The Anthology

A one-person periodical of work

Issue 001 · May 2026

SUBJECT Product designer / AI-native builder
EDITION One-person anthology · Vol. I
PRINTED IN Portland, Oregon · 2026
ISSN 2026-001 · MVHV
M. van Hylckama Vlieg · Anthology
§ 002 — Manifesto
pg. 002
002The manifesto

A short, opinionated position before the work begins.

Why this practice. Why this way. Why now. Read once, then go look at what got built.

opening statement

I design products at the seam where intent becomes interface — where a half-formed idea has to choose what kind of system it wants to become. The interesting decisions live there: pacing, posture, what shows up first, what stays hidden, what the model is allowed to assume.

AI didn’t shrink the design problem. It made the problem about judgment, not output. The work is choosing what to build and how it should behave in someone’s actual life — then shipping it before the moment passes.

I’m strongest where strategy, design, interaction behavior, and the realities of implementation collide. I write the prototype, ship the build, and stay around for the part where it has to be good for real users. The portfolio is the proof.

M. van Hylckama Vlieg Portland, Oregon · May 2026
M. van Hylckama Vlieg · Anthology
§ 003 — The Record
pg. 003
003The record

Six chapters, mostly uncool companies, all the right rooms.

Twenty years across consumer scale, enterprise complexity, and quiet labs where the right call wasn’t obvious.

Drag the timeline →

1998 — 2005

Endemol

UX & Engineering Lead. Multilingual content systems and large-scale web platforms across an international entertainment portfolio. Where the technical depth that still informs current judgment got built.

entertainment
2005 — 2013

Yahoo!

Director of UX Prototyping & Senior UX Manager. Led global prototyping teams across offices and product lines. Shaped rebrand and personalization work, built scalable design processes, mentored senior designers and prototypers.

consumer · leadership
2013 — 2017

Google

Senior UX Engineer / Prototyper. Built high-fidelity prototypes for Google Cloud AI, Google Assistant, and Android. Bridged design and engineering with prototypes that accelerated research, alignment, and decisions.

ai · cloud
2017 — 2021

Walmart Labs

Principal Product Designer / Design Technologist. Mobile, voice, and personalization during Walmart’s digital transformation. Translated complex recommendation systems into interfaces that didn’t require explanation.

retail · ml
2021 — now

Kohl’s

Senior Product Designer & Generative AI Specialist. Led UX across cart, checkout, wallet, account, and in-store self-checkout. Drove AI tooling, prompt libraries, and education across the design org.

e-comm · ai
always

AI-Created

Independent product lab. The place where ideas get tested in public. Shipped AI tools, design utilities, music, video, and arcade games — all real software, all built end-to-end. Proof that the practice is current.

lab · solo
M. van Hylckama Vlieg · Anthology
§ 004 — Capabilities
pg. 004
004What I’m hired for

Six modes of work. They overlap.

Most interesting projects use four of these at once. The titles vary by company; the practice doesn’t.

01

AI-native product design

Designing systems where the model is the interaction, not a chat panel bolted onto a SaaS shell. Voice, agents, ambient assistance, model-aware interfaces.

Voice UX Agent UI Prompt systems
02

Design engineering

Production-quality prototypes that behave like real software because they are real software. Built end-to-end by one person, often before the team is convinced.

Next.js TypeScript Tailwind Vercel
03

0 → 1 incubation

Taking an ambiguous brief through research, framing, design, prototype, and shipped product. Comfortable carrying the weight when there isn’t a roadmap yet.

Strategy Research Prototype
04

Enterprise UX modernization

Untangling legacy workflows in cart, checkout, account, internal tooling — and replacing them with systems people actually want to use. Years of this, at scale.

E-commerce Internal tools A11y
05

Internal AI tooling

Custom copilots, prompt libraries, synthetic research environments, and workflow accelerators built for design and product orgs. Used by real teams.

LLM pipelines Workflows Enablement
06

Leadership & enablement

Built and led prototyping teams at Yahoo. Now drive AI adoption inside a design org through teaching, tooling, and example. Comfortable as IC, lead, or director.

Mentorship AI education Hiring
M. van Hylckama Vlieg · Anthology
§ 005 — Lab
pg. 005
005Lab artifacts

Eighteen things that actually exist.

Independent products shipped through AI-Created. Real software, end-to-end. The proof that the practice is current.

● AI tool · live

My AI Diary

Voice-first journaling that turns raw speech into a written entry that still sounds like you. Whisper transcription, semantic search, weekly AI summaries, zero-knowledge encryption. Local-first PWA.

