I think it's time we're honest with ourselves: this is the year we saw through what's happening with design.

While we were obsessing over how design should be implemented within organizations and were captivated by the fact that design was finally understood as a key business function for creating value, the business had other plans. We received support to grow, but only in those aspects of design that serve the business (the operational side of design), not necessarily those that push our profession forward (even though we were led to believe the support was actually meant for that). 

Business elevated design to great heights, only to brutally bring it down once they understood it enough, and stripped it for whatever they could use.

This great betrayal of design manifests primarily through the fact that designers are no longer the owners of design. They produce it and work on it, but it's not theirs. So quietly that almost no one noticed, we've surrendered design decisions to algorithms and marketers. Final moves are no longer made by designers with their instinct, experience, taste, and expertise — instead, decisions are made by growth marketers armed with "A/B tests" and "conversion metrics." Designers deliver solutions at an initial version level, which these marketers then take and shape into their final form — an amalgamation of the fulfilment of different desires, requirements, and wants. 

Business didn't start respecting design or accept it as a function of success; rather, it realized it could benefit from certain aspects of design, and found ways to operationalize them. They invested exclusively in those parts of design they could manage, measure, and optimize.

Fair, but well... it sucks.

Today, the only design process that has legitimacy is the one that will show measurable signals the fastest. Design is no longer about craft and expertise — it's become just another item in the endless list of things to optimize.

The message is crystal clear: business wants more efficient design.

This has led to design commoditization reaching a level where practicing design becomes a race to the bottom; who can do more for less.

A topic we can't and shouldn't ignore. This technology will change how people create things. No one can dispute that anymore - it's here and it's not going anywhere.

The execution of design has been forever changed once again, but this time perhaps most drastically, even more than the shift from manual to digital. We've seen similar changes recently, when responsive design emerged, when the first visual editors enabled "no-code" website creation, when various design kits, systems, themes, and templates flooded the market. All of these gradually made design more accessible to people with less and less experience in it.

The commoditization of design continues relentlessly. Agents, services, and AI as a technology that's increasingly becoming an integral part of our daily tools - they're all slowly but surely turning parts of our craft into something that can be automated, and as a result, trivialized.

I know we dreamed of "magic wands" that would make our work easier, but now that we have them, we never imagined these wands would be available to people who don't really know how to use them. AI is that magic wand.

Let's be realistic: huge parts of the market will be served through these tools and their output — I call this “AI slop”. We're on the edge of a massive transformation of the market and design services themselves.

For us as a service business, this represents a tectonic shift. It's impossible that you haven't noticed this during this year, considering Superawesome's operations. If you've talked to anyone in the design service business who claims their workload hasn't decreased in 2024, I firmly believe that person is lying. 

Don't get me wrong, Superawesome isn't an anti-AI luddite. Will we use AI technology in our work? Definitely yes, if we can justify it and if it fits our current context. Will we surrender to the possibilities of this technology and let it define the limits of what we can do? Definitely not.

OK, enough gloom, let's get back to the essence, that first impulse that got us into design in the first place. And yes, maybe it sounds a bit romantic, but sometimes we need a little romance to recalibrate ourselves.

At Superawesome, we're now taking a clear stance: we're a design agency that does things AI cannot.

Not out of spite or fear, but from a deep conviction that there are aspects of design that machines won't easily — or ever — master. And that's exactly where we see our chance for survival.

What does this mean specifically?

We'll focus on those parts of the design process that aren't yet ready for optimization and automation. These are primarily the early phases of product development (in the broader sense), when thinking outside the box is necessary. These are the moments when a client says "we need something completely new" or "we're stuck, and we need to drastically change direction." These are situations that require more than efficiency — they need creativity and an open mind that dares to challenge their assumptions and beliefs.

Today, we dare to question the assumption that all design needs to be is efficient, usable, and foolproof, and that after achieving these it can be considered a "solved problem." In fact, our position is that this is fundamentally wrong. 

Efficiency is a great quality, as is usability. Error resistance too. But none guarantees effectiveness, and effectiveness isn't something you can prompt for. Effectiveness requires someone to dig in, get dirty — regardless of qualifications — to solve the given problem.

And let's be clear, only humans can do that. 

We've been searching for our niche for a long time, and after much wandering and headbanging against the wall, I think we've finally found it. It wasn't where we were looking: in some specific industry. It's where people understand that design isn't just a subject for optimization, and one item in a larger process to be checked off as done. 

Our niche is people who want to work with other people, who want to create success together, and believe that design gives them a competitive advantage because design communicates ideas and visions at a higher level than marketing ever could. 

Right there, at that intersection of creativity and strategy, that's where we are. When someone can't, we can. When someone doesn't know how, we know how.

The coming year will demand enormous changes and adaptations from designers — creatives in general. But let's not compete with technology, let's do the things it will never be able to do.

It's simple, all it takes is all we've got. 

Thank you so much for being part of this collective while we made another loop around the Sun. Who knows what cards we'll be dealt for the next one, but what matters is that we keep playing. 

Happy New Year.