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I Tested Brilliant.design: Building a Real Portfolio from Figma to AI-Powered Design and Code

Hadil Ben Abdallah on September 07, 2026

I’ve used quite a few AI design tools, but I was always thinking about what might happen when I stop generating a fresh screen and start working on...
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Mahdi Jazini

Really interesting approach, Hadil.
I especially liked that you tested Brilliant with an existing Figma portfolio instead of starting from a blank prompt.
The Design → MCP → AI Agent → Code workflow feels much closer to how developers actually work on real projects.

The part about preserving an existing design system across canvases was particularly interesting. I think this is where AI design tools can become genuinely useful for developers, rather than just another prompt-to-UI generator.

Great write-up and a really practical test. 👏

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Hadil Ben Abdallah

Thank you so much! 🙌🏻 I agree, the design system part is where it gets interesting for developers. Generating a UI from scratch is one thing, but being able to build on top of something that already exists without losing its visual language is closer to a real workflow.

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Aida Said

Impressive 😍 An AI agent that understands the structure and visual patterns of an external design is really brilliant.
And being able to choose either to use built-in AI or external MCP is very powerful.
Your tests are very clean. I'll give it a try.

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Hadil Ben Abdallah

Thanks! 🙌🏻 Glad you found the tests clean.
Brilliant really deserves you give it a shot. I used many AI design tools before, and Brilliant has features that I didn't find in any other tool.

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AI Dive

Same shape as Claude Design's MCP: the canvas is real elements the agent edits, not a rendered picture. One trap on that side: the server refuses a plain Claude Code login token with a 403 and needs its own design login first.

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Hadil Ben Abdallah

Exactly! That was one of the things I found interesting too. The agent is working with the design elements on the canvas.
And yeah, that 403 trap is definitely something worth knowing before setting everything up.

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Svg/icons

Did imported vector assets keep meaningful structure through the Figma → Brilliant → MCP workflow, or did the agent mostly see them as geometry?

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Hadil Ben Abdallah

In my test, the imported vectors remained editable as actual design elements; they didn't become flattened into a rendered image, and every vector asset retained higher-level semantic meaning through the full Figma → Brilliant → MCP workflow.

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Svg/icons

That’s interesting. Keeping vectors editable is one thing; preserving enough semantic structure for an agent to understand and modify them meaningfully is the part I find especially important.

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Ben Abdallah Hanadi

I loved the possibility to work on the design from the terminal.
Thanks for sharing!

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Hadil Ben Abdallah

Yeah, working on the design from the terminal is helpful especially for developers.

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Dev Monster

Great tool. Thanks!

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Hadil Ben Abdallah

Welcome! Glad you found something helpful here.