This series examines core concepts shaping our designed world, tracing their origins and dissecting their practical significance.

After a few weeks away from AI, I see my usage wasn’t always productive or healthy.

If our design specs only tell models what the interface is made of, they have already forgotten what the interface is for

We focus on how people are designing and building with AI. I rarely read about how AI is changing “what” people are designing and building.

The software development profession is in the midst of upheaval. And there's a gross insult to all programmers everywhere.

In an era where AI has made execution nearly free, the designer’s true value no longer lies in craft alone but in having a genuine point of view.

If your kitchen knife kept changing shape, weight, and edge, you’d have to relearn it every time.

Why AI is changing who reads first.

On reward functions, dopamine, and what it actually feels like when the code starts writing itself.

Bespoke tools designed for individual needs, transforming how we solve problems.

That’s the work of design: to make something so good, it’s obvious.

AI built for autonomy crowds people out, making us passive observers of what’s coming. We’re building toward a different future.

An honest accounting of what the craft costs, and why it costs more than the crafts sitting right next to it.

I didn’t expect to get so tired of reading LLM output.

Why a 98% browser support metric still excludes millions of users.

Are activities motivated by an array of reasons much less useful than ones done with a distinct purpose?

LLMs have broken legibility of effort - our ability to tell, at a glance, whether something took a human real work. What happens next?

When you’re designing motion, you’re designing with time. Understanding the mechanics turns movement into meaning.

When taste is weak, everything survives long enough to demand justification, and the organization slowly confuses activity with progress.

Atomic design got us from thinking about pages to thinking about components, but we don’t need to keep carrying the periodic table around.