Building Crow Create — A New Approach to Accessible Design Systems
Building Crow Create — A New Approach to Accessible Design Systems
Most creative tools fall somewhere along two extremes: they’re either powerful but overwhelming, or simple but restrictive. Developers and designers regularly bounce between Figma, MUI docs, color pickers, contrast checkers, token generators, and random CSS utility libraries—just to assemble the basics of a coherent theme. It feels like packing for a road trip using four different suitcases and a backpack that has a hole in the bottom.
Crow Create was born to solve that problem.
It started small: “What if I had a lightweight tool where I could generate a clean color palette and check WCAG contrast instantly?” That idea grew. A palette preview turned into component previews. Token exports turned into a full, customizable design-system playground. And before long, Crow Create became a new kind of creative tool—one that gives immediate visual feedback, encourages exploration, and treats accessibility as a first-class feature instead of an afterthought.
This post walks through the philosophy behind Crow Create, the problems it tries to solve, and how it evolved into a polished application built entirely in Next.js 16 + MUI, running front-end only on Vercel.
Why Build Another Design System Tool?
The web is flooded with color tools, token generators, and UI kits. So why build a new one?
Because none of them hit the sweet spot between:
- Accessibility tools (contrast checkers, WCAG evaluators)
- Design tools (palette generators, typography tools)
- Developer tools (token exports, MUI / Tailwind / CSS output)
- Live component previews (seeing your theme in action immediately)
Most tools excel at one slice, maybe two. Almost none let you design a system holistically—colors, type, shadows, radius, motion—while previewing everything in real components and exporting everything you need in code form.
Crow Create bridges those worlds. It’s meant for:
- Developers who want clean tokens fast
- Designers who care deeply about contrast and readability
- Students who want to learn the foundations of accessible UI
- Indie creators who need a site to look good but don’t have a full design team
- Anyone who just wants to tinker, explore, and make beautiful palettes
The mission is simple:
Make the web more colorful and more accessible.
Anchoring the Experience Around Accessibility
Many design tools treat accessibility as a final checkbox. Designers generate palettes, mock up screens, and only afterward run a contrast checker—which is the UI equivalent of measuring a cake after you bake it to decide whether it’s nutritious.
Crow Create flips that model.
WCAG AA and AAA contrast evaluation is integrated everywhere.
- Every color combination is checked.
- Every palette immediately displays its accessibility rating.
- Typography sizes give guidance on readability.
- Themes can be filtered by AA/AAA compliance.
- Shadow previews ensure depth never compromises legibility.
The goal was to build something that gently teaches accessibility through interaction. Not lectures, not walls of text—just transparent, immediate feedback.
If you change a primary color and suddenly the “button text” fails contrast, Crow Create shows you why, and how to fix it. If you want the system to auto-improve the palette, the “Enhance Palette” button provides a boosted, tuned version based on harmony + WCAG contrast rules.
Tools should teach while they empower. That’s the philosophy here.
Instant Feedback: The Live Component Preview
Design doesn’t happen in a vacuum. A color palette can look great in a grid of swatches yet fall apart the second it touches a button, card, or alert.
That’s why Crow Create includes a full component preview page modeled around real UI patterns:
- Cards
- Forms
- Buttons
- Alerts
- Avatars
- Chips
- Headings & body text
- Hero sections
Changing your palette instantly repaints all of them. Want to compare your theme to another? One click generates a side-by-side comparison using live tokens.
This matters because the world doesn’t use design tokens—people use UI.
Crow Create’s preview system makes the tokens meaningful.
Exporting Tokens for Real Projects
Once a user finds something they love, they can export it directly into formats developers actually use:
- MUI theme object
- CSS custom properties
- Tailwind config colors
- JSON token dumps
All of these are generated on the fly from the design system object stored in state. It’s fast, clean, and ready to paste into a real repo.
This wasn’t a “nice to have”—it’s foundational. Crow Create isn’t just a toy. It’s a real workflow tool.
Why Next.js 16 + MUI?
Crow Create uses a completely front-end architecture:
- Next.js 16 App Router
- MUI for theming and component primitives
- Zustand for design-system state
- CSS variables for immediate preview updates
- No backend server, making deployment free and simple
This architecture keeps everything snappy and ensures that theme changes render instantly. Because MUI handles both light/dark mode and accessible defaults, it was the perfect backbone for a tool that focuses on clarity and consistency.
The Themes Page: Inspiration Meets Guidance
One of the most fun parts of the app is the Theme Library—a curated collection of pre-built themes inspired by real products and recognizable aesthetics.
Not copies—just vibes.
There are themes lightly inspired by:
- Discord
- Stripe
- Terminal UIs
- Netflix
- Kawaii aesthetic palettes
- Corporate SaaS palettes
- Muted earth tones
- Neon cyberpunk palettes
- Professional blues and grays
Users can browse themes, test them live, and immediately apply one to the Create page. WCAG filtering and search help narrow down choices.
Every 3–7 cards, Crow Create also displays an affiliate-supported card, gently integrated without being intrusive—because supporting free tools matters.
The Docs: 15+ Long-Form Guides
Crow Create isn’t only a tool—it’s a learning resource. Each major part of the design system corresponds to an educational article:
- Color theory fundamentals
- Why contrast matters
- Choosing accessible fonts
- Meaningful motion and easing
- Shadow theory and depth
- Semantic color tokens
- Scaling typography
- Designing for dark mode
- And many more…
Every article links back into the tool, so learning and building feed into each other.
A Small Tool With Big Intentions
Crow Create isn’t trying to replace design platforms or compete with giant UI kits. It’s doing something more focused:
Helping people create accessible, beautiful foundations for their projects—quickly, intuitively, and for free.
As the web matures, the demand for clarity, inclusiveness, and good taste keeps growing. Tools like this help nudge the ecosystem forward, not through gatekeeping, but through empowerment.
Crow Create does that by giving anyone—students, indie devs, designers, hobbyists—the ability to build a real design system with confidence and clarity.
And this is only version one.
Looking Ahead
There’s room to grow:
- AI-assisted palette generation
- More component previews
- Importing themes from existing MUI/Tailwind projects
- Sharing/exporting theme URLs
- A community theme gallery
- Mini-course integrations
- Better motion previews
- Pattern libraries and layout templates
But the foundation is strong. The tool is fast, focused, and surprisingly enjoyable to tinker with.
If Crow Create helps even a handful of people design more accessible interfaces—then it’s already worth it.
Final Thoughts
Crow Create started as a small convenience project and evolved into one of the most unexpectedly fun tools I’ve built. It sits at the intersection of creativity, accessibility, and craft—three things I care deeply about.
The goal isn’t to dictate taste or prescribe “perfect palettes.” The goal is to empower people to create something they’re proud of, while also ensuring it’s usable, readable, and built on solid foundations.
And honestly? That’s my favorite kind of project.
If you want to give it a try, explore themes, or build your own palette from scratch—you can visit:
Have fun creating.
And make the web a little more beautiful.