Hey Reader,

Every mentoring call this cycle has turned into some version of the same conversation: designers handing first-draft execution to AI and stepping into more of a director role.

It's not less design work, just a different kind.

This issue is full of people being honest about where that shift helps and where it doesn't.
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​In today's email:

• AI workflows in the wild: How designers at Anthropic, Tripadvisor, and one very honest solo experiment are using AI day to day, including where it still falls flat.
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• Craft that AI can't fake: The invisible micro-decisions behind interfaces that feel right, a design leader's homemade "Leadership OS," and a simple framework for presenting up the chain without losing the room.
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• Tools worth bookmarking: Two resources for making your UI, and your AI-built prototypes feel more polished and look less generic.
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Happening next week! Christine Vallaure will share practical ways to structure variables, components, states, and naming so your files give AI better context — without losing the human judgment behind the work. Save your spot Level Up Club member? Join the Event Calendar using the email tied to your membership for free access.

Design gems of the week

• ​How the product designer who built Claude Design uses it: Nate Parrott (Anthropic) shares how he uses Claude Design to explore ideas before they become production work.
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• ​I ditched manual design in Figma for a week: A week-long experiment in swapping pixel-pushing for directing AI. The honest verdict: execution got faster, but taste and judgment are still entirely on you.
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• ​I spent two months building an AI workflow for my design team: Lara Sanchez shares what she learned building an AI workflow at Tripadvisor. The technology was the easy part – documentation and getting a team to adopt the new workflow was the real challenge.
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• ​Invisible details: A course that names the invisible micro-decisions — timing, easing, state feedback — that separate interfaces that work from ones that feel right.
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• ​I built a Leadership OS to help me lead with better context: Allie Thu shares how she turned GitHub Copilot and a folder of Markdown files into a private system for tracking people, decisions, and context she used to keep in her head.
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• ​How to present to senior leaders (without losing them in the first minute): A simple framework — the AAA framework — Altitude, Audience, Action, for pitching up the chain, worth stealing for your next exec update.
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• ​Libraries.dev: Free, MIT-licensed UI effect libraries built to drop straight into a coding agent — handy way to make AI-built interfaces look less generic.
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• ​Hugeicons: 60,000+ icons with a solid Figma plugin — a fast way to polish a UI without building your own icon set.
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Open design roles worth a look

• Volunteer support across two roles: Social Media Coordinators and Graphic Designers @ Somos LIT Canada. Open to applicants across Canada.
• ​Product Designer @ Magic Patterns, San Francisco, On-site
• ​Staff Product Designer, Agentic CMS @ Webflow, CA Remote (BC & ON only); US Remote
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A MESSAGE FROM DESSN What if your design canvas ran your actual product? I've been testing Dessn on a real app I'm building. What struck me immediately: I didn't have to recreate anything to start exploring — one click to connect my GitHub repo, and I was working directly against the real thing. Dessn's new infinite canvas runs on top of your actual codebase, so I can pull in an existing screen, branch into different design directions, and compare them side by side — with no separate design file to keep in sync. Explore Dessn’s new canvas →

The influence gap: why knowing isn't the same as doing

I've been looking through the Strategic Influence Audit results that have come in over the last couple of weeks, and one pattern keeps showing up.

Most designers are landing between 58 and 68 out of 100, well within the range of a Developing Strategist.

When I look at why designers land there, it's almost always the same story. They’ve had real moments of influence – changing a roadmap decision, reframing a problem in a way that stuck or getting a PM to see something they'd missed – but it doesn't happen reliably.

The problem is that they’re unable to act with intention. Influencing proactively and consistently takes work, even when the conditions aren't in your favour.

Influence by accident

Think back to the last time you genuinely shaped a decision. I'd bet at least a few of these were true:

• You had a PM or eng lead who already trusted you
• It was a project you cared a lot about, so you'd done the extra thinking
• You happened to have the right data or insight at the right moment
• You were in the room early, before anything was locked in

Those are great conditions. The catch is that you didn't set most of them up. They happened to be in place, and you made the most of them. That's a real skill, but it's not the same as creating influence yourself.

That's influence by accident. It feels great when it happens, but it's completely unreliable. It's also why so many designers tell me they feel influential on one team and invisible on the next, even though they haven't changed at all.

Moving from "sometimes" to "usually"

Getting out of the Developing Strategist range comes down to building a few habits so you're creating those conditions instead of waiting for them.

Show up before the decision, not after. Most designers get pulled in once the direction is set and then try to push back. That almost never works. Find out when decisions actually get made on your team (roadmap reviews, planning, a PM's 1:1 with their lead) and get your thinking in front of people before that point.

Bring a proposal, not a critique. "I'm not sure this is the right approach" puts people on the defensive. "Here's what I'd suggest instead, and here's why" gives them something to react to. It's the difference between being a blocker and being a partner.

Build the relationship in the quiet weeks. Influence comes from trust and shared context far more than from your title. The time to grab coffee with your PM or sit in on a sales call is when nothing is on fire, so that when something is, they already know how you think.

Pick one recurring meeting to practice in.You don't need to be strategic in every meeting. Choose one, like your weekly product sync, and commit to showing up with a clear point of view every single time. Consistency in one place builds the muscle faster than good intentions everywhere.

Notice what worked. After a meeting where your input landed (or didn't), take two minutes to write down why. Over a few weeks you'll start seeing your own patterns, and that's what turns accidental influence into a skill you can repeat.

Try this week

Look at your calendar for the next five days. Find one meeting where a decision is being made that affects your work. Before you walk in, write down the one thing you think should happen and the reason why, in two sentences.

Then say it. Out loud, early in the conversation.

That's it. Do that every week for a month and I promise you'll feel the difference.

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​P.S. Haven't taken the Strategic Influence Audit yet? Take it here and see where you land. And if you have, try retaking it in six weeks after building these habits. Hit reply and tell me if your score moves.​
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Have a topic you'd like me to write about? Reply to this email and let me know! I read every reply.