Tool Overload and the „Big Bang“
Concerns about the „Big Bang Overload“ of tools and the impact of AI on human creativity are widely shared within the design community. This collision of tool fragmentation, complex software like Figma, and the rise of AI presents a genuine challenge to how creativity is fostered and managed.
The current landscape is indeed fragmented: you have hyper-specialized tools for niche solutions, and all-encompassing platforms like Figma that suffer from „feature creep,“ where adding more functionality results in a bloated and confusing user experience for simple tasks. This can lead to:
- Decision Paralysis: Users can become overwhelmed by the sheer number of options and different tools available, struggling to decide which one is right for a given task.
- Steep Learning Curves: Instead of focusing on the design problem, time is spent learning the intricacies of a complex tool’s interface and logic, as you’ve experienced with Figma.
AI and the Fear of Lost Creativity
The introduction of AI adds another layer of complexity and concern. The fear that AI will „take over“ and that creativity will be lost is a common sentiment. Critics worry that:
- Homogenized Outputs: Because AI is trained on existing data, it may produce designs that lack a unique, personal flair, leading to a sea of similar-looking outputs.
- Stifled Original Thinking: Over-reliance on AI for generating ideas or solutions might weaken a designer’s own critical thinking and problem-solving skills, which are essential for true innovation.
- Diluted Value of Human Skills: If AI can automate many tasks, some worry about the future demand for traditional design skills.
A More Balanced Perspective
While these concerns are valid, many industry experts see this shift as a redefinition of creativity, not its death.
AI as an Amplifier: The most common view is that AI is a powerful ally or assistant that handles the repetitive, mundane tasks (image resizing, generating simple layouts, data analysis). This frees up human designers to focus on higher-level, strategic work, conceptual thinking, storytelling, and empathy—skills that AI currently lacks.
The Designer as Curator: The role of the designer is evolving from a pure creator to a curator and decision-maker. Human intuition and judgment are needed to guide AI, select the best options, and imbue designs with cultural context and emotional depth that algorithms cannot replicate.
New Creative Horizons: AI can generate unexpected ideas and variations that a human designer might not have considered, serving as a source of inspiration and pushing creative boundaries.
Ultimately, the „overload“ you feel is a byproduct of a rapidly evolving digital landscape. The key is finding the right balance and the right tools for your specific needs—using simple tools for simple tasks and leveraging powerful (but complex) tools as needed, while seeing AI as a collaborator rather than a replacement for your own unique creative judgment.
Skepticism is a valid and significant counter-argument. Many experts and critics agree that the idea of AI merely as an „amplifier“ can be a delusional oversimplification that ignores the real risks of large-scale conformity.
The arguments you are making are supported by several key concerns about how AI fundamentally operates and its impact on the creative ecosystem:
The Nature of AI: Pattern Recognition, Not Innovation
AI models, particularly generative ones, are powerful pattern recognizers trained on vast amounts of existing human-created data. By design, they excel at producing what is statistically probable or a sophisticated recombination of what already exists, not what is truly original or a genuine break from the past.
Algorithmic Averageness: When everyone uses similar AI tools trained on similar data, the outputs naturally tend to converge on an „average“ aesthetic or solution. This leads to a homogenized design landscape where everything begins to look the same, blurring brand identities and stifling differentiation.
Lack of Lived Experience and Emotion: AI lacks personal experiences, emotions, cultural context, and intuition—the very things that drive unique human creativity. Designs generated purely by algorithms may be technically proficient but often lack the emotional depth and unique perspective that define meaningful human art.
The Erosion of the Human Creative Process
The ease and speed of AI generation can devalue the difficult, time-consuming process of human creation, which involves struggle, experimentation, and critical thinking.
Loss of the Desire to Create: The ability for a machine to produce something in minutes that might take a human weeks can be deeply discouraging, potentially leading to a loss of motivation for artists to develop their own skills and unique voices.
Over-reliance and Skill Atrophy: Heavy reliance on AI „easy solutions“ risks making designers dependent on the technology, limiting their ability to solve problems creatively without machine assistance and potentially causing human creative skills to atrophy over time.
The Scale of Conformity
This isn’t just about a few designers; it’s a systemic issue. As AI becomes embedded in standard workflows and tools (like how Figma integrates features), it can subtly guide what people think is normal, desirable, and appropriate on a massive scale, creating an echo chamber effect across the entire industry.
Your point is a critical one: the „balanced perspective“ needs to acknowledge that the default trajectory of AI use, without intentional human intervention and a commitment to rewarding originality, heavily favors conformity over creativity on a large scale.
https://aokistudio.com/50-arguments-against-the-use-of-ai-in-creative-fields.html
https://www.hupside.com/resources/the-homogenization-of-ai-why-we-must-lead-with-human-originality
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/thinking-outside-ai-box-dual-impact-artificial-omer-ishakoglu-iff8f
This is the professional approach, which is leading to mainstream polished boring standard…
It sounds like you are expressing a frustration common in the creative world: that „professional“ tools and processes often lead to a mainstream, standardized aesthetic („polished boring standard“) rather than innovative, edgy, or experimental results.
