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Bellbottoms | Design Lab

@blbtms

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Nobody is going to announce the day websites died. It’s just going to slowly stop being where you go. I’ve been doing web design for years and this is the first time the ground has actually moved under it. Once Apple’s new Siri can see your screen and open your apps for you, the whole point of a homepage gets weird. Why pour months into UX and UI for a page nobody is going to look at, when the AI just does the thing for them through something called MCP that plugs straight into the app for you. So I’m pivoting Bellbottom’s from a web design studio into building MCP apps instead. No clue if I’m early or just wrong, but sitting still felt worse. Going to figure out this whole AI shift in public and bring you along for it. Honest question for the designers and founders watching: If people stop opening your app and just ask their AI to handle it, what is even left of your brand? by @blbtms
19
4 months ago
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After watching Toy Story 4 I really felt like it was unnecessary. We were fine ending it as a trilogy. The fourth movie did not need to exist and honestly left a weird taste. So when Toy Story 5 got announced my first reaction was not excitement, it was eye rolls. Felt like Pixar going back to the well one more time, a pure money grab, nothing more. Then I watched the trailer. The villain in this movie is a tablet. A frog shaped screen called Lilypad that shows up in Bonnie’s room and slowly makes Woody, Buzz and the whole gang irrelevant. Not through some evil plot. Just by being more engaging, more available, more stimulating than anything a plastic toy could ever be. And watching that trailer I realized no other franchise could tell this story. Not a new IP, not a live action film, not an animated series. It had to be Toy Story. Because we grew up with these toys. We know what they represent. So when you watch them collect dust on a shelf while a kid stares at a glowing screen, it actually hurts. Pixar basically made a movie about what screens are doing to kids and dressed it up in the most familiar packaging they could find. Dark patterns, engagement loops, designing for compliance instead of genuine value, it is all in there. A wooden cowboy and a plastic spaceman never felt so relevant. Nobody expected Toy Story 5 to be the most important animated film in years. And yet here we are. by @blbtms
17
4 months ago
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Once upon a time when I used to work in customer support, my screen name was Peter. It came from Peter Parker. And the first movie my dad ever took me to see in a cinema was Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man. So when I say I’ve been thinking about Spider-Man suits for a long time, I mean it. Tobey’s suit was biological, no tech, just him. Andrew built his from scratch with no budget and no help. Miles got one made specifically around his abilities. All three worked because they fit the person wearing them. Then Tony Stark handed Tom a suit with 576 web combinations, an AI, and full comms. Most advanced suit ever built. And it was the only one that didn’t really work because Peter didn’t build it and it wasn’t made for him. In Brand New Day they rolled it all back to something simpler, something that actually belonged to Peter. That decision makes complete sense when you look at every suit that came before it. The best product isn’t the most advanced one. Every time we work on a web design or UX project at Bellbottom’s that’s the first thing we ask, is this actually built for the person using it, or just built to impress. by @blbtms
15
4 months ago
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This is Shehzor Khan, founder and the only person here. Designing stuff that makes sense, fuelled by Rooh Afza, and very much married to his Jeep. Comic Sans not welcome. DMs are. 📩 by @blbtms
17
5 months ago
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The name came from a song. The song came from a movie. The song came on before every Counter Strike match I ever played - Sting in hand, or Rooh Afza if I was feeling civilized. b3llb0tt0mz was my gamer tag. It stuck. It felt like me. When it was time to build something real, I didn’t want a name that sounded like a design studio. I wanted a name that meant something. So it came with me. That’s the whole story. That’s why it’s called bellbottoms. — 🎵 Bellbottoms — Jon Spencer Blues Explosion 🎬 Baby Driver, 2017 by @blbtms
9
5 months ago
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my first website was built in windows notepad. no preview. just raw html and refreshing Internet Explorer over and over again. every tool i picked up since then felt like a betrayal at first. then obvious. then i couldn’t imagine going back. notepad, sublime text, webflow. each one changed how i think about building. webflow especially. then i started writing brand guidelines in obsidian. design rules, decisions, the whole system documented. just a habit at first. until i linked a figma and obsidian to claude code. the brand rules are in the notes. the design is in figma. claude code reads both, builds from both, and in a short while you have something ready to deploy. webflow never gave perfect code. neither does claude code. but one of them is getting faster every week. and i still miss using webflow. that’s the weird part. it’s like wanting to listen to records instead of spotify. you’re not wrong for the feeling. you just have to be honest about why. the tools change. the standard doesn’t. if you read till the end comment “Sorry Dave” by @blbtms
24
5 months ago
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Coca-Cola started as a medicine with cocaine in it. Lost its main ingredient and still became the most recognized brand on earth. There is so much we can learn from legacy brands like this about design, emotional connection, and why people stay loyal to something long after the original reason is gone. This is what good UX, brand strategy, and user experience design actually looks like when it scales across a century. Coca-Cola’s brand identity, bottle design, and marketing campaigns are a masterclass in emotional positioning that web designers and product designers still reference today. How many other legacy brands do you think have stories like this that we could all learn from? Drop a follow if you found this interesting and want to see more. by @blbtms
12
4 months ago
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Five jobs. Zero plan. One conclusion. Corporate. Sales. Wedding photography. Media agency. Customer support. Somewhere in there I figured out what people actually respond to - and what makes them trust a business. Now I build websites that do exactly that. Not templates. Not trends. Something built specifically for you, that sounds like you, and works for the people you’re trying to reach. If your website looks generic - it’s costing you money. That’s fixable. DM “Barracuda” to @blbtms.gram by @blbtms
20
5 months ago
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the mj movie made $200m with a 27% critics score. his estate didn’t build it for the critics. they built it for the person buying the ticket. your website has the same choice to make every single day. are you writing it for the people who will never pay you? or for the one person who will? most business owners don’t realise their website is losing clients not because it looks bad but because it’s speaking to the wrong room. save this if your site gets compliments but not clients. by @blbtms
21
4 months ago
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Ferrari just solved one of the biggest UX problems in modern cars. For the past few years every new car has been moving everything onto one giant touchscreen. Adjusting the temperature, changing a drive mode, turning on the heated seat, all buried in menus you have to look at while driving. It became normal and nobody questioned it. The Luce has a touchscreen too but it only handles navigation, media and deeper settings. The controls you actually reach for while driving are physical. Buttons, knobs, dials, things you can use without looking because your hands already know where they are. That’s just good UX. The person who designed the interior is Jony Ive, who also designed the iPhone touchscreen. He said touchscreens are the wrong technology to be the primary interface in a car because they force you to look away from the road. So he built around that instead. No fake engine sounds either. Instead of mimicking what came before they built a completely new identity around what the car actually is. Ferrari’s own former chairman said he would never make an electric car. Ferrari did it anyway and did it properly. Hope other manufacturers are paying attention. by @blbtms
16
4 months ago
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If you've never done user research, usability testing, or made a design decision based on real data, you're a UI designer. Not a UX designer. Not a product designer. A UI designer. And that's completely fine. Just stop putting UX on your portfolio and your LinkedIn. by @blbtms
18
5 months ago
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Broken system. Frustrated customers. Overwhelmed tailors. Pakistan’s tailoring industry has been stuck for decades. This carousel is just the problem. The solution? That’s the next post. 👀 by @blbtms
23
5 months ago
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