What we believe
Good design isn't talent.
It's vocabulary.
When you know what something is called, you can see it everywhere. You can name what's wrong and fix it. You can build with intention instead of instinct.
Three beliefs that built this
Design literacy should be free.
Good design knowledge has always been locked behind expensive courses, gatekept by agencies, or buried in textbooks nobody reads. That's not okay. Every developer who wants to design better, every self-taught creator, every student who can't afford a Dribbble subscription — they all deserve the same vocabulary. Radii is free because it should be.
Showing beats explaining.
You can read about "elevation" for an hour or you can move a slider and see the shadow change in real time. Every term in this playbook has a live, interactive demo — not a screenshot, not a diagram. A real working example running in your browser right now. When you see it, you own it.
AI and design belong together.
The best AI-generated design work comes from people who understand what they're asking for. Learning design vocabulary doesn't just make you a better designer — it makes every prompt you write sharper, every revision faster, every output closer to what you actually envisioned. Design knowledge is now a multiplier on everything AI can do for you.
Who this is for
You're in the right place.
For developers learning to design. You can build anything — you just can't always explain why something looks off. You know it when you see it, but you don't have the words. This is your vocabulary guide.
For self-taught designers. You learned by doing, by watching, by copying things that looked good. Now you're filling in the gaps — the names for things you already intuitively understand. You're not behind. You're just adding language to instinct.
For beginners, full stop. You've never done this before. You Googled "how to make something look better" and got overwhelmed. Start anywhere. Click a term. See the live demo. You'll understand more than you expected.
For anyone who's ever said "I can't design." That's usually just "I don't have the vocabulary yet." You're not alone — and you don't have to figure this out by yourself.
How to use Radii
No right way to start.
Search for something you don't know
Type “how do I make text easier to read” or just “shadow”. You don't need the technical term — describe what you're looking for and we'll find it.
Browse by what interests you
Pick a category — spacing, typography, color, layout, effects, or interaction. Each one has the terms that matter most in that area, from beginner to advanced.
Touch the demos, actually
Every term page has a live demo. Move the sliders. Change the values. See what happens. Reading about padding is useful. Dragging a padding slider until something “clicks” is unforgettable.
Copy the AI prompt at the bottom
Each term page ends with a ready-to-use AI instruction. Paste it into Claude, Cursor, or Bolt and watch your new vocabulary turn into working code.