jade rocha

designer from bahia, brazil

[jade rocha @jdercha]

@WarnerTeddy i love this. one of the best things about living in nz is getting to listen to all the amazing birds and wildlife. i have voice memos of the birds singing in the morning. now i shall make my own version of this

[jade rocha @jdercha]

@peduarte this!

[jade rocha @jdercha]

@YaelBienenstock so good. i love it!

[jade rocha @jdercha]

@Jaytel @MSchwaibold nice one! cool to see one of my fav arena channels taking new forms on the web

[Karri Saarinen @karrisaarinen]

non-designers who have never designed anything: "designers are cooked!"

people who have worked in code, want to work in code, always will work in code: "future of design is code!"

companies selling tokens: "move that button 4px with a prompt!"

designers:

[Karri Saarinen @karrisaarinen]

I think the main dissonance is that people are talking about different kinds of design. Some see it as a holistic discipline that shapes the product from the ground up.

Others see it as the work of translating an already-defined system into UI. And for some, it is a practical way to improve their projects without needing deep design expertise themselves.

The tension comes from these very different expectations of what design is for.

And then the industry confuses this as singular thing "design tool".

[Karri Saarinen @karrisaarinen]

https://t.co/srw9NQMkH2

[Rasmus Andersson @rsms]

This is really neat but it’s not a design tool as much as it’s a design _production_ tool.

The practice of design is mostly about what comes before production.

There’s no doubt in my mind that all parts of software production will become automated very soon. Writing code, making web pages, putting pieces of a design system together etc.

And that’s fine. I think few people actually enjoy this kind of production work. Wouldn’t it be better if we spent our precious time in life on what is more meaningful?!

At the core, the practice of design is methodical; like architecture, not like art. In a nutshell: We find constraints, form comprehension of the whole and propose solutions that honor those constraints. First after that do we enter some form of production phase, usually prototypes first, learn about some constraints that were hidden before, loop back, prototype and then build the production-grade “final” artifact.

These last few tasks are quickly losing value because AI tools can do it much faster (not yet better though) than humans. It’s simply just what has the best RoI for a business.

Some companies and individuals will continue to spend human time on certain parts of the “production line” as a market differentiator, but it will cost them a relatively high price compared to competitors.

Anyhow, I still haven’t seen a tool better than Figma that supports the actually-interesting part of the design process.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Figma focused their products on that, maybe separating “products for production” of “products for ideation & exploration.” The latter would obviously still leverage AI, but not to do the work for me but rather to support my efforts the way a therapist helps me live a better life (not living my life for me.)

[jade rocha @jdercha]

https://t.co/jwI23ek5gp

[jade rocha @jdercha]

yes. the cost of maintaining an idea is much higher than raising it.

this reminds me of something i wrote recently.

[Karri Saarinen @karrisaarinen]

https://t.co/MmAOqBTxnF

[jade rocha @jdercha]

@Ibelick gold. thank you

[jade rocha @jdercha]

@zenorocha love this

[daniel regis @danielrgs_]

A quick reel featuring some motion projects I worked on at Studio South over the past year. Lots of fun working on these with the team.

[Ryo Lu @ryolu_]

when software had a soul

there was a moment around 2005 when using a Mac felt like touching something alive.

the dock bounced. the genie effect swooped. exposé scattered your windows like cards on a table. none of it was strictly necessary. all of it felt like someone cared – not about metrics, but about the feeling of using a machine.

software back then had texture. it had a philosophy. you could feel the person behind it. someone made a decision to make that icon beautiful, to animate that transition just so, to write that error message with a little warmth. apps had personalities. some were weird. some were over-designed in ways that would make a modern PM flinch. but they were alive.

the web was the same. personal sites were genuinely personal. blogs felt like letters. forums had regulars. you knew who made what. the internet had neighborhoods, and each one felt different.

nothing was optimized for scale. things were made by people who loved what they were making.

somewhere along the way, we traded all of that for growth.

A/B tests flattened the edges. design systems standardized the personality out. everything got faster, smoother, more consistent – and somehow less interesting. the quirks were removed because they didn't test well. the warmth got cut because it wasn't measurable. we optimized our way into a world of things that work perfectly and feel like nothing.
now every app looks the same. every interface follows the same patterns. every product speaks in the same calm, frictionless voice, siloed in their own little islands. the humanity got rounded off.

and then came AI agents. and the speed got inhuman.

now you can generate an entire product in an afternoon. ship a feature before lunch. spin up ten variations before anyone's had their coffee. the gap from idea to code is basically zero.

which sounds incredible. and it is. but there's a catch.

when making things are too easy, the slop comes for free too. mediocre things don't look obviously bad – they look fine. they work. they ship. they pass review. and now there are infinite of them. the internet is filling up with software that functions but means nothing. interfaces that are correct but feel dead. products made by agents, reviewed by no one, shipped into the void.

this is the thing that keeps me up at night. not that AI will replace people who care. but that it will drown them out.

here's what I still believe: the best things are made by people who couldn't help themselves. someone who lost sleep over an icon. who rewrote the same line of copy twelve times. who added an animation nobody asked for because it made the thing feel right. that obsession – that's not inefficiency. that's the whole point.

AI doesn't make that irrelevant. it actually makes it rarer and more valuable. taste is not a markdown skill. caring is not a parameter. the weird, specific, "soul" thing you put into something – that can't be programmed into existence.

the path forward isn't to make more slop faster. it's to finally give people with real vision the tools to make the thing they always imagined but couldn't build alone. the designer who had the idea but couldn't code. the kid who saw something nobody else saw. the person who cared too much about something most people wouldn't notice.

if we get this right, we don't get a faster factory. we get a renaissance. more strange, personal, opinionated software made by teams of people who care and mean it.

that's still possible. but only if the people who care get the space and tools to actually express themselves – and don't just hand the wheel to the agent and walk away.

[Dan Marcus @Danimalish]

PROJECT HAIL MARY in IMAX 70mm, taken by projectionist Taylor Umphenour. This is what the movies were made for.

[jade rocha @jdercha]

@zehf this is beautiful

[Zeh Fernandes @zehf]

https://t.co/qi2WOaFLU5

[kepano @kepano]

taste is a study of nuance, it requires slowing down

[Mike Matas @mike_matas]

After many years of development, I’m excited to share the interior of the first electric Ferrari designed by LoveFrom. Tactile controls and digital interactions blend into one cohesive interface, shaped through deep collaboration across engineering, interaction, graphics, typography, sound, and industrial design. So incredibly proud of the thoughtfulness and care the team brought to every detail.

https://t.co/JZCleflfu7

[jade rocha @jdercha]

@kepano honestly so stoked about the iOS updates. i literally looked at the roadmap yesterday to have an idea of when you would be shipping those. thank you