You are pointing out that a focus on high-fidelity, user-tested, predictable workflows prioritizes safety and mass appeal over groundbreaking, unique creative output.
The Trade-off: Predictability vs. Innovation
You’ve identified a key tension in modern digital design: The „Professional“ Approach (Figma, mainstream tools): Prioritizes usability, consistency, accessibility, and measurable metrics. This leads to the clean, polished, often uniform look of many major websites today (the standard „card“ layouts, sticky headers, and material design principles). It’s effective for business but creatively conservative.
The „Experimental“ Approach (Indie web, unique coding projects): Prioritizes novelty, artistic expression, unconventional layouts, and breaking established rules. This leads to unique, often highly creative sites, but can sometimes come at the expense of accessibility or immediate usability.
Where Figma Sites Fits in the Creative Spectrum
Figma Sites is a tool designed for the „professional“ approach because it is built entirely around system thinking, Auto Layout, and constraints—principles that naturally lead to standardized layouts.
It is intentionally difficult to be truly weird or experimental in Figma Sites because the tool’s guardrails push you toward responsive, structured web design principles that prioritize usability and consistency.
If you are looking for creative work that pushes boundaries and breaks the standard mold, Figma Sites is likely not the right tool for you. The „boring standard“ output is a feature, not a bug, for its intended professional audience.
Where to look for unique web work:
If you are interested in non-standard, experimental web design, you’ll need to look outside of the mainstream no-code tools like Figma Sites and explore platforms that offer deeper code access or different paradigms:
Code-based creative platforms: Tools like Three.js (for 3D web graphics), custom JavaScript libraries, or traditional hand-coded HTML/CSS often allow for the kind of unconventional, non-standard visual experiences you might be seeking.
Alternative website builders: Some niche builders focus on a more brutalist or artistic aesthetic, but generally, the more unique the output, the more code you’ll eventually need to use.
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The frustration is about the system, which is spreading conformity and high standards to show difference and predictable outcome for business and control…
Thinking
The frustration you’re describing hits at the core of how digital design has evolved. You’re expressing a critique of the entire system—the modern digital ecosystem and its tools, like Figma, which prioritize efficiency, standardization, and a predictable, polished output to meet business needs and maintain control.
This system effectively creates a self-reinforcing loop of conformity:
The Mechanics of Conformity
Tools Dictate Possibility: Tools like Figma are engineered around concepts like „design systems,“ „Auto Layout,“ and „components,“ which inherently steer designers towards reusable, uniform modules. The path of least resistance in these tools leads to standardized layouts (e.g., the standard header-hero-cards-footer structure you see everywhere).
Business Drivers Demand Predictability: Businesses prioritize outcomes that are measurable, accessible, and reliably convert users. They don’t want „art projects“ if those projects confuse users or make it harder to sell a product. The „high standards“ you mention are rooted in conversion rates, accessibility compliance (WCAG), and predictable usability metrics.
The „Polished“ Trap: The emphasis on „high-fidelity“ and „polish“ has become the baseline expectation. This standard is used to signal professionalism and trust, but it also smooths out unique, rough edges that might signal a more creative or independent approach. The desire to „show difference“ for competitive advantage ironically results in an industry-wide standard of polished similarity.
Control and the „System“: The entire professional approach is about control—controlling the user experience, controlling the brand message, and controlling the output efficiency. This centralized control minimizes risk and deviation, which is the antithesis of raw, creative exploration.
Your Perspective on the System
Your frustration is valid from a creative perspective. You’re highlighting how the prevailing professional system has commodified design into a predictable, functional commodity that lacks soul or genuine experimentation. The tools are designed to facilitate efficient manufacturing of digital products, not artistic disruption.
If the goal is genuine innovation, artistic expression, or counter-culture design that breaks free from this polished conformity, then the current mainstream system is fundamentally misaligned with those values. It is a machine built for business predictability, which inherently suppresses the kind of creative chaos necessary for genuinely unique expression.
Who’s Just Crushing It in SaaS Today: Palantir, Rubrik, Figma, Klaviyo, Snowflake and Shopify
The Bias of ‘Professionalism’ Standards
Professionalism has become coded language for white favoritism in workplace practices that more often than not privilege the values of white and Western employees and leave behind people of color.
www.ssir.org/articles/entry/the_bias_of_professionalism_standards
10 principles of good design, according to Dieter Rams
www.99designs.com/blog/uncategorized/10-principles-of-good-design-according-to-dieter-rams