In 2019, I wrote a piece in praise of the “un-designed world,” an earnest appreciation of the unnoticed creative choices made by non-designing humans on a daily basis: think food cart menus, out-of-order signs, and bulletin board postings at your local coffee shop. Non-designers can make some pretty ingenious design choices when unencumbered by chasing trends or striving for perfect craft, something that I still believe to this day. It was cathartic to me to put this into words during the peak “blanding” era, and the piece sparked many great conversations with other creatives.
Over the past year, I have noticed an overwhelming trend taking hold of small to medium-sized businesses: the raw human ingenuity of non-designers making design choices has been traded for the dull veneer of AI slop.
