# Alex Chiu

> Senior Product Designer in London. Builds the tooling layer that makes design work machine-readable — so AI agents can act on design systems, Figma files, and specs without a human translating first.

Alex Chiu is a Senior Product Designer at Bauer Media Group, working on Rayo. Seven years shipping products across mobile, tablet, TV, web, voice and car, with a specialism in design systems and cross-platform consistency at scale.

His current work follows one thesis: AI agents can write code, but they're still bad at design work — not because the models are weak, but because design artifacts are unreadable to them. A Figma file full of "Frame 47" is noise. A component library without usage contracts means an agent picks the wrong component. A spec that lives in a designer's head never reaches the Jira ticket.

He has built three tools against that problem: Layer Lint, which makes Figma layers read as instructions; an agentic design system with autonomous workflows and Figma MCP integration; and a React mirror of Rayo's iOS design system documented with machine-readable usage contracts, so agents build production-faithful prototypes rather than plausible-looking ones. He also co-leads the AI initiative for Bauer's design team.

Earlier: white-label design systems at Simplestream serving 50+ brands, design practice introduced to teams that had shipped without a designer, and product briefs challenged when user research pointed elsewhere.

## Contact

- Email: alex@mchiu.co.uk
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexmchiu/
- Portfolio: https://mchiu.co.uk/

## Case studies

- [I didn't use AI to build a design system. I built a design system that AI can use.](https://mchiu.co.uk/case-studies/agentic-design-system/): A design system structured for AI agents — 468 tokens, four autonomous workflows, Figma MCP integration.
- [Refactoring the Rayo Design System for Scalability & Consistency](https://mchiu.co.uk/case-studies/rayo-design-system/): Restructuring Rayo's design system to scale across brands with consistent tokens, components, and patterns.
- [Brand Switching in Seconds: Scaling a White-Label Design System](https://mchiu.co.uk/case-studies/simplestream-design-system/): Building a white-label design system at Simplestream that enables brand switching in seconds.
- [Streamlining the Design Process & Improving Efficiency at Scale](https://mchiu.co.uk/case-studies/figma-plugin-rayo-thumbnails/): Custom Figma plugins that streamlined design workflows at scale.
- [Bringing Design to a Team That Had Never Had a Designer](https://mchiu.co.uk/case-studies/rayo-in-alexa/): Introducing design practice to Alexa — a team that had shipped without a dedicated designer.
- [Challenging the Brief: From Station Pages to Schedule](https://mchiu.co.uk/case-studies/rayo-schedule/): Pushing back on the original brief for standalone station pages in favour of schedule-led discovery, grounded in user research.
- [Your layers are the prompt. Make sure they're worth reading.](https://mchiu.co.uk/case-studies/figma-plugin-layer-lint/): Layer Lint — a Figma plugin that lints layer naming so AI design tools receive cleaner prompts.
- [From Hit-and-Miss to Ideas We Took Forward](https://mchiu.co.uk/case-studies/rayo-design-lab/): A React mirror of Rayo’s iOS design system where AI builds working prototypes inside the real components, tokens and usage rules.

## Expertise

- Design systems (tokens, components, documentation, governance)
- Agentic AI workflows and AI-consumable design systems
- Figma plugins and MCP integration
- User research and research synthesis
- Product design in media, radio, and streaming
- Accessibility and inclusive design