Redesigning design, the cliff in front of us all.

If designers want a better future for their trade, now is the perfect time to start from scratch. Not refresh. Not reboot. Start over—with clear answers to questions we seemingly didn’t get right the last time:

What does design actually do?
What does good design look like?
How do we critique it, measure it, improve it?
What is design responsible for—and accountable to?
Where does the role begin and end?

This isn’t a dig at anyone. I’m not interested in blaming the past. I’m interested in what we do next. Because moving forward, design needs an ELI5 story. A North Star that makes business sense, is easy to repeat, and hard to ignore.

The old model of design was built on gatekeeping, borrowed prestige, and—sorry not sorry—a slow-moving process. The new model? It’s raw. It’s fast. It’s visible. It’s self-defined. Forget chasing the next chief design officer. The people shaping what’s next are spending their time in the tools, crafting new methods grounded in first principles.

Drop the talk about transformation. Stop clawing for the title of Divine Empathizer. Step down from the Design Thinking hill you’re prepared to die on. And don’t dare ask for a seat at the table. Just design. Not one thing—but one hundred.

The future of design looks like one person prototyping six directions in a morning, using three tools and a single idea. And then doing it again tomorrow.

UX and UI is now just U. As in you—the person who spans disciplines, moves fast, and ships. Do more with less headcount, but not less output. Research is now AI. Prototyping is AI. Ideation, testing, iteration? Also AI. Less sketching. More prompting. For now, this is what we’ve got—and the future will favor the curious, not the dogmatic.

I don’t have to like it. Neither do you. But the writing is on the wall—and it’s constantly regenerating.

We’re not at a crossroads. We’re at the edge of a cliff. And I’m not the only one seeing it. Mike Davidson recently put it plainly: “the future favors the curious.” He’s right. This moment demands that designers experiment, explore, and stop waiting for someone else to define the role for them.

You don’t need a coach or a mentor for this moment. The career path is simple: jump, or stay behind. Rant and reminisce—or move forward. Look, people change careers all the time. There’s no shame in that. But experience tells me that no amount of pushback is going to fend off AI integration. It’s already here, and it’s targeting every workflow, everywhere, running on rinse-and-repeat.

Today’s headlines about AI bubbles and “regret” cycles feel familiar—like the ones we saw in the mid-90s. Back then, the pundits scoffed and swore the internet was a fad. Right up until “You’ve got mail” wasn’t just a notification—it was the zeitgeist.

The more I look past my own hesitation, the clearer it is: this isn’t about being replaced. No more than we were when we traded horses for horseless carriages, telegraphs for telephones, fax machines for email, or cash for credit cards. The only thing timeless in this world is how deeply we resist change.

So think of this moment not as a collapse—but a resize and reshaping. New tools and techniques. New outcomes and expectations. New definitions of value. Don’t compare today with yesterday. It doesn’t matter. Take it from me—no amount of blog post rage or soul-searching is going to materialize meaningful work or lasting satisfaction. Monty Python had it right when the guy next to pretend Jesus whistled, “always look on the bright side of life.”

Designers are back to where they started—departments of one to three. But this time, the tools in our hands can multiply our talent, speed up our impact, and stretch our reach. Yes, our work was an easy target for disruption. But that also makes us among the first who can evolve—fast enough to come out the other side.

This isn’t the timeline I would’ve picked. But it’s here. And it’s ready. For me, for you, for anyone willing to jump, enjoy the fall, get up, and keep going.