Every designer, at some point, faces a quiet tension between two instincts: the obsession with craft and the discipline of scale. Some of the most interesting careers I have studied, and some of the most instructive failures, come down to how people navigate that pull. The intersection of AI and design management has brought that tension into sharper focus than ever before. Over the past several months, I have witnessed a meaningful shift, not just in tools, but in the very philosophy of how design operates within product organisations. What follows are my observations, opinions, and reflections drawn from my day-to-day work and conversations with designers and leaders across the APAC region.
The role of the designer is changing.
Digital and product design take on distinct personalities depending on the organisation. If you work within a product or tech company that owns and ships its own product, you have likely noticed the same signals I have over the past several months. And across other disciplines, in advertising agencies, and in freelance-driven industries, the signs of a broader shift are equally visible.
My work revolves around design management, leading core projects, and personally crafting the select few that demand the highest level of attention, the cherry saved for the end of the dessert. While we have always pursued the highest-quality design we can achieve, we have also taken on a new mandate: radical efficiency at the core. This is not a new concept in business or product environments, but when applied to the language of craft and detail-driven design, it can feel counterintuitive. I understand that instinct; I held it myself early in my career. A single illustration destined for a product advertising banner or UI could be deeply detailed, shaped by the brand's personality, and I would pour everything into achieving it. Today, taking on that same project requires weighing production efficiency at scale and calculating downstream impact across the broader body of work.
Does that mean craft takes a back seat?
Definitely not. I see it as craft finding its most efficient route by eliminating unnecessary drag. Traditional detail-crafting methodology begins with ideas, an almost infinite number of iterations, and, in a corporate or large product company, often ends up with the most popular option for the team, not necessarily the best one. It is an inherently slow process. Over the last few years, as product design has opened up and welcomed a more diverse range of disciplines and skill sets, it has gradually created an environment where the most agreeable visual representation wins over the most purposefully directed one. While this is debatable on its own merits, it has pushed designers to come better prepared, with more options. Unlike the past, you can no longer rely on a single, beloved first concept. You need to bring work that is fully considered, contextually grounded, and resilient to critique.
Definitely not. I see it as craft finding its most efficient route by eliminating unnecessary drag. Traditional detail-crafting methodology begins with ideas, an almost infinite number of iterations, and, in a corporate or large product company, often ends up with the most popular option for the team, not necessarily the best one. It is an inherently slow process. Over the last few years, as product design has opened up and welcomed a more diverse range of disciplines and skill sets, it has gradually created an environment where the most agreeable visual representation wins over the most purposefully directed one. While this is debatable on its own merits, it has pushed designers to come better prepared, with more options. Unlike the past, you can no longer rely on a single, beloved first concept. You need to bring work that is fully considered, contextually grounded, and resilient to critique.
"If efficiency is not yet part of your ideation mindset, now is the time to make it one"
So, how has the process actually become more efficient? Group-based ideation and consensus-driven decision making carry significant drawbacks. Until equilibrium is reached, the process cycles, and, as I mentioned, it does not always arrive at the best outcome. It can also erode designer confidence and enthusiasm, gradually nudging output toward the most popular version rather than the most purposeful one. Modern SaaS and AI tools have changed this dramatically. If you are embedded in a product-driven team and actively using AI as a working companion, you have already closed several of those gaps. Research, feedback tracking, sprint performance, and rapid prototyping are now deeply supported by tooling, leading to fewer dead ends and less time lost between stages. A designer who once returned to the studio with three static options after a tough creative review can now come back to the next session with two animated variants, comments addressed, and momentum intact. That was a distant fantasy for craft-driven designers even a few years ago.
If efficiency is not yet part of your ideation mindset, now is the time to make it one.
Dealing with AI
Dealing with AI is odd, more than it is hard. I have found myself approaching it from multiple angles simultaneously, as a traditional designer adapting familiar tools to a new medium, as a builder looking for the next meaningful application, and occasionally as the person who just wants a full homepage layout generated from two lines of a prompt. Each approach yields its own kind of output. But none of them, on their own, has moved the needle on what I would call inner satisfaction.
The Purpose and satisfaction
Designers are driven by one of two things: an innate sensibility for visual thinking that may well be tied to how we are wired, or a mastered competency that becomes central to our identity: communication, confidence, relentless effort. When you have one of these and put it into practice, something clicks. You refine more, push further, defend your work, and stand behind it. You believe in the purpose. You seek satisfaction. I believe these two things must remain constant for a designer to stay relevant in any era. The more you distance yourself from meaningful work by offloading it entirely to AI, the harder it becomes to sustain that sense of purpose. That is why even when output volume is high, the connection to the final piece feels hollow if AI was not engaged systematically and intentionally throughout the process, rather than used as a shortcut.
AI, your coach that pushed you to the limits.
If you have ever trained with an athletic coach or practised a sport seriously, you will recognise this dynamic: being pushed toward goals you cannot yet fully see. The goals are yours, but the coach provides the structure, the schedule, and the accountability to keep moving. The real drive still comes from within. AI is playing a similar role for purposeful designers today; it pushes them to fire on more cylinders than before. Illustrators are moving beyond static work and adding motion to their creations. Icon designers are exploring scalability mechanisms well beyond their standard stacks. UI designers are going into levels of detail informed by AI critique and conversion optimisation learnings. The pace of this evolution is accelerating, and it is happening right now.
The designer I want to be,
In the mid-19th century, two figures emerged from the early oil industry with very different legacies. Edwin L. Drake is widely credited as the pioneer who cracked the technical puzzle of oil drilling, the man who opened the door to the modern petroleum industry. John D. Rockefeller, on the other hand, was obsessed not with extraction but with systems, logistics, and efficiency, and as a result, built one of the most dominant industrial empires in history. Both were driven by deep conviction, but in fundamentally different directions. It is a fascinating chapter of history, but I bring it up because it reveals how we build careers. We are naturally drawn to Rockefeller’s model, the scale, the order, the compounding impact. Yet Drake’s relentless obsession with solving a hard technical problem, his pure will and grit, is not something to dismiss lightly.
The designer in me is constantly drawn to the depths of craft, the alleys of art, and the sheer pleasure of making things that carry purpose. That remains the foundation of my design philosophy. But the years I have spent working in Singapore have taught me an enormous amount about scaling, planning, and leading wider teams. When I map that onto the analogy above, I find myself somewhere between Drake and Rockefeller, driven by the craftsman's obsession, but increasingly fluent in the language of systems and scale.
The designer I want to be is that Frankenstein figure: someone who can go deep into the craft without losing sight of the broader organisational impact, who can lead a team with the efficiency of a systems thinker while still defending the purpose behind every pixel. In an era where AI is accelerating both the pace of creation and the pressure to scale, I believe that combination is not just valuable, it is what separates design leadership that endures from design execution that gets replaced. The designers and leaders who will matter most in the next decade are those who refuse to choose between Drake and Rockefeller, and instead learn to operate as both.
