Kirk from UI Collective

I spent 2.5 years racking up 2+ million views teaching design systems & UX design on YouTube. Now bringing that same energy to X. youtube.com/@UICollectiveDes…

The first designers AI replaces won’t be juniors It’ll be the ones whose only contribution is reviewing junior work and scheduling meetings about it

2020: “Designers should learn to code.” 2026: “Designers should learn AI.” 2028: “Designers should learn to design.”

client said “make it feel more modern” and I’ve been staring at an empty frame for 40 minutes

You can be the designer shipping with AI this week, or the designer explaining in Slack why AI is overrated. Pick one.

In 2 years, is “Figma expert” on a resume going to hit like “proficient in Microsoft Word”?

If AI can replace your design with one prompt, it was never design. It was layout.

Your first 3 weeks in corporate design: IT ticket for a Figma seat. IT ticket for brand font access. IT ticket asking why your IT ticket got closed. Nothing actually designed

a PM once told me the design was perfect and then asked if we could try it in blue I still think about that

There’s a whole generation of designers who’ve never felt Sketch crash with 2 hours of unsaved work.

Corporate design is where a “fast-paced environment” means a six-week review of different button placements

Anyone else present wireframes and spend the next 20 minutes explaining that the gray boxes aren’t the final design?

How should this work with a keyboard? What should a screen reader announce? These details belong in your design handoff. In my latest video, I walk through using Figma annotations to communicate accessibility requirements to developers.

2020: “Which Figma plugin did you use for that?” 2026: “Which AI model did you use for that?”

Every big company has a Confluence page called “Design Principles” last edited by someone who left in 2021.

6 months of research. 40 interviews. 3 rounds of user testing. Overruled by a 60 year old who “doesn't like the green.”

Corporate Executive: “Why do we need designers when AI can do this?” Also a Corporate Executive: “Why does our product look like everyone else’s?”

Execs want “data-driven design” right up until the data disagrees with them

our design system has 300 components and someone still built a custom button today

In 2 years, half of “AI-first” design jobs will be cleaning up what the AI actually designed first