Your product doesn't exist (and other hard truths)
When execution gets cheap, what is the designer's job?
AI is blurring the line between design and engineering. The people who will thrive are generalists: designers who can work with agents, move between UI and code, and use pattern language without getting trapped by it.
The role now is to set direction across the whole system: from visuals to implementation to narrative. AI will be the force multiplier, but judgment, taste, and clarity will continue to be the designer's job.
In today's newsletter, I've got 10 articles for you, including:
- Why your prized product is just inventory with an existence problem.
- How design systems fix today but breed tomorrow's shitty software.
- What happens when you launch your product three times.
- And more...
Most Interesting
The new design process
Tom Johnson uses AI tools (mainly Claude and Conductor) to rapidly create a "bad but working" app, then treats that as disposable scaffolding to discover requirements, refine UX, and finally re‑design properly in Figma before rebuilding and handing off to engineers.
Design + Development
A curated collection of 3,000+ open-source neutral-style icons in outlined and filled variants, designed on a 24x24 grid for designers and developers.
Design systems are today's cure and tomorrow's cause of shitty software
Pjonori argues design systems solve current interface challenges but risk causing future software quality decline through over-dependency, skill erosion, sprawling components, and underfunded teams.
Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy Identity System
A design case study showing how Order created a visual identity system for the Conservancy, capturing Wright's geometric legacy while representing the organization's mission to preserve his remaining buildings through advocacy and education.
Tech + Innovation
Alex Kurilin explores what peak performance looks like in software development, company building, and game dev workflows. The article starts off with this quote: "Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see." LFG.
Stop Thinking of AI as a Coworker. It's an Exoskeleton.
This article explains the exoskeleton model for AI, where it amplifies human capabilities in product development rather than replacing them. It combines automated analysis of codebases, competitors, and feedback with human judgment for better decisions, keeping people in control.
"The thing you thought was an asset - the thing your valuation is built on, the thing your investors are pricing, the thing your roadmap is organised around - doesn't exist in the way you assumed it did. It's inventory. Inventory doesn't have a pricing problem. It has an existence problem."
Work + Mindset
The Software Industrial Revolution
An essay exploring how software development is undergoing a transformation similar to the Industrial Revolution, with dramatically reduced production costs enabling people without coding experience to build complex applications.
Anil Dash shares advice for teams: launch your product three times. The main issue is usually that nobody knows you exist, so keep promoting and reintroducing it to reach new audiences.
A collection of long-term charts showing societal, economic, and behavioral trends aligned around 2011–2014. Data from FRED, BLS, Federal Reserve, and others highlights shifts in areas like teen depression, social time, and media mentions.
