As the Founding Designer at Fword.ai, I led the end-to-end design of a generative AI-powered fashion tool from concept to launch. The process was highly iterative , driven by rapid experimentation, evolving ideas, and continuous learning. I shaped core workflows, informed product direction, scaled our design system, aligned cross-functional teams on key decisions, and championed a culture of design thinking across the organization.
Timeline
October 2024 - March 2025 (6 months)
Team
15 members - 1 Designer (Me), 1 Product Manager, 3 Marketing, 6 Developers, CTO
Product Highlights
🚀 Went from 60 to 1,000+ Daily Users | 🎨 30k+ Designs Created | 🔁 80% Return Rate
Video credits : Thefword.ai
The Problem
Fashion design tools have long been criticized for their complexity and steep learning curves, which can hinder creativity and efficiency.
The world of fashion design tools has remained relatively stagnant for years, with limited innovation compared to other creative industries. Fword.ai is changing that. As a GenAI-powered platform, Fword aims to revolutionize the fashion design process just as Figma transformed product design.
The Problem is real and quantified
The Process
We set out to understand what today’s designers truly need
So we spoke to them. Researched the industry. Mapped their journey. Compared existing tools.
What we heard from the designers
I synthesized the findings through affinity mapping, identified that there were a lot of overlaps between what they wanted and what precisely fell under one of the 6 key findings mentioned below.
Productivity Pressure
“Clients want fast turnarounds, but 3D takes weeks.”
Ideation BottleNecks
“I have ideas in my head, but I’m not good at drawing them out.”
Fragmented process
“Every stage needs a different tool, and they don’t talk to each other.”
Complexity hindering creativity
“I spend more time learning the tools than actually designing.”
Creativity vs. Control
“Most AI tools are general-purpose, they don’t understand clothing nuances.”
Once we understood what designers were going through on the ground, we backed it up with research — diving into 25+ papers, industry reports and surveys to spot larger patterns.
Studies on creative tools show that complex interfaces slow down ideation.
Both research and industry voices highlight how traditional design tools prioritize precision over play
There’s growing momentum for AI as a creative collaborator, not a replacement.
Shifting trends and growing concerns are pushing fashion toward more sustainable and mindful practices.
GenAI raises questions about originality, authorship, and ownership in fashion creation.
So whether it was a quote from a designer or a published paper, the message was clear: Designers crave speed, freedom, and support in their creative flow.
Mapping the traditional process
Leveraging insights from primary and secondary research, I mapped the end-to-end journey of a fashion designer using traditional tools, from ideation to production—to deeply analyze pain points and uncover opportunities for improvement.
Opportunities for Innovation
Mapping the traditional design journey exposed critical friction points, while the literature review highlighted a growing momentum for generative AI across creative industries.
Together, these insights shaped the next step, evaluating existing GenAI and traditional tools to understand how well they addressed the identified needs and opportunities, and where gaps for innovation still remained.
What current Gen AI tools fell short of
Generic AI generators lacked awareness of fashion’s nuance — silhouette, texture, drape, intent.
GenAI features were scattered, forcing designers to juggle between multiple platform
Traditional design tools were complex, rigid, and came with steep learning curves.
Curious about the scrappy details? Let’s dive in.
Ideation and systems thinking
In collaboration with product managers and developers, I developed an information architecture, explored numerous ideas, and once we had that thing is place, I started tackling the use cases one at a time, based on priority and bandwidth and came up with the initial version one.
Design System
After ideation, I established the core foundations of the design system — color, typography, and spacing/layout. These provided consistency across screens and made my high-fidelity prototypes faster to build and easier to maintain.
Components & Tokens
Ideated widely, tested thoroughly, kept the best
From the earliest stages, user testing was central to the process, especially for a creative tool, ensuring every decision aligned with user needs.
Optimizing the home page for a creation-first approach
V1 : Product-Led Onboarding
V2 : Creation-first approach
Minor tweak in design, interaction for the cards for better differentiation
There are 3 types of files on the home page,
2D garment images,
Photoshoot - collection of images,
3D files
I made minor tweaks to the design of each card and the hover interaction to help the user differentiate it easily.
Ideating and converting rough sketches to images
AI Photoshoots to visualize sketches on models
Iterations and design decisions to improve speed and clarity
V1 - All-in-One Input
Users input - Model, Background, Filters
V2 -Guided by Steps
Users input - Model, Scene = Background+Pose
V3- Hybrid Prompting
Users input - Model, Pose, Scene = Background and any info
3D Designer
Next Steps
Coming Soon
Coming Soon
Reflection and Takeaways
Exciting journey filled with learnings
