Charles is a product designer based in Brooklyn. By day, he works at a blockchain company, and by night and on weekends, he dives into side projects. Lately, he’s been vibecoding and exploring every new AI tool he can get his hands on.
I’m pretty fast at visualizing ideas. When someone talks about a brand or product, I usually see how it might look right away — the colors, the vibe, even what the name or logo could be. It just comes naturally, and I often jump in early on projects to help shape that visual direction. That way, everyone gets a clearer picture of what we’re trying to build.
But it’s not just about the visuals. I’m also good at thinking through systems and how ideas connect and extend naturally. When I have one core concept, I start imagining what comes next — how it could evolve, what logical steps or branches might grow out of it. It’s about seeing the bigger picture and the potential paths before anything is built, so the work feels more connected and intentional from the very beginning.
One of the most fun projects I’ve worked on is RGB, which I built with my brother @metamonk. It was special because we had a shared vision and got to create something new together — a mix of design, code, and logic. The idea behind RGB is simple but powerful: it’s a framework based on the RGB color model, where red, green, and blue each range from 0 to 255. That gives you 16,777,216 possible combinations. What made it interesting is that we asked: what if instead of just color, those combinations could also represent something like emojis — so rgb(255,153,0) could be 🙂?
We call the outputs Signatures, and they are unique visual representations that contain the RGB values in their onchain metadata. It’s a project with structure and constraint, but also a lot of room for play and interpretation. It’s one of those projects where the deeper you go, the more ideas start flowing.
RGB could be a system for generative PFPs, for identity tracking, or for community infrastructure — the applications are wide open. We’re still figuring out what else we can do with the concept, but it’s the kind of project we’ll be building on for years. You can mint a Signature at rgb.fun.
These are the tools I rely on to stay productive, move fast, and keep projects organized:
Arc – My browser of choice. I use three separate workspaces — personal, side projects, and day job — and jump between them constantly. It keeps context-switching painless.
Framer – Hands down the best website builder I’ve used. I can copy and paste components between projects, and the new AI features like Workshop and Wireframing are already part of my daily flow.
ChatGPT – My go-to general-purpose AI. I use it to write prompts, generate ideas, and create content that gets fed into other tools.
Claude Code – I’ve only been using it for a few days but already upgraded because of the limits. It’s taken over almost all of my vibecoding tasks.
Notion – My second brain. It’s where all my docs, notes, and ideas live. I’ve streamlined it to the point where I don’t have to think about where things go — they just have a place.
Figma – Still the best design tool out there. I think they’re well-positioned to dominate the implementation layer of AI-assisted design.
Cleanshot X – A hidden gem. It’s a screenshot and screen recording tool for Mac that actually keeps things organized. $30 one-time and worth every cent.
Screen Studio – Easily the best tool I’ve found for product demos. It’s simple to use and outputs clean, high-quality walkthroughs without a ton of editing.
Where do you go when you need fresh inspiration? (Online, offline, in nature, in a playlist, or somewhere unexpected.)
Cosmos.so is hands down the best source of brand and vision inspiration I’ve found. It’s where I go to see how people are pushing creative direction. For product thinking, I lean on Mobbin.com. It’s my go-to library for well-executed flows of popular apps.
I spend a lot of time online, but when I’m not, I’m usually cooking, running, playing tennis, or playing Fortnite. Cooking especially is a nice reset for me — it’s creative, hands-on, and has nothing to do with screens. Running and tennis help me clear my head, and I usually come back to work with better ideas.
Lately, the only thing on my mind has been using AI to build software. Every day, new tools drop — some big, some small — and it’s honestly hard to keep up. But the shift is clear: what used to take a team now feels doable solo. I’ve always been a no-code maxi, and I think we’re entering a moment where designers have a much bigger role to play — not just in how things look, but in how they’re made, how they work, and how fast they ship.
The north star for me is a solo-built, billion-dollar company. That feels possible now. And if that’s even halfway true, it means we need to rethink what it actually means to be a designer.
The design role is going to look very different in the next 5–10 years. Prompting may take over a lot of the manual work — just like Sketch and Figma gradually replaced Illustrator and Photoshop. There will be designers who focus on writing prompts and workflows, and others who stay close to the pixels. AI will take care of the repetitive stuff — resizing, restyling, layering, grouping — and give us more time to work on the higher-level decisions.
Some designers will still push pixels. Others will lean fully into prompting. The best will be able to move between both — knowing when to direct and when to refine. The ones who stay curious, experiment often, and adapt their workflow will be the ones who get the most out of this next wave. It’s not about being replaced — it’s about being ready for a different kind of creative work.
Some people will still prefer control, others will prefer speed. But I think the most interesting work will come from those who stay open, keep learning, and are willing to shift how they work. AI is just a tool — but it’s changing the shape of the work itself.
I’ve always had a knack for recognizing faces — for some reason, people’s faces just stick with me. It comes in handy when spotting celebrities around town or reconnecting with people I’ve met before.
Some of the celebs I’ve spotted around NYC and where:
Hugh Jackman (LES)
J.K. Simmons (East Village)
Rami Malek (Soho)
Edward Norton (Soho)
Jeremy Strong (Soho)
Sam Worthington (Chinatown)
Dylan McDermott (Williamsburg)
Alan Ritchson (Williamsburg)
David Schwimmer (East Village, Soho)
BJ Novak (Soho)
Focus on repetition over resume. It’s way more important to practice design consistently and build real skills every day than to stress about landing a job at a big-name company or FAANG. The work you put in, the habits you build, and the problems you solve regularly will pay off far more than a flashy title early on.
Start building your personal brand early by sharing your work online and creating evergreen content that grows your audience over time. It’s about showing up consistently and putting your unique perspective out there. Having that presence also gives you distribution, which means more freedom to build what you want.
I want to get better at maintaining focus and consistently shipping one thing at a time. It’s easy to get pulled in different directions, especially with so many new ideas and tools constantly emerging. At the same time, I know that exploring new interests and experimenting is important for growth and staying curious. So, my goal is to find a balance — building the discipline and habits to see projects through from start to finish, while still dedicating time to learning and trying new things.
Hello! I'm Charles, a product designer building onchain experiences based in Brooklyn.
16,777,216 onchain rgb values
designing and building stuff · https://ch.sh/
building rgb.fun
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Esdotge is the Branding Lead and Co-founder of at Floc*, one of the pioneering strategic design studios in Web3. Since 2017, he has been researching and experimenting with the vision of building a new model for brand building in the Web3 space. This ever-evolving methodology is at the core of the /brand3 concept, which he actively promotes.
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