Started with a Framer template. Ended up dismantling the whole thing.

I recently designed and developed tukdin.com for a Malaysian restaurant in Paddington, London. Being new to Framer, I grabbed a template to understand the component structure and pulled animations from the Framer marketplace. But instead of just dropping them in, I reverse-engineered each interaction, studied the keyframes and easing curves, then rebuilt them around the restaurant's brand language and how Malay dishes are actually built; gentle yet precise.

Claude handled custom component logic where Framer's native tools hit their limits. Figma was strictly for vector manipulation and asset prep. The rest was prototyping, iterating, and learning by breaking things.

The biggest takeaway: deconstructing existing components is one of the fastest ways to understand a framework. Once I stopped treating the template as a finished layout and started treating it as raw material to rework, the design system clicked.

Phase 2 (restaurant reservation system with integrated booking flows for both staff and customer) is in progress now.

More to come. 🚀 Check it out