A Design Turn

"Layoffs feel worse, perhaps because they aren't tied as explicitly (or at all) to business performance like they were in 2000 and 2008. The companies seem to be doing fine, but designers are still being fired. This may be because the field of user experience design grew too big, too fast, with bootcamps creating an oversupply of designers, and companies hired against imaginary needs and budgets."

"For designers, AI feels overly aggressive because it makes making trivial. For many designers, making things is the hardest part of the job, and if we're already doubting our abilities, AI is provoking existential questions about what value we can provide at all."

"And as software development has matured, the processes have become more streamlined and pipeline-driven. Those who still have design jobs are experiencing an assembly line optimization of creative work that wasn't there a decade ago."

Design professionals experience unprecedented anxiety driven by three interconnected crises. Layoffs persist despite company profitability, suggesting industry oversupply from bootcamp-trained designers hired against inflated needs rather than actual business downturns. AI threatens designers by trivializing the creative making process—historically the most challenging and rewarding aspect of design work—raising questions about professional value. Simultaneously, software development maturation has transformed design into streamlined, pipeline-driven assembly work, stripping away creative autonomy. These pressures differ from historical technology disruptions because they occur without explicit business justification. The field may be experiencing a disciplinary turn similar to anthropology's ontological shift, forcing introspection and reshaping fundamental design practices and identity.

Read at Jon Kolko