Claude Code UI/UX Design Skills Compared: UI Pro Max, Interface Design, and More
A comprehensive comparison of Claude Code UI/UX design skills including UI UX Pro Max, Interface Design, the official frontend-design skill, and other alternatives for building professional interfaces.
If you’re using Claude Code to build user interfaces, you’ve probably noticed that AI-generated UIs can look… generic. The same gradients, the same Inter font, the same predictable layouts. The good news: there’s a growing ecosystem of design skills that transform Claude into a much more capable design partner.
After researching the major options, here’s what I found about the best Claude Code design skills and when to use each.
The Landscape: 5 Design Skills Worth Knowing
| Skill | Stars | Focus | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| UI UX Pro Max | 24.5k | Comprehensive design system generation | Full-stack design decisions |
| Interface Design | 1.1k | Consistency and memory | Long-term projects |
| frontend-design (Official) | - | Bold, distinctive aesthetics | Creative projects |
| Claude Designer Skill | - | Perfectionist refinement | Design polish |
| Magic UI | - | Component generation | Rapid prototyping |
UI UX Pro Max
This is the heavyweight in the space. With 24.5k GitHub stars, UI UX Pro Max is essentially a searchable database of design knowledge that Claude can tap into automatically.
What’s Inside
- 67 UI Styles (Glassmorphism, Brutalism, Neumorphism, AI-Native UI, etc.)
- 96 Color Palettes (industry-specific for SaaS, healthcare, fintech, beauty)
- 57 Font Pairings with Google Fonts integration
- 25 Chart Types for dashboards
- 99 UX Guidelines covering accessibility and best practices
- 100 Industry Rules spanning tech, finance, healthcare, e-commerce, and emerging tech
How It Works
When you describe a project, the skill’s reasoning engine runs parallel searches across five domains (product types, styles, colors, patterns, typography) and generates a complete design system. Ask for a “beauty spa landing page” and you get:
- Pattern recommendations
- Color mood with specific hex values
- Typography personality with font pairings
- Key visual effects to implement
- Anti-patterns to avoid
- Accessibility validation
Installation
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npm install -g uipro-cli
cd /path/to/project
uipro init --ai claude
Or via Claude Code plugins:
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/plugin marketplace add nextlevelbuilder/ui-ux-pro-max-skill
/plugin install ui-ux-pro-max@ui-ux-pro-max-skill
Supported Platforms
Web: React, Next.js, Astro, Vue, Nuxt.js, Svelte, HTML+Tailwind, shadcn/ui
Mobile: SwiftUI, Jetpack Compose, React Native, Flutter
Pros
- Massive asset library with industry-specific recommendations
- Automatic design system generation
- Persistence feature saves design decisions to
design-system/MASTER.md - Works across 9+ AI coding assistants (Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.)
- MIT licensed, free to use
Cons
- Heavy—lots of content that may not be relevant to your project
- Requires Python 3.x for the search script
- Can be opinionated in ways that don’t match your vision
Interface Design (formerly claude-design-engineer)
Interface Design takes a different approach: instead of a massive database, it focuses on consistency and memory. The core philosophy is “make choices once, apply them consistently.”
The Problem It Solves
Without a design system, AI-generated interfaces drift:
- Inconsistent spacing (14px, 17px, 22px randomly)
- Drifting button heights
- No cross-component coherence
With Interface Design:
- Gridded spacing (4px, 8px, 12px, 16px)
- Standardized patterns
- Systematic depth treatment throughout
How It Works
On first session, the skill:
- Assesses your project context
- Suggests a design direction
- Confirms your preferences
- Builds components consistently
- Offers to save patterns to
.interface-design/system.md
On subsequent sessions, it loads your saved patterns automatically.
Six Design Personalities
The skill supports distinct directions:
- Precision & Density - Data-heavy dashboards
- Warmth & Approachability - Consumer apps
- Sophistication & Trust - Financial/enterprise
- Boldness & Clarity - Marketing sites
- Utility & Function - Developer tools
- Data & Analysis - Analytics platforms
Commands
/interface-design:init- Initialize system/interface-design:status- View current settings/interface-design:audit- Check consistency/interface-design:extract- Extract patterns from existing code
Pros
- Excellent for long-running projects
- Decisions persist across sessions
- Lightweight compared to UI Pro Max
- Philosophy-driven rather than database-driven
Cons
- Less comprehensive asset library
- Requires upfront setup conversation
- Better for maintaining consistency than generating initial designs
Official frontend-design Skill
Anthropic’s official skill focuses on one thing: avoiding generic AI aesthetics.
