the implementation is cute. When you click on a previously generated UI, the eyedropper animates the design as it is sucking its soul. You then move the eyedropper, click on another generated UI, and the new style spills over it, rearranging it to match the source. It's a satisfying bit of UI theater, an illusion broken by the fact that you have to wait a little to see the results, as the AI works it all out."
Variant added an eyedropper that transfers typography, spatial relationships, and color palettes between AI-generated interfaces, enabling non-textual control through direct manipulation. The feature aligns AI interaction with familiar designer workflows and narrows the gap between opaque language models and visual tools. The underlying generative engine, however, produces flat, undifferentiated interfaces, so style transfers change little beyond color. The animated eyedropper interaction provides satisfying visual feedback but requires processing time. The tool cannot sample bitmap images or Figma projects, limiting applicability. The concept is promising but hampered by homogeneous outputs and constrained input support.
Read at Fast Company
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