How We Got Here
I've been writing about the collision of design, code, and AI for a decade. Before generative interfaces had a name. Before "AI × Design" was a LinkedIn category. Before Claude could ship a Figma file.
Here’s the thread.
Taking the Robots to Design School (2016)
The Precambrian era of AI × Design. In 2015 I started teaching machines about typography before most people had heard of a neural network — and wrote down everything I was learning, partially for fun, partially as a journal for my future self. Reader: the future arrived
Declarative Design Tools (2016)
Our tools force us to translate ideas into rectangles, one property at a time. What if instead we told the computer what we wanted to see and let it figure out the rest?
Painting with Code (2017)
What if the design tool wasn't a canvas — it was a compiler? This one predates the Claude-to-Figma pipeline by nine years. The ideas were early. The instinct was right.
Dragging Rectangles (2017)
Since the Mac, design tooling has revolved around dragging rectangles. I see nothing to tie the role of designer to rectangle-dragger. The essay that started a fight I’m still having.
Escaping the Labyrinth (2023)
Computers as we know them are impossibly distracting. This isn't a focus problem — it’s an architecture problem. The essay where the question stopped being “how do we fix design tools” and became “how do we fix computing.” The seeds that today bear the bounty of Generative UI.
That's the last ten years. The next ten are being built right now at Manzanita Research — and written about here.
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