Blogs
May 2026AI & Product Development3 min read

Five layout options in five minutes

Generates a bunch of different layout approaches for the same content so you can pick a direction instead of starting from a blank page.

The hardest part of designing anything is the blank page. You know what content needs to go on the page, but you have no idea how to arrange it. Design Shotgun solves this by generating several completely different layout approaches for the same content — minimal, dense, card-based, list-based, and so on. Your job is just to pick which direction feels right.

Why it matters

Choosing between options is dramatically easier than creating from nothing. Even if none of the options are exactly what you want, they give you a vocabulary: 'I like how spacious that one feels' or 'that one's too busy but I like how it handles the headings.' That vocabulary is what turns a vague design sense into a concrete direction you can build toward.

How to get started

Describe the content you need to lay out and the context — what's the page for, who's it for. You'll get back three to five distinct layout approaches. Don't try to refine them inside this step. Just pick a direction. Once you have a winner, move to a design session or straight to building for the polish and details.

When to use it

The very beginning of any new design task. The five minutes you spend looking at options saves thirty minutes of staring at a blank page and second-guessing yourself.

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Nirmit Meher

Product leader shipping across enterprise SaaS, AI in production, and 0→1. Writing about what actually ships — not what sounds good in a deck.