Dither Dog: Dither your whole world.

Dither Dog started as a personal challenge: could I design and ship a functional web tool without prior development experience? By pairing my design background with AI-assisted coding through Claude Code, I took it from an idea to a deployed product, and then kept iterating on it like a real product rather than a one-off experiment.

The first version applied a handful of effects to a single image. The current release is a complete dithering workspace:

• Images, videos, and GIFs, all processed in the browser. Nothing is ever uploaded to a server
• 28 algorithms across error diffusion (Floyd-Steinberg, Atkinson, Stucki, Sierra), ordered dither (Bayer, blue noise, clustered dot), and artistic patterns (halftone, crosshatch, stipple, spiral)
• 23 color palettes, from Game Boy green to cyan-and-magenta print halftone
• 20 hand-tuned presets that dial in an algorithm, palette, and contrast curve in one click
• A Guides section that teaches how dithering works, so the tool doubles as a learning resource

I wanted the interface to feel like precision hardware: something between a lab instrument and a retro terminal. The UI steps back so the artwork carries the color:

• Near-black canvas with a single signal-orange accent for every primary action
• Dot-matrix display type that echoes the pixel grids the tool produces
• Monospace, all-caps labels and numbered modules (01, 02, 03) that read like machine readouts
• Hard edges, hairline borders, and no rounded corners, so everything feels engineered rather than decorative

Dither Dog was where I learned the fundamentals of shipping software:

• Structuring a Next.js and TypeScript app with a reusable component architecture
• Canvas API pixel manipulation for real-time image processing
• State management for algorithm, palette, and contrast settings across images, video frames, and GIFs
• Performance work: debounced updates so sliders stay smooth, and careful canvas handling for large files
• Continuous deployment on Vercel, with the source public on GitHub

Even as a small, niche project, Dither Dog taught me to run work like a product team of one:

• Start with a focused core (upload, dither, export), ship it, then expand in deliberate releases
• Prioritize the features that make the tool more useful (presets, video, guides) over ones that only add complexity
• Keep the design system consistent as features grow, so new screens feel native to the product
• Treat feedback and real usage as the roadmap instead of building in isolation

The gap between design and development is bridgeable. With the right tools and approach, designers can ship real products:

• One feature done well beats many half-finished ones
• Design and development inform each other, and iterating between both improves the result
• AI-assisted coding speeds up learning, but understanding the fundamentals is what makes it work
• Shipping something real, then improving it, beats endless polish in isolation