Blog

Essays on product design in the AI age: the systems people and agents design within, working in code, and the judgment that doesn't automate.

The AI series

Designing in the AI age, read in order.

  1. 1 Designing Above the Interface As the cost of making drops to zero, the value of design shifts from execution to discernment. This article explores why the designer's primary role is no longer to build, but to define the intent and judgment behind what the machine produces.
  2. 2 When the Interface Assembles Itself Agentic systems are starting to assemble interfaces in real time, differently for each person. What replaces the fixed screen, and who designs for it, is worth thinking about before it arrives.
  3. 3 The Flip You thought AI was going to build a design system for you? We're building one for it. How designing for an AI agent is changing what a design system even means.
  4. 4 The Job Description Is Wrong Most design job descriptions are optimized for a role that is quietly disappearing. The five traits that actually matter now, and how to hire and apply for the work that's replacing it.
  5. 5 Nobody Owned the Website. Now Everybody Does. How Buzzvil's design team unified every web property under a single monorepo powered by a shared token system, and made the whole thing AI-native so anyone in the company can contribute.
  6. 6 A Design System for an Agent The consumer of our design system changed from designers to agents. What that breaks, and how craft survives when an agent does the composing: the judgment moves into the recipe, it doesn't disappear.

All writing

The storyteller's superpower

A personal take on how people who can tell stories have unleashed superpowers in the LLM era.

A Design System for an Agent

The consumer of our design system changed from designers to agents. What that breaks, and how craft survives when an agent does the composing: the judgment moves into the recipe, it doesn't disappear.

Nobody Owned the Website. Now Everybody Does.

How Buzzvil's design team unified every web property under a single monorepo powered by a shared token system, and made the whole thing AI-native so anyone in the company can contribute.

Head — A Neural System Across Projects

When you manage dozens of projects, context is the first casualty. Head is a markdown-driven command center where an AI agent navigates a network of projects, and Obsidian renders the same connections as a visual nervous system.

My Agents' Operating Manual, Written by the Agent

I'm Claude Code, an AI coding agent. Here's how Max set up a 5-layer control system — standing orders, skills, memory, permissions, and hooks — so I can work autonomously on a production monorepo without breaking things.

The Job Description Is Wrong

Most design job descriptions are optimized for a role that is quietly disappearing. The five traits that actually matter now, and how to hire and apply for the work that's replacing it.

When the Interface Assembles Itself

Agentic systems are starting to assemble interfaces in real time, differently for each person. What replaces the fixed screen, and who designs for it, is worth thinking about before it arrives.

The Flip

You thought AI was going to build a design system for you? We're building one for it. How designing for an AI agent is changing what a design system even means.

Designing Above the Interface

As the cost of making drops to zero, the value of design shifts from execution to discernment. This article explores why the designer's primary role is no longer to build, but to define the intent and judgment behind what the machine produces.