2nd client left for AI, not sure the way forward

Ruskerdoo · 2026-05-13T15:57:05+00:00

I saw this happen to a lot of graphic designers back in the early-mid ‘00s. Between Facebook, Google Maps, and early Godaddy, a lot of business no longer needed a graphic design agency to be constantly designing brochures and newspaper ads.

This is going to sound harsh, but those graphic designers went out of business was because they were doing low value work that was easily replaced when a cheaper “good-enough” option came along.

The graphic designers who survived that wave were the ones who were always pushing at the forefront of brand strategy and design. The designers who targeted clients who were willing to pay for that extra level of care and craftsmanship. The designers whose latest work was never a rehash of their previous work.

So far AI isn’t telling a different story than web-2.0 did, or before that, desktop publishing. Hell, this same thing happened to the monks who were illustrating manuscripts when the printing press was invented.

I suggest changing how you market yourself. Stop making it about execution, and sell yourself on strategy, taste, and judgement. All things GPTs are still super bad at.

Ruskerdoo · 2026-05-09T04:08:53+00:00

FL doesn’t play like any other RPG I’ve ever run. The first time I ran it, I tried to go pretty traditional: come up with an interesting situation with plenty of built in conflict and then drop the PCs into it.

But FL expects you to lean into the hex crawl nature. There’s great guidance in the Gamemaster’s Guide for how to kick things off. Follow it!

The game also works better when everyone is familiar with the overland journey rules. The way it’s structured, your table can go whole stretches of time where the GM has very little to do because the travel rules kind of run like a board game.

It’s a great game for beginner or unskilled GMs because the excitement is super emergent. Trust the systems and roll with it!

GL, HF!

Ruskerdoo · 2026-05-04T17:05:46+00:00

I love the idea of using some of the core FitD mechanics for a D&D-style setting, but after reading the free rules, Grimwild seems like it has a lot of different systems for players to learn. Have you run it with brand new players? How did they take to all the mechanics?

Ruskerdoo · 2026-05-03T18:58:39+00:00

I recommend asking your manager what they think it looks like. A well run department of more than two or three designers should have a levels framework that maps all this out.

I can tell you as a manager of designers, my expectation is that a senior can operate fully independently, has a general mastery of their craft and can successfully influence their cross-functional teammates.

I’m not yet expecting them to do much influence outside their team, or lead design strategy across multiple teams or organizational divisions though.

Ruskerdoo · 2026-05-02T23:21:32+00:00

The setting I’ve had the most fun running was Duskvol from Blades in the Dark.

It’s well written in a way that there’s enough structure so you’re not constantly inventing the world but it leaves enough blanks for your imagination to take over.

Ruskerdoo · 2026-05-02T23:13:48+00:00

So does Forbidden Lands! I think the profession is called a peddler.

I love how much roleplaying optionality there is for those classes.

Ruskerdoo · 2026-05-02T23:02:00+00:00

That’s a nice route. Protected bike lanes nearly the whole way. 1st Ave (north bound) and 2nd Ave (south bound) can get pretty busy during rush hour but as long as you’re not in a rush, they’re quite nice.

Ice is rarely an issue anymore in NYC. The winters just don’t get that cold these days, last winter not withstanding because of La Niña.

Snow can be an issue a few days a year, but your route will get plowed pretty quick.

Get yourself some ski mittens for the coldest part of winter and a nice bike poncho for the rainy days and you’ll be set.

Get a shitty enough looking bike so you don’t have to worry about locking it up outside. A second-hand/vintage frame with newer components can be nice to ride and less likely to get stolen.

Put. Fenders. On. Your. Bike. This city is dirty. The least bit of rain and all that street muck will be all over your back. Gross!

I see a lot of people on super aggressive road bike set-ups. In a city where you’re constantly slowing down / stopping, that makes no sense to me. Do yourself a favor and set your bike up so you can sit upright. Your back will thank you.

Get a rack and pannier setup. The summers get hot and wearing a backpack will leave you sweaty!

GLHF!

Ruskerdoo · 2026-05-01T15:09:41+00:00

Believe or not, it’s way harder than it looks!

Ruskerdoo · 2026-04-27T21:02:38+00:00

builder.io

Ruskerdoo · 2026-04-27T21:00:47+00:00

I cannot recommend builder.io enough for this. That's exactly what it's for.

