Today's design workflow looks like 2005
It was true 20 years ago with Photoshop and it's true today with Claude Code.
The current design workflow reminds me of how we worked 20 years ago.
Back then, we used Photoshop, a photo editing app, to design interfaces. We used Flash, an animation app, to build websites.
Now we’re using Terminal and IDEs like Cursor and VSCode to design.
In both cases, we use tools that were not intended for designers but ended up being the best way to do our work. Then and now, the high friction of bending non-design tools to design work is worth the gain in output.
However, while designers always put so much focus on their tools, tools were never the long-term edge for designers.
Shreyas Doshi writes:
Tools have never been a significant source of alpha in product success and that is not changing with AI tools.
The same is true for design. In the long term, everybody switches from Photoshop to Sketch, from Sketch to Figma, and so on.
Eventually, everyone will catch up, even with the AI tools.
Zoom out, and you’ll see that your advantage was always in your judgement, agency, and ability to work well with other people – never in tools.
If you’re enjoying my writing, check out my books.
Great perspective, I have been following your work and writing from years. Really help in navigating as an early career designer, thanks!
The Photoshop-to-Figma line lands because every one of those migrations felt like an edge for about eighteen months, then became table stakes. Cursor and Claude Code will run the same arc. What I’d add to the Shreyas point: the tool churn does change one thing, which is who gets to design at all. Lower friction pulls in people who’d never have opened Photoshop, and the judgment gap between them and a senior designer gets more visible, not less. So the tool stops being the differentiator and taste becomes the whole game. Which is roughly what you’re saying from the other side: the flood of capable tools is exactly what makes judgment scarce and valuable again.