I can’t remember who said it, but I once heard that web designers are the rockstars of the future.
Twenty-five years later, I don’t see the panty-dropping, gushing groupies standing behind the designers.
Where are our advocates, as talented people are being made redundant in favour of the promise that AI will replace us?
I realise that the textbook designers – the flat-earthers of our industry left a bad taste in the corporate mouth. But we’re not all that basic, and it’s rather sad, given most of us didn’t just one day decide to learn design.
We spent our entire lives looking at the world through certain eyes. Constantly noticing the details no one else paid attention to. Developing our skills, talent and taste.
The good ones are not a product of a bootcamp – they’re the result of unique journeys, shaped by a school system that didn’t know what to do with us. Pushed into the creative category, told to do art, and expected to accept a future where we’d make pretty things and starve for it.
Long before design had a seat at the table, I passionately pined over club flyers, record covers, the layout and purpose of products of all shapes and sizes. I analysed the typography, the composition, the intent behind how things were made. I studied the techniques of films and the engineering of outdoor gear. I obsessed over the simple logic of navigating a PlayStation menu – how it felt effortless without ever having to think about it.
There is so much that influences the decisions I make in the digital products I build. Every click, every layout, every choice is backed by years of pattern recognition, lived experience, and relentless curiosity.
But who is in my corner?
Who has my back?
And who is standing up for us in rooms we’re not in – to fight for us when we’re not there to do it ourselves?
We were never in this for clout.
But we did hope that, over time, people would understand the weight we carry.
The decisions we make that users never notice – because good design is invisible.
And the cost of stripping us away isn’t just aesthetic. It’s cultural. It’s experiential. It’s human.
We’ve watched design get systemised, templated, and handed over to AI tools that claim they can think like us.
But they weren’t in the trenches.
They didn’t grow up dissecting streetwear tags, cereal box layouts, album sleeves and the shapes of soap bottles.
We did.
We still do.
And we’re still here – asking the same question:
Where are the groupies?