One of my team members is of Iranian descent. The American president threatening civilizational genocide is not a topic in the leadership handbook. This is beyond insanity.

The New Design Skill Stack #044: What to learn and what to keep. Part 4 of Design Your Next Move.

Wrote down some thoughts on how design skill sets need to evolve to meet the moment, including designing for predictive and generative experiences instead of static and deterministic ones. www.systemsandsignals.co/p/the-new-de...

Part of it is that AI "integration" often adds friction to completing basic tasks. Walmart just killed its OpenAI chat bot since it converted 3x worse than its existing website, for example.

The world has ruined April Fools' Day for me. I already can't tell what's real on the daily, why make it worse.

Ah, my favorite time of year: is it the existential dread I'm feeling or just allergies.

Most designers are running career strategies built for stable roles and clear ladders, and that market is gone. New issue on building a Career OS, a living framework for intentional moves instead of reactive ones. systemsandsignals.co/p/why-designers-need-a-career-os-now

Companies Are Laying Off Workers Because of AI’s Potential—Not Its Performance AI has been cited as a cause of layoffs, but is it actually displacing jobs? And if not, what’s going on? Based on a survey of 1,006 global executives in December 2025, AI is behind at least some layoffs,...

55% of CEOs who fired designers "because of AI" already regret it. Most never actually replaced anyone with AI. The anticipatory layoff is doing damage that won't show up until they need to ship something good.

Carbon Design System Carbon is IBM’s open source design system for products and digital experiences. With the IBM Design Language as its foundation, the system consists of working code, design tools and resources, human...

IBM shipped Carbon MCP. Design systems connecting directly to AI coding environments so generated UI stays on-system. If your DS team has to justify headcount, this is part of the answer.

Lifting Iran's sanctions to lower gas prices is the geopolitical equivalent of breaking your own window and paying the kid who sets fires to sweep up the glass.

Designing For Agentic AI: Practical UX Patterns For Control, Consent, And Accountability — Smashing Magazine Autonomy is an output of a technical system. Trustworthiness is an output of a design process. Here are concrete design patterns, operational frameworks, and organizational practices for building agentic...

Smashing Magazine's February piece on agentic UX changed how I think about this. We're no longer just designing screens, we're designing trust protocols, escalation patterns, and how much autonomy a system gets before it checks in.

Design Systems as AI Infrastructure #039: What IBM and SAP's newly launched design system MCP servers mean for how you build and structure your system.

IBM and SAP independently shipped MCP servers for their design systems this quarter, and the fact that they arrived at the same conclusion through completely different architectures says more than either one alone. Wrote about what it means for your system.

www.systemsandsignals.co/p/design-sys...

My work calendar is filled with meetings about using AI more with agendas written by AI. I would like off this train, please.

open.spotify.com/track/5ZbztT...

I think Pokopia reset my nervous system.

You're laughing? Bovino had to go to his second favorite bar, a hollow tree stump where the bartender is a mouse serving raspberry cordial inside cups made out of acorns, and you're laughing

Doom

Doom studio id Software unionizes to secure AI protections, benefits: "We see the direction the industry is headed"
aftermath.site/id-software-un...

Everyone sharing the celebrities from the Epstein photo release while I'm over here being horrified by how cursed this is.

My views on The Butlerian Jihad have softened.

Checking in on Threads.

headline says study finds deep sleep rewires the brain to eliminate anxiety.

A study finds that deep sleep rewires the brain to eliminate anxiety.

My own study suggests that anxiety rewires the brain to eliminate deep sleep.

Look Back hit me right in the feels and made me want to pick up a pencil again. The fact that it's semi-autobiographical and was an outlet for Fujimoto to work through his own grief is clear from the first frame. Absolutely loved it.

Now, time for a pick me up... *turns on A Silent Voice*

Design’s Extra Era: When Expression Outruns Purpose #034: Why design’s return to texture and motion feels more like performance than progress.

Design’s gotten loud again. Glass, gradients, motion everywhere. It’s fun to look at... until you try to use it.

On Apple, Airbnb, and design’s “extra” era: www.systemsandsignals.co/p/designs-ex...

Daring to brave the outside world to see this lil dude on the big screen.

What the management handbook doesn’t prepare you for:

A direct report asks what the company RTO policy is if you could be snatched off the street by ICE on the way to the office for being brown.

These are the times in which we now live.

The Design We Leave Behind #027: Every design choice leaves a trace — in steel, in process, in memory.

Three months in Chicago and I’ve got opinions about the L.

It’s more than transit — it’s memory, a snapshot of who the city once prioritized. Quick fixes became permanent defaults.

Design isn’t just what we admire. It’s what everyone else has to live with. delabar.substack.com/p/the-design...

Spider-sense blindspot.

Design Career OS Guidebook The rules of design are changing fast: AI is automating craft, UI design is becoming a commodity, and titles and tools shift overnight.

AI is automating craft. UI is becoming a commodity. Titles and tools change overnight.

Your design career needs more than a resume and a portfolio. It needs an operating system.

Get The Designer’s Career OS guide for free: www.systemsandsignals.co/p/design-car...

Do Not Design: A Starter List of Ethically Dangerous Employers #015: When elegant systems mask violent outcomes, it’s time to step away from the keyboard.

Not every design job is worth taking.

Some companies build tools for surveillance, deportation, and war — and they need good UX to make it all run smoothly.

My latest covers a handful of tech companies that designers should avoid on ethical grounds. www.systemsandsignals.co/p/do-not-des...

The Invisible Work of Design Leaders #010: Why your job isn’t pixels — it’s patterns, politics, and permission.

Design leadership's true impact lies beyond pixels — in recognizing organizational patterns, managing politics, and providing air cover for teams. It's often invisible work, but crucial for those looking to reach the highest levels of leadership. open.substack.com/pub/delabar/...