I’ve been involved in roles and projects that have had some level for the better part of 7 years. Most of those roles initially weren’t even explicitly described as ‘design’; it was just something I did when working in a startup. I naturally drifted towards handling that side of the products we were working on. It wasn’t necessarily using any specific tool; it was more so whatever tool I needed to use to get the job done I used, that varied from Adobe XD, to Google Suite, to Figma, to Final Cut Pro, to Adobe After Effects, and so on. The roles I took on were always super ‘general’.
Eventually, after going down a more ‘traditional’ job path, I began applying for ‘design’ or ‘product’ roles as these were the duties I enjoyed the most when I was going through startups, not that I ever studied ‘design’; I was just self-taught and drawn to it.
Going into more traditional design roles, they were a lot more structured and it’s where I learned the most about double diamond, user research, low-fidelity wireframes, UI design, user testing, and so on. All the traditional and proper ‘design stuff.’ That’s really where I found, for me at least, that things were a lot more rigid and structured; you fit somewhere in a pipeline, i.e., you would do user research, create wireframes, test the wireframes, hand them over, etc. There was a more general way of doing things.
But almost always throughout that process, I would never touch code or do any software development unless I had to or it was in my role. Not that I wouldn’t WANT to do it; after all, I did study computer science, but the gigs I got into never really required it or encouraged it. Roles were a lot more defined: you’re a UX Designer, UI Designer, Product Designer, and depending on the type of work and size of company, and level of seniority, you also have UI Artists, UX Copywriters, Motion Designers, and the list goes on and on.
But as of late, I feel like there is a significant shift happening in design, something is changing… It’s nothing unexpected, and I’m not revealing anything out of the ordinary here, and it’s on everyone’s mind: AI.
We are seeing a significant shift in the day-to-day for designers. Many things designers did day-to-day can now be automated with AI, and many specialists are shifting into generalists. Designers now can write product specs, create high-quality fidelity wireframes, generate 3D icons, create motion graphics, and push designs all the way through to production-ready code. All in a matter of days or hell, even hours. It’s not to say that it’s a good or bad thing; it depends who you are and how you’re looking at it.
If you’re in a startup, or you’re a solo designer, it’s absolutely never been a better time to be able to just ‘make things’. On the other hand, specialists at big companies are at risk of losing their jobs if they or the company does not adapt to the new reality. Design niches will continue to exist, but they’ll be exactly that, a niche. I suspect that designers will be expected to do more than just design wireframes to hand over, and to be honest, I think that’s great.
I personally find this refreshing because it goes back to how I began my journey into design, wanting to get things done and finding tools to bring whatever I had in my head into real life. Before I was expected to jump into Figma each day, I just wanted to build stuff, and now it’s here and more possible than ever.
Whether it’s the role I’m in or the size of the team at the moment, or the nature of how design has shifted, my days designing now involve so much more than research, wireframes, and handovers. My day-to-day could involve:
- Prompting icons into existence with DALL-E and touching them up in Photoshop
- Creating motion design animations using Rive
- Using RunwayML and Sora to generate promo video assets for apps and websites
- Writing product specifications and sharpening them into a workable dev-ready structure using ChatGPT
- Using Windsurf to vibe-code production-ready front-end across a variety of platforms and app-types
Honestly, it’s never been a better time to be a multi-disciplinary designer, and I fully welcome this shift into designer generalists who do it all with the help of AI and tools. The line between developer and designer will continue to blur even more.
Kosta