how ai is breaking all the rules (and what designers are doing about it)
signal over noise. edition: august 14, 2025
hey folks,
back with another curated drop from a generalist. here’s what caught my eye this week across design, ai, and creative tech. as always, the goal is to give you the best reads, tools, and inspiration in one place.
1. designing perplexity: ai changes everything
luke wroblewski shares notes from henry modisett’s talk on designing ai products at perplexity. the big idea: ai is flipping the script on how we build software. traditional design processes don’t cut it anymore—speed, unpredictability, and product mechanics matter more than pixel-perfect ui. designers are now working directly with products and prompts, not just mockups. if you want a crash course on the new reality of building with ai, this is a must-read.
2. portfolio spotlight: shreya rege’s multidisciplinary creative work
shreya rege’s portfolio is a reminder that great design thrives at the intersection of disciplines. from motion and 3d/game work to ui/ux, art direction, and social content, shreya’s projects are a solid dose of creative energy. if you’re looking for portfolio inspiration or want to see how a modern digital creative blends art, tech, and storytelling—check this out for your next spark.
3. the vault by design originals club: ai experiments by designers
we at design originals club run the vault - a growing showcase of products and experiments built by designers using ai. we’ve added a bunch of new products in the last few days, so if you’re building with ai or just want to see what’s possible, check it out. it’s completely free, curated, and open for submissions. if you’re working on something cool, we’d love to feature it.
4. replit: best ai coding tool for beginners
avthar’s breakdown of replit as an ai coding tool is super practical for anyone getting started. the tutorial covers ideation, prototyping, request queues, rollback, visual editing, and more. replit makes it easy to go from idea to deployed app in a single afternoon. if you’re curious about ai-powered coding or want to experiment with building your own tools, this is a solid place to start.
recently, we did an ama with charmie kapoor (design at razorpay, previously at microsoft, harvard university, unacademy). it was a live, super interactive session where she talked about using ai in the design workflow at razorpay, how designers are leveraging ai, doing her masters at harvard, and a bunch of other great insights.
if you want access to the recording, just reply to this email and i’ll share it with you.
cheers,
shivam
loved the blog around designing perplexity.
also, really appreciate the new format !!!
i love this format - thank you for this bouquet links with your thoughts.
one fear with the new tools I feel is the trap of optimization - these tools surely helps little tinkering is fine but without a good personal workflow or a focus on fundamentals/first principles it can turn into mess and time drain. Speaking from my personal experience of over optimizing tools for the personal use for eg notion.