tl;dr: Stay in low-fidelity mode longer by using a “sketch” CSS theme. It helps you avoid premature polish decisions that slow down shipping.

I love fat-marker sketches and other techniques that keep me focused on functionality early. I’ve definitely lost time obsessing over polish (“I don’t like that color”) when I should’ve been solving the actual problem.


While building Sportsroom.games, I used a “sketch” CSS theme (including Excalidraw's Virgil font) to stay in low-fidelity mode longer. It quieted my “design brain” and kept me focused on what functionality to build next.

One of my last tasks was swapping in a launch theme with final polish. It was satisfying to see the final style come to life, with a lot of help from AI tools like Claude and Codex.

Sportsroom is meant to be a second screen for groups watching games together (e.g. on an iPad on coffee table). I’ve noticed we’re all on our phones too much, even when we’re watching a game together.

The first game is Football Squares—basically bingo based on the score—that anyone can play, regardless of sporting knowledge. The group can choose their own prizes.

Here’s the low-fidelity sketch theme in action. It helped me stay focused on functionality before I earned the right to polish.