Pave's new look

Summary

In late September Pave by Quickbase had two problems at its front door. The home page put a gradient blob behind the prompt, and it looked like every other AI tool's home. Light mode was so flat that panels disappeared into the page. Product leadership wanted light mode to become the default before a marketing push.

I designed both at once, in code, and handed engineering decisions it could build in days. The blueprint home merged within a day of engineering's first commit. Light mode went from handoff to merged in under a week. Both went live for every Pave user in one release on 15 October, and the marketing site moved onto the same sheet the next morning. For the first time since launch, the website and the product looked like one thing.

Designed by Alex Traykov. Implemented by Austin Colcord (shoutout). Thanks also to Borislav Vasilev (marketing engineer) and Ericson de Agosto.

20days from the first audit to live for every Pave user

1 dayor less from engineering's first commit to the blueprint merged

1 weekor less from the light mode handoff to merged

0new colours: three surface layers from the palette Pave already had

quickbase.com/pavePave's public site. Sign in from there and you land on the blueprint sheet inside the product.

How it landed

Very differentiated and creates significant distance between us and the "create anything" vendors. This looks like its meant for business.
Marketing team
your design work have been beautiful, fast and impactful!!
Sales leadership
reviewed the blueprint and light mode - just kudos to the team for this. I love it.
Product
LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this. Aligned with a business look and feel, love the "technical" design elements... makes it feel like a serious business tool
Marketing team
A fresh new look / light surface. The builder has a lighter, more streamlined design with refreshed surfaces and colors, so it's easier to stay focused on what you're building.
Product release note
Alex the new design/background is money. Great work
Sales

Twenty days

25 SepStart
Light mode audit
The signed-in pages captured and scored, in light and dark.
26 SepNext day
Light mode pitched
A deck running on the real interface, shown to product leadership.
28 Sep2 days later
Home brief reset
Thirty coded directions follow, each one tunable live in light and dark.
29 SepNext day
Blueprint picked
Product leadership chooses one direction.
2 Oct3 days later
Light mode handed off
Figma frames, a token map, acceptance criteria and a tested patch. Engineering starts the same day.
6 Oct4 days later
Blueprint merged
From my coded prototype and patches, within a day.
8 Oct2 days later
Light mode merged
Every screen, light and dark.
9 OctNext day
Build audited
Every main page measured against the spec.
15 Oct6 days later
Live for everyone
Both, in one release.
16 OctNext day
Website follows
quickbase.com/pave moves onto the same sheet.

Turn the home into a living spreadsheet

Most people who build on Quickbase already run their work in spreadsheets. So the home became a living spreadsheet: a grid that breathes, and cells that open to draw what Pave can make from it: a table, a form, a workflow, a connection to your data, a whole app.

Every drawing on the sheet is something you can ask the prompt box for.

A generative background has one job it must never fail: don't clip a wireframe, squash a column or open a cell under the prompt box. For a while it did all three, and "it looks a bit off sometimes" was the most precise thing I could say about it. So I built an audit that scores every open cell on five checks and wrote layout rules until every cell passed, on desktop and phone, inside the frame budget at four times CPU slowdown.

**The grid prototype Concept***The prototype I explored in. Hover the grid for the ruler, click bare sheet for a leader line, type in the box.*

I built the whole concept in code, from the grid and its drawings to the motion and the layout rules. There was nothing to translate and no Figma file to hand over. Engineering got the running prototype and my patches, ported the engine line for line and merged it within a day. The Quickbase web team built the website hero from the same package, which is why the site could follow the product the next morning. And because the sheet is code rather than a mockup, it's slowly becoming the visual language for Pave's ad explorations too.

The same sheet went behind sign-in and the account and error pages. Before that, signing out of a polished builder dropped you onto a page that looked like another company.

Give light mode an order

The finding was small and a little embarrassing. Every surface was the same tone, so nothing looked higher than anything else, and the green sidebar was the loudest thing on screen.

My first recommendation was a warm paper palette. Its own risk note said Pave would become paper. I had recommended a rebrand by accident, inside a light mode fix. So I kept the structure and dropped the palette: three layers, built from colours Pave already shipped. Nobody has to approve a colour that doesn't exist.

I pitched it as a deck that runs on the real interface, so product leadership could point at the levels themselves.

**Three levels, one palette** *The slide from that pitch, running. Point at a level to lift it, or at anything on screen to see which level it sits on; switch Light and Dark, or Screens and Blueprint.*

Three rules carry it: the composer is the only white object in the chat, there's one green button per page, and in dark mode a higher layer is lighter.

Before and after, screen by screen: Before — **Before and after, screen by screen**

Before and after, screen by screen: After — **Before and after, screen by screen**

The build screen, x-rayed: Layer system — **The build screen, x-rayed***Move the square to see each plane outlined and labelled by layer.*

The build screen, x-rayed: X-ray — **The build screen, x-rayed***Move the square to see each plane outlined and labelled by layer.*

My first handoff still carried recommendations next to open questions. Engineering asked for decisions instead. Fair. "Take the recommendation unless someone objects" isn't something you can build to. I made every remaining call the same week, and the package became Figma frames, a token map, acceptance criteria written as visual checks and a patch I'd tested locally. Engineering merged it within a week.

Recommendations aren't a spec.

Ship both in one release

Running two redesigns at once had one real cost. The blueprint file and the light mode file drew the sidebar differently, and engineering had to ask which one was right. That was my mess: I'd designed the same navigation twice, a few days apart. I dropped the frosted variant (it looked cool and wasn't used anywhere else) and folded the blueprint's card into the raised layer. One system now covers the front door and the builder.

The day after the merge I measured the build against the spec on every main page, not only the ones with a design to compare against. It scored 8.0 out of 10, and the gaps were mostly pages I never drew. Product took over that list.

The Pave home on production, 16 Oct 2026: the prompt on the blueprint sheet, with Recent apps and Templates below. — **The live home, light and dark**

The same home in dark mode: the sheet keeps its proportions, quieter, on the darker layers. — **The live home, light and dark**

In short

Pave's new look is the clearest example I have of design engineering as the foundation for software's newest and most valuable currency: pace. Every deliverable was something engineering could build straight from, so we pitched, pivoted, prioritised, built and shipped it in 20 days. That pace is rare anywhere. In an enterprise company like Quickbase, it's rarer still.

Designing Pave covers the builder, Plan Mode, Direct Edit and navigation that this home page now sits in front of.