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Show A Screenshot, Skip Adjectives

Words like 'modern and minimalist' mean nothing — every ugly site's brief said that. Saw a style you like? Screenshot it into the prompt with 'in this spirit'. A picture transfers taste that three paragraphs of adjectives never will.

IntermediatePROMPTINGClaude Code

Why it works

Every disappointing design was specced as 'modern and minimalist' — style adjectives compress badly and decompress into the average of everything. A screenshot transfers what three paragraphs cannot: proportions, density, restraint, mood. The agent reads images; your taste is better shown than described.

How to do it

  1. Find a page, section, or poster whose look you actually want.
  2. Screenshot it (crop to the relevant region — the signal, not the whole tab).
  3. Paste the image straight into the prompt field.
  4. Anchor it: 'in this spirit' plus your hard constraints — colors, content, one-file, phone-first.
  5. Iterate with MORE images, not more adjectives: 'closer to this spacing', 'this button style'.
  6. Build a tiny references folder per project; @-mention the images as the design vocabulary.

Copy this

prompt
Restyle the page in the spirit of the attached screenshot — its spacing, type scale, and restraint. Keep my content and colors. Don't copy it; learn from it.

What to watch for

  • 'Make it exactly like this' of someone's branded design is a different request than borrowing its principles — imitate structure and rhythm, not identity.
  • One reference beats five conflicting ones; a moodboard of contradictions returns the average again.

Sources

Original: conon.aiDocumentation: code.claude.com

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