The Philosophy
Before writing code, the skill prompts Claude to commit to a bold aesthetic direction:
- Purpose: What problem does the interface solve?
- Tone: Pick an extreme direction (brutally minimal, maximalist chaos, retro-futuristic, organic/natural, luxury/refined)
- Differentiation: What makes it unforgettable?
What to Avoid
The skill explicitly lists anti-patterns:
- Generic fonts (Inter, Roboto, Arial)
- Clichéd purple gradients on white
- Predictable layouts
- Cookie-cutter designs lacking context-specific character
Implementation Guidelines
Typography: Pair characterful display fonts with refined body fonts
Color: Dominant colors with sharp accents outperform timid, evenly-distributed palettes
Motion: Focus on orchestrated page loads with staggered reveals, scroll-triggering, and hover states that surprise
Spatial Composition: Unexpected layouts, asymmetry, overlap, diagonal flow
Pros
- Official Anthropic quality
- Strong creative direction
- Works well with React and Tailwind
- No external dependencies
Cons
- Philosophy-focused, less concrete than UI Pro Max
- No persistence layer
- May produce designs that are too bold for conservative projects
Claude Designer Skill
This skill transforms Claude into a “Steve Jobs meets Dieter Rams” design perfectionist. It activates when you mention beautification, redesign, or visual polish.
Three-Phase Workflow
- Deep diagnosis of current design state
- Three solution options (Progressive, Radical, Ideal)
- Meticulous implementation guidance
Solution Framework
- Option A (Progressive): Minimal changes, lowest risk
- Option B (Radical): Framework disruption, innovative approaches
- Option C (Ideal): Unlimited resources, ultimate experience pursuit
Built-in Design System
- Semantic and neutral color palettes
- Typographic scale (xs to 4xl)
- Modular spacing grid (4px base unit)
- Shadow hierarchy system
Pros
- Great for improving existing designs
- Provides contextual rationale tied to constraints
- Three-option framework helps with decision-making
Cons
- Focused on refinement, not greenfield design
- Activation triggers can be finicky
Magic UI Component Builder
Magic UI is a specialized skill for rapid component generation. Invoke /ui or /21 to generate components ranging from buttons to sortable data tables.
Pros
- Fast prototyping
- Pre-built component patterns
- Good for building component libraries
Cons
- Less comprehensive design guidance
- Focused on components, not systems
Decision Framework: Which Skill Should You Use?
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┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ CHOOSING A DESIGN SKILL │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ │
│ Starting a new project from scratch? │
│ └─ YES → UI UX Pro Max (comprehensive foundation) │
│ │
│ Working on a long-term project with many components? │
│ └─ YES → Interface Design (consistency + memory) │
│ │
│ Need to stand out with bold, creative design? │
│ └─ YES → Official frontend-design │
│ │
│ Improving an existing design? │
│ └─ YES → Claude Designer Skill │
│ │
│ Rapidly prototyping components? │
│ └─ YES → Magic UI │
│ │
│ Enterprise with industry-specific requirements? │
│ └─ YES → UI UX Pro Max (industry rules) │
│ │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Combining Skills
These skills aren’t mutually exclusive. A solid combination:
- UI UX Pro Max for initial design system generation
- Interface Design for maintaining consistency across sessions
- Official frontend-design for creative direction on key pages
The persistence features in UI UX Pro Max (design-system/MASTER.md) and Interface Design (.interface-design/system.md) complement each other—one provides the comprehensive ruleset, the other enforces it.
Key Takeaways
- UI UX Pro Max is the most comprehensive option with 24.5k stars and support for 13 tech stacks
- Interface Design excels at maintaining consistency across long projects through persistent memory
- Official frontend-design from Anthropic prioritizes bold, distinctive aesthetics over generic AI output
- Claude Designer Skill is best for refining existing designs with a three-option framework
- Most production setups benefit from combining multiple skills
The common thread across all these tools: they’re trying to solve the “AI slop” problem—interfaces that look competent but forgettable. Whether through massive databases of design patterns, persistent memory, or explicit creative philosophy, they all push Claude toward more intentional, distinctive design work.
Resources
- UI UX Pro Max GitHub
- Interface Design GitHub
- Official Anthropic Skills
- Claude Designer Skill
- Awesome Claude Skills
- SkillsMP Marketplace
Last updated: January 2026