This aligns with my experience. 2026 is one of the most exciting times in my entire career. I feel more empowered than ever before. Things that used to be slow, difficult, or impossible are now almost effortless. If you can articulate your ideas clearly, they can probably exist.
one thing i noticed after a month of calls with designers is a weird generation gap between people who are scared of ai and people who are excited about it
you would expect younger designers to be more into ai, but it’s often the opposite. the most excited people i meet have been in design for 12+ years
designers with about 5 years of experience came into a world that was stable: big design teams, enterprise jobs, high salaries, and a slow process of design systems and jira tasks. ai is a huge risk if you define design work around components. it’s pure production, it needs to be automated, and it was an anomaly from the start
people who started 12+ years ago saw a design world without any of that. small freelance gigs, low pay, and no way to do 3d or animation on your own. but they had a lot of ideas, and that’s why they came. they worked in photoshop cs3 and indesign and downloaded brushes from the internet
now design is going back to what it should be. not a huge layer of production, but meaning, purpose and form
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This as been one of the biggest unlocks for me in collaborating with AI.
@adamwathan Ephemeral adjustment panels in the software you're designing.
Prompt: "please create a floating adjustment panel with sliders for these variables [list], and a button to copy all settings as JSON"
Turn on and off, and change variables as needed. Paste JSON back to agent.
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I credit my AI collaborators the same way I credit my human collaborators.
"Type Case was designed by benbarry.com and built in collaboration with Claude and ChatGPT."
Being clear and upfront in this way is quite refreshing. As opposed to panning off some slopped-out web app as a great innovation or invention.
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I’ve worked with Joe on projects in the past, and I always appreciated and respected his perspective, but I think this post is disgraceful.
It’s never easy having your work criticized, but you’re in a leadership role, and you have a responsibility to set a better example.
It’s never easy having your work criticized, but you’re in a leadership role, and you have a responsibility to set a better example.
@pdotcv Hi, when you are done fiddling, please send resume of top crest designer. Make sure they can do better than the 1782 official national emblem of the United States. Maybe stick to sass apps.
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Today, I’m releasing Nestag! It’s an app that lets you visualize Finder tags as containers in nested hierarchies (kinda like folders).
I actually created this app with AI back in February. It’s an app I have dreamt of having for nearly a decade.
nestag.app
I actually created this app with AI back in February. It’s an app I have dreamt of having for nearly a decade.
nestag.app
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TBH, I'm way more proud of helping @thefieldcompany raise $1.6M on Kickstarter in 2016.
They've created some of my very favorite kitchen tools.
They've created some of my very favorite kitchen tools.
Recently, I've noticed a bunch of designer portfolios highlighting how many millions of dollars the startups they've branded have raised.
So, I did some quick back-of-the-envelope calculations for my past clients. Currently at ~$188 billion...
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Today I'm releasing Type Case, a simple font manager for macOS. With Type Case, you can browse source folders, activate and deactivate fonts, and create custom collections.
typecase.app
typecase.app
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Barriers that have stood my entire life are dissolving before our eyes. The computer programming language is now natural language!
What started as a todo list app, has become more of a mind tool for visually and spatially oriented thinkers.
Download at mem.management
What started as a todo list app, has become more of a mind tool for visually and spatially oriented thinkers.
Download at mem.management
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Ben Barry retweeted
I’m so excited to announce that I’ll be co-teaching Brand and Visual Identity with @benbarry next Fall.
It’s an honor, and I can’t wait to teach young people how to design and build new worlds.
✨
It’s an honor, and I can’t wait to teach young people how to design and build new worlds.
✨
Today, we’re launching an ambitious new school called The Horowitz Andreessen Academy.
Based in San Francisco, The Academy serves the most promising young high school graduates.
We think this can be an elite institution that attracts top tier talent. One that prepares students han remaining stuck in the past.
The #1 goal is to help students learn to build, which is the most important skill in the AI era. They'll learn primarily by pursuing their own projects, either individually or in groups. There are classes and guest lectures, too, from some truly amazing people who have built modern-day Silicon Valley.
The Academy is designed as a network, since that’s the reason students go to school in the first place. Core to that network are our 10 Founding Partners: Anduril, Anthropic, Coinbase, Google, Meta, NVIDIA, OpenAI, Palantir, Replit, and Stripe. The network includes over 50 hiring partners and over 200 speakers and mentors. To join as a hiring partner or faculty member, you can apply on our website.
We raised $42M in funding led by @a16z. I'll be CEO and @pmarca and @eriktorenberg will join me on the board.
Applications are open for our Founding Class Fellowship, which will be one year and tuition-free. Eventually, pending regulatory approval, we plan to offer a two-year program that charges tuition, similar in cost to an elite private university.
We're looking for the most unusually ambitious young builders on the planet. Come join us in San Francisco:
theacademysf.com
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I already selected the text, so I don't need it shown next to the "Copy" action. It makes it harder for me to visually scan the menu and select the action.
A good example IMO of designers thinking they are making things better, but actually making them worse.
@googlechrome
A good example IMO of designers thinking they are making things better, but actually making them worse.
@googlechrome
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For years, I've had this slide of a freeze frame from the Social Network in my public presentations, joking that it was probably the closest I would get to being in a major motion picture. I guess I'll have to update it soon...
@DiscussingFilm @benbarry congrats on the Hollywood t-shirt appearance!
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Love this. Nice work @iansilber and team! The launch video is great too. Excited to try it!
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