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jabroni_saladtoday at 4:07 PM1 replyview on HN

A lot of design is kind of rote and boilerplate and has been for ages.

The original cliparts were paper books. Designers would clip out the pictures they want, glue them to their master document, and then run it through a photocopier. Then later we had the big hero web templates and stock images. Even though every person involved has an excellent camera in their pocket, the thought of using it was unbearable compared to just downloading a stock image. Then we got canva which was basically the perfection of cliparts and stock images.

Now we have AI web design. It's just the newest step of the least exciting 'something needs to exist but its form is mostly without value' category of "content", which is itself a category so devoid of meaning that nobody doing it even bothers to give themselves the title of 'designer' or 'writer' or 'illustrator', instead self labeling as 'content creator'.

For what it's worth though, I find AI designs to be mostly okay? They aren't exciting but at least the ultra low contrast design era is finally over and I can finally have usable scrollbars and easily find the login button on most websites now.


Replies

bensyversontoday at 4:21 PM

Exactly… people were complaining about every startup website using the same basic format and shadcn for years before AI-assisted design ever became so prevalent.