parallel-design-variants

Parallel Design Variants

Overview

Generate N genuinely different design directions at once, each built by its own subagent locked to a distinct visual reference, collect them in one gallery, pick winners, then run a second round that mixes the winning styles.

Core principle: divergence comes from reference anchors, not from asking "be creative." Ten subagents told "make a nice hero" produce ten similar heroes. Ten subagents anchored to terminal / broadsheet / brutalist / swiss / zine produce ten different worlds. Same content, different reference → real choice.

When to Use

• You'd otherwise build one design and iterate — but you don't yet know the direction.
• Redesign, landing, hero, thumbnail layout, email, slide system, any visual surface.
• Live/stream or team bake-off where people vote on options.

Not for: a single known direction (just build it), or pixel-level refinement of one chosen design (that's normal iteration).

The Loop

ask how many variants (N)
  → spec issue (constant content + N reference anchors + briefs)
  → N subagents in parallel (blind to each other)
  → gallery index.html (side by side)
  → pick winners (optionally by vote)
  → second round: mix winning styles

Workflow

1. Ask how many variants (N) — first, before anything else. Don't silently pick a number; ask the user. Suggest 6–10 as the sweet spot (enough for real divergence, few enough to review side by side) and offer the default, but the count is theirs. Their answer is N for the rest of the flow.
2. Write ONE spec issue — it is the orchestration doc, not a throwaway prompt. It contains:
   • Constant content: the real data and the required sections every variant must render (identical across all). You compare style, never completeness.
   • Result layout: redesign/index.html (gallery) + redesign/{slug}/index.html per direction. Self-contained HTML — inline CSS, vanilla JS, Google Fonts ok, no build step, no framework (so the gallery just opens).
   • A table of N directions: slug · name · reference / media-analog.
   • A shared prompt scaffold (identity, required sections, real data, output files) — every subagent gets the same scaffold + its own brief.
   • Per-direction briefs: 2–4 sentences each, naming the reference and its concrete cues (fonts, palette, layout move).
3. Pick N divergent anchors (the N the user chose). Each anchor a recognizable, different reference — adjacent styles waste a variant. Starter palette: