🌀 Sentinels of the Sacred: Designers at the Threshold of Technology & Truth

“What is the soul of a creative life? Embracing messiness.” -Debbie Millman 

In this era of speculative and compound acceleration, we find ourselves jolted by a breathtaking technocentric defibrillation of AI. In recovering after the surge, let us choose to slow down — to catch our breath, steady our hands, and listen for the quiet return of our heartbeat, as it finds its rhythm again. In that rhythm, we reconnect with the wisdom of our bodies — reminding us who we are, and what we are here to create with our own divine hands.

Who are we becoming?

As I wrestle with what Design means today, I acknowledge that we are in a time in our history when it is accepted and celebrated that algorithms can pixel paint dreams and artificial intelligence simulates conscious connection. And amidst such claims we are once again forced to ask a deeply human question: Who are we becoming? 

Artificial Intelligence is reshaping industries. This we know and admit. It is also redefining creativity, expression, and how we make meaning in the world. What once took years to craft and master—illustration, storytelling, composing, designing, writing—can now be supposedly spun up in seconds by a machine. And, while many are growing increasingly excited about this, it also spurs a great debate. Between the absolutists and the traditionalists. And is anyone tuning into the debate? Many tech companies would prefer you not, because evidently something so essential is missing in all this tech-infused talk of speed and precision.

That “something” is soul. 

It is our first breath and brush of creativity. Pure and unpredictable. Like the awaited fall from a trapeze - seldom graceful, always grateful. Just ask Debbie Millman whose journey to creativity accompanies me on many walks these days as I discern why design matters more than ever. 

And as we are increasingly barraged with mimicry and the mockery of mastery, thanks to AI, I fear that we are forgetting how to breathe, how to let go and trust, and certainly how to create. We are at a turning point, or as the Greeks say, a crisis. And it demands a sentinel of all that is sacred and soon to be scarce.   

Step forward for the reaping.

And while not in it for the fanfare, nor the added obligation, Designers must step forward in this all call—not as technicians, but as spiritual stewards. This is no longer just about shaping user experiences, once table stakes.  We are in need of trustworthy sherpas shaping our human experiences, forging footsteps in the midst of an unprecedented shift and silicon storms gathering on the horizon.

Designers are now being called into and toward something sacred: the preservation of our humanity in an increasingly automated world. This is the daunting and divine right of the Designer: make things beautiful and usable, but also make them meaningful.

No pressure. In a world that prizes scale, speed, and optimization, Designers must hold space for nuance, empathy, and reflection. And then defend it. Their role is both the offense and defense position. And now they stand at the bullhorn to ask different questions:

• Are we designing systems that include everyone?

• Are we honoring human complexity, or reducing it?

• Are we allowing space for expression, or merely imitation?

Hold the tension & our attention.

When faced with questions, start with truths to hold the tension and direct attention where needed: 

• Design is no longer a tool of innovation—it is a force of remembrance.

• Designers, alongside poets, are now the ones who must embed humanity into what we build, and how we barter. 

• To resist the flattening of our stories into data points and deal points, Designers must create that which cannot be caricatured, captured or kidnapped. 

• Every Designer must be emboldened and empowered, with facts, to challenge the assumption that AI-generated efficiency equals progress. 

• Designers must spend long hours at their drafting tables, reaching across the canvas to create plans that leave room for mystery, contradiction, and grace. Our very survival may depend on it. 

• To be a Designer is to spend time in the paradox of choice and circumstance, not just holding how to move forward, but holding how to move forward with integrity, and also holding the tension between pragmatism and idealism, presence and foresight. 

Designers are exhausted. And rightly so. 

As Maria Popova described so beautifully in conversation with Debbie Millman, disillusionment comes when you have to make sense of the world all on your own. And when choice goes from near zero to near infinity (as we have seen with AI), the immediate sensation is one of overwhelm. 

And that is never a place from whence we can create. And this is an ecosystem we expect Designers to somehow thrive in, much less survive in? And perhaps all on their own then, they are left with hope. But as Debbie Millman reflected so powerfully, “Hope without critical thinking is naïveté. But critical thinking without hope is cynicism.” It is almost like a no-win situation for Designers. 

It feels like we are in a time when technology companies just churn out the “different” to be distinct. Not all that different. And now, it falls to the very human Designer, whose labor of love is to pursue the better over the different—not merely by novelty, but also in care. Not allowing the questions to stop at the border of what can be done, but pushing further beyond the boundaries to understand what should be done. And why it matters.

“It’s very easy to be different, but very difficult to be better.” - Jony Ive

So, here we stand. 

Designers didn’t necessarily sign up to be caretakers, but here we are. 

This isn’t just a job. It’s an unwritten mission. One many Designers did not sign up for, but are standing up for. 

So, if AI is to be the accepted architect of capability, then the human, heart-beating Designer is the guardian of conscience. It is through their lens that we remember technology’s highest calling: not to replace us, but to reflect our deepest values back to us.

So, to the Designers out there: You are the edge walkers, the culture keepers, the storytellers of what it means to be human. And in this era of rapid change, your craft is sacred. May we work to keep it so. 

Design not merely for function—but for soul.

Let that be your brief.

“Design is about deliberate intention and choice.” - Debbie Millman