Bets & Ships is a static site with no framework. Every page is plain HTML, rebuilt by one script whenever something changes, and what you are reading is exactly what is stored. The design lives in Claude Design, and Claude Code builds the site from it, so the two are kept in step: this system is what both follow. Below is how it looks and why, with the site’s own components, live.
Bets & Ships is a weekly product newsletter for product leaders and hiring managers, about how product work changes after AI. The site reads like a careful notebook kept at night: warm near-black paper, cream type, one brass gold, and everything drawn by hand. Titles are set in Vollkorn and inked with a slight pen tremor, outline boxes have pen-drawn frames, filled cards are torn paper, and every picture is a multicolor pen drawing with hatched fills.
- PrinciplesHow Bets & Ships writes: the voice, titles that make a claim, small promises, punctuation and the never-list.
- ColorDark is home and light mirrors it on warm paper. One brass gold, four drawing inks, and every token in both themes.
- TypeFour families, each with one job: Vollkorn for titles, Newsreader for reading, Work Sans for the interface, JetBrains Mono for labels.
- The handThe site is drawn, not ruled: pen frames, torn paper, torn bands and printed sheets, and when each one is right. Plus the shadow rule.
- ComponentsThe site’s own buttons, actions, labels and lists, live, with the classes that make them.
- ImageryNo photos. Every picture is a pen drawing with hatched fills, in gold and four inks. Charts are drawn the same way.
- Layout and motionWidths, columns and how things move: reveals, the tucking header, hover growth, and what reduced motion turns off.
- ScalesSpacing, radius and layout tokens, with what each one is for.
- IconographyThe Waterline mark, the line icons and the play button.
- Marketing formatsSizes and rules for LinkedIn carousels, videos, images, the banner and share cards.
The same system, with its tokens and components, is in Claude Design: open it. Source files: docs/design-system/.
The Bets & Ships newsletter
Get the next one by email
For product leaders and hiring managers: how product work is changing after AI, with the evidence attached.
- One essay every TuesdayHow product work is changing.
- The evidence attachedCharts, numbers, every source.
- Case studies from the buildThe tools, and what broke.
Free. You’ll get one email to confirm first.