AI-Driven UI Design with Midjourney and Figma

This Course

Join our hands-on course that teaches you all the techniques for transforming Midjourney inspirations into fully functional and interactive designs using Figma. This comprehensive course is perfect for beginners who want to create stunning designs without mastering each individual craft. The course includes:

• Comprehensive lessons on UX, typography, colors, and design resources for production-ready creations
• Access to Figma files, Midjourney renders, and prototypes
• 5+ hours of video content in an extensive course
• 5-10 unique designs and prototypes for mobile and web, including UI and prototyping lessons
• 40 engaging lessons and topics, including Midjourney introduction, image-to-vector, and icon animation

Requirements

Before taking this course, you should be familiar with design tools like Figma and Photoshop, and have basic computer skills. Our final results will be edited in Figma, a free design tool. Midjourney offers free access for a limited number of renders, but you may need to subscribe for unlimited image generation. Alternatively, you can use the images provided within the course materials.

Learning Path

As you progress in this course, you may wish to transform your designs into tangible products. To achieve this, I recommend exploring the following courses:

• Web App Design using Midjourney and Figma
• iOS Design with Midjourney and Figma
• Figma Handbook
• Build beautiful apps with GPT-4 and Midjourney

Design Tools

There are many great design tools available for different types of design work, and the best tool for you will depend on your specific needs and preferences. Here are some other popular design tools:

• Figma is a powerful, web-based design tool that has taken the world of UI/UX design by storm. Figma has quickly become the go-to choice for designers, agencies, and teams looking for a seamless, collaborative, and efficient design experience.
• Framer is an exceptional tool for rapidly launching websites without requiring any CSS knowledge, employing a similar approach as other design tools.
• Sketch is a macOS-exclusive vector graphics editor and design tool used by digital product designers. It offers vector editing tools, export options, and collaboration capabilities.
• Canva is a web-based graphic design tool popular among individuals and small businesses for creating high-quality designs without professional design skills. It has a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface, collaboration options, and branding features.

Real App Inspirations

Midjourney will not take you all the way to a production-ready designs. It is important to study real apps, professional concepts, and live designs. Here is a list of the best places to find inspiration for finished products.

• Dribbble is a social media platform for creative professionals to showcase their work, connect with others in their field, and access design resources. Designers use it to discover new ideas and experiment with design elements like color, typography, and layout.
• Mobbin is a website that curates mobile app design patterns such as navigation, onboarding, and gestures. It offers tools to help designers build their own design systems and is a helpful resource for creating user-friendly mobile app interfaces.
• Apple's websites and products serve as an excellent foundation for examining and comprehending visual design, platform design language, animation, and user experience.

Text-to-Image AI Tools

The world of visual asset generation has seen remarkable advancements with the introduction of various AI tools, each offering unique capabilities to designers and creators.

• Midjourney V5 stands out as the top choice for designers seeking high-quality results. Its text-to-image capabilities provide remarkable visuals that cater to a wide range of creative needs.
• Stability Diffusion offers a unique blend of stability and creativity, generating images that balance artistic vision and realism. As an open-source tool, it provides designers with valuable APIs and greater flexibility in customizing their creations.
• Adobe Firefly is a game-changer, allowing users to transform everyday language into striking visual content. Seamlessly integrating with Adobe's suite of applications, this generative AI model heralds the future of digital imaging, illustration, video editing, and more.
• Dall-E 2 is the impressive successor to OpenAI's original Dall-E. This upgraded AI tool empowers designers to create visually captivating and imaginative images, pushing the boundaries of what's possible in the creative realm.

Midjourney

Midjourney is a powerful text-to-image AI tool that generates visuals, such as UI screens, app icons, and product images, from plain text descriptions. While not a substitute for UI designers, it is useful during early design stages and for visual exploration. To use Midjourney, join Discord, write clear prompts, and experiment with various prompts to find the best results. The generated outputs often need human refinement but serve as valuable inspiration.

To join Midjourney:

1. Visit midjourney.com.
2. Click "Join the Beta" on the homepage.
3. Sign in or create a Discord account.
4. Join the Midjourney Discord server following the instructions.
5. Head to the Newbies Channel once you've joined.
6. Use the /imagine command with a short text description to generate your first image.
7. Enjoy a limited number of free images, then subscribe for unlimited access if needed.

Setting your own Discord

For a better experience, it’s a good idea to set your own discord to avoid all the noises and confusion. You have the same features, except it’s all focused on your renders and it’s private.