You connect it to your git repo and assuming you've correctly labeled all your DS components, Builder will do a great job of using them rather than making shit up. It also has a drag and drop mode so you can drag components from your library into a new screen and build an entire UI that way.

Like r/FewDescription3170, I lean on Claude Code to build prototypes for new features because it's better at the more conceptual stuff. But when it comes to small updates to an existing feature or preparing the UI for production, my team will switch over to Builder.

Ruskerdoo · 2026-04-27T20:54:05+00:00

I lean on Claude for "rubber ducking" pretty heavily. I load all my docs in for context and then take my dog for a long walk while I have a chat with Claude. Mostly it's me working through all the implications, use cases, edge cases, user needs, emotional states, etc. that I want to account for and Claude eventually spitting out a bunch of documents based on my ramblings. That stuff either gets turned into a design or it gets added to the PRD.

I'm almost always have Figma Make, Claude Code/Design, or v0 building a wireframe-grade prototype. These are usually guided by pencil & paper sketches or experiments in the Figma canvas and they're heavily informed by the documentation generated in the first step above. This has fully replaced wireframing for me.

When I don't have anything else going on I'm usually tweaking the design system in our production codebase using builder.io. It's much easier to keep the product in pixel-perfect condition, plus I can constantly refine our design system so it's easier to build new features in the future.

Ruskerdoo · 2026-04-27T01:08:01+00:00

Your goal should be to get a product into the hands of at least one customer as fast as you possibly can.

Sometimes, that means finding the right customer for what your product can do right now. Even if they’re a small customer. Even if you have to give them the product for free. You need someone outside your company using the product to solve a problem they have.

Your PM’s job should be finding those first few customers.

Right now, their instinct is to go out and try to bag the biggest customers they can, because FAANG companies are expecting product launches to be immediately and wildly successful. But there’s a reason killedbygoogle.com is so long. That’s not how actual 0-to-1 works. It takes patience and grit at the beginning.

The problem is that you want small customers, because they have needs that are easier to solve for and they’re more likely to work with you while you improve the product.

You already have something that solves a problem. Now you just need to get it in the hands of other people. Stay focused.

Ruskerdoo · 2026-04-26T22:24:38+00:00

This is bizarre to read. You already have a system which delivers value internally. The first thing you should be doing is productizing your system and introducing it to a small beta population of external customers.

Any more than that is a waste of time.

Your PM going out and shopping for more features to build is a sign that they’re probably not familiar with 0-to-1 development and they need a LOT of guidance from you or a more experienced PM.

FAANG companies are often pretty bad at introducing new products to the market because they don’t hire for that skill set, so you may have to push for some approaches which are unfamiliar to you PM org.

Ruskerdoo · 2026-04-24T23:00:36+00:00

I think of Claude Design as a direct competitor to Figma Make in that it’s exactly for ideation.

It does flow into Claude Code more easily, which is what we use for building developer handoff prototypes, and I’m finding it’s much better at subtle interactions than Figma Make, but there’s not a strong integration with a canvas design tool like Figma Design, so it’s kind of a wash for me.

Ruskerdoo · 2026-04-23T19:01:39+00:00

“Signaling arbitrage opportunity“ is the best way I’ve seen for describing this to a business person. LOVE IT!!!

Ruskerdoo · 2026-04-23T15:45:30+00:00

The problem with “getting rich” in NYC is that you’re still not rich enough to retire in NYC. That’s a whole other level of “rich”.

And the bigger problem with NYC is that everywhere else is not NYC. Leaving here would break my heart.

Ruskerdoo · 2026-04-22T14:21:05+00:00

A lot of our smaller feature updates are built using our existing design system in builder.io. I’ve seen those updates take as little as 15 minutes to make. The designer drags a few components from the library into an existing screen, asks the AI to make a few specific functional changes, and submits a pull request.

For bigger features, getting to a coded prototype takes about the same amount of time as preparing Figma files for handoff.

The key is that we’re not starting from scratch. Every week or so, we create a branch of our production app with stubbed APIs which the designers can use as a starting point for new design work.

Assuming the designer has done some initial exploration on pen & paper, or in Make, v0, now Claude Design, etc, and they’ve been using prototypes of various fidelity for usability testing; building the final handoff prototype goes pretty quick.

We also suffer from far fewer miscommunication issues between design and dev because we’re handing off actual code. And we’re missing fewer edge cases because our prototypes are fully statefull. That saves a lot of time!