Next.jsOpenAIWhisperIndexedDBWeb Crypto
● AI tool · live

Human, Actually

Tailor your resume to the job — without sounding like a robot wrote it.

LLMNLPUX
● AI tool · live

WatchGPT

Realtime ChatGPT voice, on your wrist.

watchOSRealtime API
● AI tool · live

AI Usage

Claude Code + Codex usage on your Mac desktop. A menubar utility for devs.

macOSSwiftmenubar
● AI tool · live

Calorie Counter

The most frictionless food intake logger ever built. Speak, photograph, done.

VisionLLMPWA
● Game · live

Vectronix

Hardcore arcade space combat. No mercy. No filler. Built as proof of interaction design depth and systems thinking.

CanvasWeb AudioVector
● Game · live

Radial Drift

One finger. One mistake ends the run. A minimal arcade study in tension and feedback loops.

WebGLTouchHaptics
● Experiment · live

Audio Visualizer Suite

Captivating video visualizations of your music. Render-quality output, hand-tuned aesthetics.

WebGLFFTFFmpeg
● Experiment · live

Color Clock

A 1991 clock design, brought to life. A small love letter to vintage interaction craft.

CSSType
● Experiment · live

Jumbotron Simulator

See your name in lights at a major sporting event. Pixel-faithful arena LED simulation.

CanvasWebGL
M. van Hylckama Vlieg · Anthology
§ 006 — By the numbers
pg. 006
006Vector

By the numbers.

Numbers don’t lie. They also don’t tell the whole story. Here are a few honest ones.

20+ yrs
in the practice
5cos
Google · Yahoo · Walmart · Kohl’s · Endemol
18shipped
independent products & experiments
4lang.
Dutch · English · German · Spanish
M. van Hylckama Vlieg · Anthology
§ 007 — Method
pg. 007
007Method

How the work actually moves.

No process slides. No frameworks for sale. The four moves that show up in every project that ships.

01

Frame

Find the smallest, most honest version of the problem. Strip the brief until what remains is real.

02

Prototype

Skip the slide. Build the smallest behaving thing. Code, not comp. The product tells you what it wants to be.

03

Pressure-test

Real users, real models, real edge cases. Watch what breaks. Decide what’s worth keeping.

04

Ship

Stay around for the boring part. The 1.0 only matters if it stays in the build after launch.

M. van Hylckama Vlieg · Anthology
§ 008 — Now
pg. 008
008Currently

What I’m actually doing this week.

A live page. Updated by hand because that’s how you can tell it’s real.

Currently

  • Leading UX & AI enablement at Kohl’s.Senior product designer / generative AI specialist
  • Shipping new artifacts through AI-Created most weeks.Independent product lab · solo
  • Open to senior IC, lead, and director conversations.Product design · design engineering · AI
  • Speaking at Imagine AI Live as a founding contributor.Founding member · speaker

Tools in the rotation

  • Figma · Figma Make · LovableDesign surface · prototyping
  • Next.js · TypeScript · Tailwind · VercelProduction stack
  • ChatGPT · Claude · Gemini · CodexModel fleet for product work
  • Midjourney · Runway · ElevenLabs · SunoMedia generation
M. van Hylckama Vlieg · Anthology
§ 009 — Contact
pg. 009

Let’s build
something honest.

Direct

marcovhv@gmail.com

The fastest path. Tell me what you’re building, what’s ambiguous about it, what timeline you’re on.

The Lab

ai-created.com

Independent product lab. Twenty‑plus real projects. The proof.

Start the conversation
Colophon

A few notes on how this document was made.

Hand-set, single HTML file, no frameworks. Typography is Fraunces (variable, with SOFT, WONK, opsz, and wght axes wired up), Space Grotesk, and JetBrains Mono. The headline letters morph weight and wonk based on cursor proximity — try moving across the cover. Built by hand in Portland in May 2026 as a working draft of an in-progress design language. If something feels slightly off, it’s probably intentional.

Specimen
  • Display
    Fraunces · variable
  • Body
    Space Grotesk · 400 600
  • Mono
    JetBrains Mono
  • Palette
    Bone · Ink · Lime · Hot
Stack
  • HTML
    One file · 1500 lines
  • CSS
    Variables · grid
  • JS
    Vanilla · no deps
  • Hosting
    Any static host
© 2026 M. van Hylckama Vlieg · Issue 001 · all rights reserved
Set in Fraunces, Space Grotesk & JetBrains Mono
Printed in Portland · OR · USA