Prompting with Imagine

Just like GPT-4, Midjourney is all about the art of prompting. The bot on Discord can perform helpful tasks using commands. One such command is /imagine , which generates a unique image from a short text description.

intricate landscape wallpaper with vibrant night colors in the style of Firewatch video game art, san francisco bridge from above --ar 3:2 --v 4

Arguments

Parameters are additional choices that can be applied to a prompt to modify the way an image is created. They can alter an image's aspect ratios, switch between different versions of the mid-journey model, select a different upscaler, and perform various other adjustments.

--v 5 // version 5
--quality 2 // image quality between 0.25 and 2
--ar 3:2 // aspect ratio

Upscale

When deciding between upscaling and creating variations, it's important to consider your specific needs. Upscaling is useful if you want to create a larger version of a specific image with more details. However, upscaling can only do so much and may result in a loss of quality if the original image is too low resolution.

Variations

Creating variations can be helpful if you want to explore different design options while maintaining a consistent overall style and composition. Variations can also be useful for creating a series of related images for use in a project.

Seeds

Designers can save time by using Midjourney to generate ideas for characters, logos, or themes. By using the same seed number and prompt, people can create a consistent style or explore similar ideas in their projects.

--seed 123

To determine the seed number of a Job within Discord, simply add an ✉️ envelope emoji reaction to the Job message.

Remove

You can delete an image by using the ❌ emoji reaction.

Explore

An effective method for discovering prompt inspiration is to visit the Explore tab and view top-rated images. Additionally, you can search for particular designs and borrow ideas from their prompts. You can copy the prompts from other images.

UI Designs

To create UI designs with Midjourney or other AI tools, create a prompt using short phrases separated by commas to produce a tokenized format. It is important to note that the results from these tools will require refinement from human designers, but they can serve as a source of visual inspiration during the early design stages.

futurist minimal hd 8k Ux ui mobile interface , chatbot artificial intelligence, artistic, AI, beautiful modern mobile application with robot and high tech

Use Images as Inspiration

Including images in your prompt and copying the links to Midjourney's Discord channel can improve the accuracy of the results. With additional context, the AI can generate more accurate responses.

https://s.mj.run/pDPFu_y3uaA https://s.mj.run/RlfRSJ2n2N4 https://s.mj.run/aExVb_eksaM Futuristic smart house mobile application user interface design ios clean, clear, airy, light, simple, front view

App Icon in Midjourney

When creating an app icon using Midjourney, it's important to write a specific prompt describing the desired style. If the initial set of results doesn't match the desired style, modify the prompt to include keywords such as "minimalism" or "flat design" to better guide the AI tool.

Design a 1024×1024 square iOS app icon featuring a majestic camera, using a flat design style similar to the icons in the iOS 14 app store

Turn Illustrations to Vector

Midjourney can be used to create stunning illustrations that can be converted into vectors for better scalability, which play a crucial role in many designs by serving to quickly align the brand and product vision.

modern architecture, an isometric tiny house, illustration, vector art

To make illustrations more usable and scalable for final designs, you can use either Vectorizer or the Figma plugin Image Tracer to convert them into vectors. Credit to @FedeDedeu.

isometric digital illustration 50% cross-section of a bank vault showing the interior workings, highly detailed, hyper realistic, cinematic lighting, professional color grading --s 500 --ar 16:9 --v 5

Wallpapers

Midjourney is adept at producing stunning wallpapers in a variety of styles. Here are some impressive examples.

digital background, gradient, soft light, low contrast, minimalist, foil holographic --ar 3:2 --v 5 --stop 75

Colorful, light, transparent, and smooth silk background, beautiful, transparent, transparent, and translucent. --ar 16:9 --iw 0.5 --s 1000 --v 5

Credit to @ciguleva and @iamneubert.

Upscaling

Although Midjourney's upscaling feature is a viable option, it can potentially alter the quality of your designs and has resolution limitations. Fortunately, there is a free alternative available in the form of an AI Image Upscaler tool.

Web backgrounds

Large backgrounds are essential in website design as they complement the typography and content. They create visually engaging parallax effects and can inspire the color scheme for the rest of the layout.

Permutations

To obtain slight variations without generating individual renders multiple times, you can take advantage of permutations, which allow you to explore different combinations efficiently. Credit to @ChrisHeidorn.

architectural illustration with retro visuals, lake house in canadian lodge style, surrounded by scenery of the alps and pine tree forest, covered in deep snow, golden hour --v 5 --ar 4:5 --s 750