Posts tagged with “Industry Insights”

As AI tools reshape our creative industries, a profound skill inversion is taking place. The fundamentals of design—once defined by technical mastery of tools like Figma and Photoshop—are being upended as artificial intelligence demonstrates remarkable prowess in execution. When AI can generate functional interfaces in minutes and 95% of startup code is AI-written, the designer's value is rapidly shifting from pixel-perfect production to something more essential: the human capacity for vision, judgment, and taste. Welcome to the era where curation trumps craft, and where leading with intent becomes the true differentiator in an increasingly automated creative landscape.

In January 2025, Sonos CEO Patrick Spence was fired after a disastrous app redesign wiped nearly $500 million from the company's market value. But calling it just a "redesign" misses the deeper story of how a beloved audio company lost its way. Through conversations with multiple former employees who worked directly on the project, I discovered that what happened at Sonos wasn't simply a botched app update—it was the culmination of strategic missteps, organizational dysfunction, and forgotten values that had been building for years.

Remember the Subservient Chicken? That quirky Burger King website where you could type commands to make a guy in a chicken suit do stuff? Two decades later, we're still typing commands into boxes—but now we're talking to AI. As designers grapple with a web increasingly built for machines rather than humans, we're facing a familiar challenge: how to create delightful experiences within new technical constraints. From Flash microsites to AI-readable interfaces, web design is evolving once again.

I love this essay from Baldur Bjarnason, maybe because his stream of consciousness style is so similar to my own. He compares the rapidly changing economics of web and software development to the film, TV, and publishing industries. Before we get to web dev, let's look at the film industry, as disrupted by streaming…

After spending four frigid days in Toronto with my design team, I've been thinking about what makes in-person collaboration truly valuable—and what doesn't. While tech companies debate return-to-office mandates, I found myself in a conference room with three designers and a whiteboard, tackling a pressing feature deadline. What emerged wasn't just a solution to our immediate challenge, but a deeper understanding of when being together matters and when it doesn't.

Scary words for the UX profession: “Digital systems, not people, will do much of the craft of (screen-level) interaction design.” But here’s the truth—this isn’t the first time we’ve faced a shift like this. Just as we adapted from print to digital, and from CD-ROMs to the web, designers will evolve again. The tools may change, but the purpose of design remains constant. And that’s what makes our craft enduring.

Just as casual dating helps you figure out what you want in a relationship, working at agencies early in your design career lets you explore different styles, clients, and problems before settling down in-house. Drawing from my nearly three decades of experience on both sides, I've learned there's real value in starting broad before going deep.

Jaguar’s rebrand is bold but polarizing, trading heritage for hype. In the race for EV dominance, a flashy logo and film won’t cut it—it’s the product that defines the brand. Let’s break down what this redesign gets right, and what it misses.

After decades away from print newspapers, I rediscovered the tactile joy of reading the San Francisco Chronicle over breakfast. The crisp pages, inky scent, and familiar sections brought back memories of Sunday mornings in North Beach cafes—reminding me that sometimes the medium truly is part of the message.

In the wake of Twitter finally fact-checking Trump's tweets and growing protests over George Floyd's murder, tech companies are being forced to confront their role in enabling harmful content. As designers, we're not just passive observers in this system - we help shape the digital world that billions of people interact with every day.