Notes · James Andrew Smith
Floods don’t lower the floor. They raise the ceiling.
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Floods like this don’t lower the floor. They raise the ceiling.
In July 1985 PageMaker shipped, and anyone with a Mac could set a page. Massimo Vignelli told Gary Hustwit what came next: “Everybody became a designer.” He called the result “visual pollution”. In the same answer he said the computer allowed the best typography ever done.
Both were true. The floor filled up with bad work. The best work got better than it had ever been, because the tool stopped being the hard part and the eye became the whole job.
AI is the same flood, bigger and faster. In early 2025, Figma’s survey of its own users found only 31% of designers used AI in their core work, against 59% of developers. It’s coming either way.
Everyone worries about the floor. The ceiling moves up for anyone who already knew what good looked like, and that’s where the work will be.
What did the last flood do for your craft?
What are your thoughts?
First published on LinkedIn, 26 October 2026.
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