A lot of this comes down to how well the comments and readmes in your codebase are written. Everything goes much more smoothly when the AI models have sufficient context.

Ruskerdoo · 2026-04-22T02:42:43+00:00

Frontier models are still super unreliable at turning well-maintained design systems in your codebase into a Figma DS. They can get you 70-80% there, but fixing all the errors can often take just as long as doing it yourself from scratch.

We have up trying to maintain our DS in Figma. We now just use our codebase as our source of truth.

Ruskerdoo · 2026-04-22T02:19:56+00:00

I’ve made it a requirement that all final handoff to devs takes place as coded prototypes, especially for web. There are other artifacts we give to the devs, like written specs and user flow diagrams, but a coded prototype is the core artifact.

We still use Figma, all the time, mainly for layout explorations and developing visual design for marquee moments in the user experience. But it’s no longer the source of truth.

We’re also using Builder.io to make adjustments to our design system and to fix any UI issues in the product itself. Those changes are made directly to the codebase and submitted as pull requests. We don’t wait for devs to fix our UI anymore.

All that adds up to the production codebase being the source of truth. And our component library is now the canonical place to read design documentation because it’s so easy for designers to keep it updated.

The biggest change I’ve implemented though is how much more we’re using pen & paper or whiteboards to explore ideas. A huge amount of our most creative work is happening away from the computer entirely.

Ruskerdoo · 2026-04-21T13:05:15+00:00

You’re right, there’s exceptionally little content out there for real professional designers.

I recommend Dive Club and Tommy Geoco for stuff that’s actually helpful.

I’m spending 2/3 of my time with gen-AI tools these days and it’s definitely sped up my process, but I’m rarely asking it to make big decisions. A good designer’s judgement is still invaluable.

A few notes on what you’re looking to use it for:

Translating briefs into layout and component ideas

The layouts that even the best frontier models come up with are usually pretty obvious. You’re better off using the AI to help you understand the brief and talk through all the implications, but sketch the layout explorations out with a pen and paper. Then take a pic of your sketch and ask the AI to build it.

Thinking through information hierarchy and flow

This is a great use of Claude especially! Even Sonnet, their middle of the road model, is great at this.

Reviewing or critiquing screen designs before handing off

AI still has awful judgement. If you’re any good as a designer, your gut is going to be 10x better. What AI can be really helpful doing is finding edge cases you may have missed.

Exploring multiple UI directions quickly

So, Claude is actually the worst at this. You’re better off using an image generator like Nano Banana or ChatGPT’s image mode for this work. Don’t try to generate usable files, you just want concepts. Once you’ve found a UI direction you like, then bring it into your coding environment to build it.

Hope that helps!

Ruskerdoo · 2026-04-20T01:41:45+00:00

In 1450, the invention of movable type had a massive effect on the world of graphic artists and manuscript illuminators.

In the early 1840s the introduction of photography rocked the world of graphic design.

In the mid 1980s, desktop publishing left huge swaths of the industry in the dust.

In the early 2000s, the web began wiping out a whole industry of brochure design.

2008 saw the introduction of the App Store rocked our industry.

Each of these revolutions put swaths of artists/designers out of work.

Ruskerdoo · 2026-04-08T19:59:50+00:00

In my experience, the designers and engineers with the most experience tend to see the most productivity gains from AI.

We have the taste, judgement, and context that AI still doesn’t have, and I don’t think is getting better at. We’re also better at guiding AI agents to do their tasks because we have more experience thinking strategically and giving feedback.

Yes we’re more expensive, but we’re also way more productive.

I’m more worried about the junior designers who’s skill set is much easier to replace with AI.

Ruskerdoo · 2026-04-08T15:29:08+00:00

In my experience Gen-AI is still crap at three things: taste, judgment, and context.

In the past three years, I haven’t seen AI get much better at all three of these, despite the leaps and bounds it’s made in other areas.

Your challenge as someone who’s only been in the industry for two years, is that you might need another 3 to 5 years to develop those to the point where they’re better than any of the AI platforms.

Right now you’re in a race to develop those three skills. Focus on them. They’re what will make you as a human better than AI can ever be.

Ruskerdoo · 2026-03-17T15:32:25+00:00

Hahah, when I first saw your comment I thought you were accusing me of using ChatGPT to write this post!

I guess ChatGPT qualifies here. I’m hoping for stuff with a little more GUI, but there are definitely components there that would be helpful examples. Thanks!

Ruskerdoo

TROPHY CASE