design
insights on good design + anything else related to design
Jilber Najem and
design
I kinda feel like fuck this shit. We’re keeping the em dash. How about AI has to use something else. Or better yet, who cares if AI uses em dashes.
When Times New Roman appears in a book, document, or advertisement, it connotes apathy. It says, “I submitted to the typeface of least resistance.” Times New Roman isn’t a typeface choice so much as the absence of a typeface choice, like the blackness of deep space isn’t a color. To look at Times New Roman is to gaze into the void.
Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts
design is the embodiment of values. Design is the ultimate commitment to or compromise of one’s values.
And this is how we go about the world. We make sense of the world through interaction. Which ultimately means - we make sense of the world through objects, interfaces, landscapes of other people’s values.
And this is how we go about the world. We make sense of the world through interaction. Which ultimately means - we make sense of the world through objects, interfaces, landscapes of other people’s values.
Reggie James • A Way of Life - Kinference 2025 Talk
design is the embodiment of values. Design is the ultimate commitment to or compromise of one’s values.
And this is how we go about the world. We make sense of the world through interaction. Which ultimately means - we make sense of the world through objects, interfaces, landscapes of other people’s values.
Figma isn’t just design software: it’s a collaboration platform for making software. I call it the OS for design. That, by extension, means that Figma is much better positioned than it might seem for AI: instead of an agent making everything, agents will work alongside humans, with Figma as the coordination layer.
Ben Thompson • 2025.31: How to Think About Figma
Design is The What. What should you be building? What’s the right opportunity to go after? What’s the right problem to solve? Asking the right question is half the answer. Design is not about the drapes or the drop shadows. Design is a messy, holistic, human-centric process for solving problems—not just stylistic problems, but problems of all manner and level of importance.
The most fundamental software infrastructure has become commoditized to the point where most of the innovation is now created at the interface with end users. In the consumer internet world in particular, the marginal cost of software is zero, and design is now the differentiator.