You’ve probably noticed your AI design tools getting weirder. Here’s why that’s happening and what you can do about it. Something strange has been happening with AI design tools over the past few months. That background removal tool that used to work perfectly? Now it occasionally gives you results that look like someone attacked the…
If you’ve been avoiding social media because it feels like a scam, the algorithms just caught up to your instincts. I’ve watched designers torture themselves trying to learn marketing for years (oh, hi, Ira!). They take courses on “growth hacking,” force themselves to post clickbait, and generally feel disgusted about the whole thing. Meanwhile, marketing…
After designing eleven mobile apps that made everyone miserable, I figured out which clients are worth the headache. Five years ago, I’d take any mobile UI UX design services project that walked through the door. SaaS dashboards crammed into phone screens, e-commerce apps with seventeen-step checkout flows, “productivity” apps that required a PhD to understand.…
If you need seventeen different skills just to get an entry-level job, maybe the problem isn’t your qualifications. We are hiring. A designer messaged me last week. She’d been “upskilling” for eight months. Figma courses, design systems bootcamps, user research masterclasses, prototyping workshops. She’d spent more time learning UI UX design skills than actually practicing…
Most banking apps look fantastic when the balance is healthy. Sunlit gradients. Confetti for rounding up. Little fireworks when you tap “paid”. Then the number hits £0 (or worse), and the polish falls off. Tricky language, greyed‑out buttons, pop‑ups with moral undertones. The UI that was keen to celebrate a £3 cashback suddenly becomes shy about fees,…
When “make it pop” meets “increase conversions by 400%” — spoiler: math doesn’t work that way either. Last year I turned down a marketing website project. Six figures. Dream client. The kind of work that pays for nice vacations and good therapy. I said no anyway. Four years ago, I would’ve said yes before they…
Your beautiful portfolio won’t survive first contact with a real stakeholder meeting. Here’s what no UX design in education program wants to admit: most of what they teach you is performance art. You’ll spend months learning to create pixel-perfect prototypes, conducting user interviews about hypothetical problems, and crafting case studies that read like design fiction.…
If you’ve been researching the same problem for three months, you’re not being thorough — you’re being scared. There’s a special kind of hell reserved for product teams drowning in UX iceberg syndrome. You know the type: every decision needs another user interview. Every wireframe requires a deeper dive into personas. Every button placement sparks…
If the demo can’t prove the headline in 60 seconds, change the headline. Most campaigns are expensive fiction. We dream up the perfect customer journey in a conference room that smells like optimism and dry-erase markers. We comp visuals that would make our mothers proud. We buy reach like we’re collecting Pokémon cards. Then someone…
Everyone says they want simple web designs. Then they brief a carousel, three gradients, abstract shapes, and a brand film with soft‑focus office plants. That isn’t simple; that’s a costume. If the page only works when it’s dressed up, it doesn’t work. In simple web design, words and order do the heavy lifting. My rule:…
