🤿 the random button

how James McDonald builds stunning websites with Claude

Author

Ridd
October 28, 2026

James McDonald is one of my favorite visual designers on the planet… but recently he took on his first ever contract where he’s responsible for both designing AND building his ideas from scratch.

So I used it as an excuse to get him back on the show to learn his tactics for creating stunning web designs with Claude.

It’s a ton of screen-sharing and a heck of a behind-the-scenes into his process.

Some highlights:

  • When James reaches for Figma vs. Claude

  • How James builds custom mini design tools

  • How James finds visual motifs to build around

  • James's strategies for animating designs with AI

  • How James explored the visual language for Onlook

  • + a lot more

Watch on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts 👇

👥 FEATURED RESOURCE

Some success stories

Over the last ~month Dive Club listeners have been hired at companies like Magic Patterns, Function Health, Bending Spoons, and a few of my favorite stealth startups.

If you’re silently open to big time opportunities the Dive Talent Network is thriving right now and I’d love to help.

🔗 FEATURED RESOURCES
The new playbook to get hired

The old ways of getting a design job stopped working, so I wrote up the new playbook to get hired as a designer.

Remember Jason Marsh's prototype from back in February? This is the full story of how that spearfishing approach landed him multiple offers without a single application or cover letter 🎉

If you're job hunting right now, it's worth a bookmark 👀

Google Fonts explorer

A year ago I shared Mike Smith's Figma file of usable Google Fonts, and chavis just turned it into an interactive web app. It's phenomenal.

If you're looking for a typography tool to save, this is it 👀

The state of design work

Design is changing quickly, so we're running a survey on the state of design work to better understand the shift.

If you haven't taken it yet, it's ~2-3 min and we'll make the results public for everyone 👇

🧃 INSPIRATION JUICE

3 things I saved this week

1️⃣ Parallel contact form

This has got to be one of my favorite contact form concepts I've ever seen.

2️⃣ Work tunnel portfolio

Josh Puckett just created a work tunnel on his personal site and it is epic. Definitely worth a scroll 👀

3️⃣ Mosaic Studio

Agu created Mosaic Studio to help establish the visual language for Soleio's S3 of First of Kind and it's gorgeous 👀

📻 DIVE RADIO

There’s so much to talk about on Thursday’s Dive Radio 😄

Here’s a teaser:

  • We’re going to talk about the smell of AI design and how to avoid it

  • We’re going to hear stories of how designers are using personal agents

  • And I’ll probably share a bit about how I’m fundamentally rethinking the role that the canvas plays in my design process

It should be a fun one :) see you at 4pmEST on Thursday for dive.radio 📻

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See you next week ✌️ 
- Ridd

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