I started with code. I hated it. Then I understood what it was for.
By Álvaro Ares
I built my first website with Dreamweaver before I was old enough to drive. The client was a local clothing store in Bilbao. I didn’t know what JavaScript or PHP were — just HTML and CSS — but I knew enough to build something that worked and that someone paid for.
For years, code was a tool I used when I had no other choice. What I loved was design — visual direction, composition, judgment. Code was the part you had to survive to get there.
It took me a while to realise I was looking at it the wrong way.
What changes when you understand what you’re directing
There’s an enormous difference between designing something and understanding how what you design actually works.
A director who only works in Figma delivers files. A director who understands code has different conversations — they know what’s trivial to implement and what isn’t, they catch earlier when a design decision is going to create a problem in production, and they can propose solutions instead of just describing problems.
I’m not talking about knowing how to programme. I’m talking about having enough technical judgment to direct with authority.
I learned that by getting it wrong first.
Interfaces that actually work
Throughout my career I’ve built websites for animation studios, interactive experiences, UI for educational VR applications and custom project management tools. In most cases the process was the same: design in Illustrator to establish a clear visual direction, then functional build — in Unity for VR, in code for web.
What those projects taught me wasn’t technical. It was about judgment.
Thinking about how a user is going to move through an interface, where they’ll look first, what’s going to confuse them, how to make their experience easier — no tool solves that. It’s solved by understanding the person on the other side of the screen. Whether it’s an ecommerce, a game menu, an educational interface or an interactive webapp, the questions are the same.
What changed with AI
This website is the clearest example of how I work now.
Vibe coding isn’t asking AI to build you a website. It’s having a clear artistic direction and using AI as the fastest collaborator you’ve ever had — one that can bring your ideas to screen without spending hours trawling forums trying to figure out why a div isn’t behaving.
It took me almost as long as if I’d coded it by hand. But I was able to aim higher. There are interactions on this site that would have stayed on the cutting room floor before because the implementation cost didn’t justify the result. Now I can direct them because I understand what I’m asking for and I know when the result isn’t right.
The difference isn’t speed. It’s that I feel like I’m directing the project, not surviving it.
Why code matters even if you don’t write it
There’s a reason the best creative directors I know have at least one deep technical area — whether that’s code, CGI, motion or production. Not to do the work themselves, but to speak with authority about what they direct.
Code gives me that in interfaces and digital experiences. I know what’s possible, what’s expensive and what’s a bad idea even if it looks good on screen. I can make informed decisions instead of relying on someone else to tell me whether something works.
And when something doesn’t work, I know exactly why.
What I learned by hating it
There was a point where I resented code. Not design — code. The cold logic, the incomprehensible errors, the gap between what you imagined and what appeared on screen.
What I didn’t understand then is that the frustration was part of the learning. That code wasn’t the enemy of design — it was the language design had to live in.
Learning it reluctantly gave me something I wouldn’t have got any other way: respect for the complexity of what I direct. And that, in the end, is what makes the decisions better.