Positioning before pixels: why we don't open Figma first

A brief that says 'make it feel premium' isn't a brief — it's a mood. Design needs something sharper to push against, and that sharpness has to come from positioning, not aesthetics.

We run a short positioning sprint before any design work starts: competitive alternatives, what's actually unique about the product, who the buyer is, and what category they'd put you in if no one told them your name.

Everything downstream — layout, tone, even color — gets easier to decide once the team agrees on what the company is actually claiming to be.