“People are reaching for work with a little dirt under its nails. Designers are rediscovering soul,” Spencer continues. “You can feel it — this hunger to make things that breathe, that feel lived in. This isn't about rejecting digital — it's about bringing humanity back into it.”

In order for design to transform business, it must first transform itself. It must leave behind the language and mindset of engineering. Get past scalability and extensibility. Systems and components. Agility and usability. Usefulness and seamlessness. Efficiency and friction. Data and metrics. Patterns and code.

I mention that Silicon Valley has been stuck within a primary aesthetic of knowing . And that Snap breaks this aesthetic and pushes towards an overarching aesthetic of seeing.

Digital technologies, like wood or concrete, are simply another design material we seek to bend to our will. To manifest and hold these ideas and functions and interaction... See more