The process is the point
Craft in the Age of AI
We live in an age where artificial intelligence can generate a design layout, iterate on colour theory, write the accompanying copy, and even present the brand rationale. It’s astonishing. And convenient.
But I find myself returning more and more to a deeply human question:
If the destination arrives instantly, what happens to the journey?
Design has never only been about the outcome. Not really. Not for those who remember the charcoal of early sketches on tracing paper, or the meditative frustration of aligning baseline grids by hand.
“To do a common thing uncommonly well brings success.”
— Henry J. Heinz, 1906
In the age of AI, this question takes on new urgency:
What is the role of the process when the result is nearly instant?
The Soul of the Process
In Japanese aesthetics, there’s a word — shokunin kishitsu (職人気質) — meaning “the craftsman’s spirit.” It’s more than skill; it’s a way of approaching work with humility, patience, and care.
The shokunin does not ask, “How fast can I finish this?”
They ask, “How deeply can I understand what I am doing?”
This spirit is deeply aligned with process-oriented design. Process is where the soul of the work is formed. It’s where ideas ferment, materials speak back, and we learn what the design wants to be.
Even with AI tools accelerating outputs, the real value remains in how we engage with the making.
Let me give you an example.
Muji and the Art of Restraint
The Japanese brand Muji (無印良品, “no brand, quality goods”) is known for its aesthetic minimalism. But the brilliance of Muji is not minimalism for style’s sake — it’s born of process.
Every Muji product is a result of strict principles: remove the unnecessary, refine the essential, and respect the material. Their Beads Sofa, for instance, is not just a chair. It’s an experience of form following behaviour. Its design was iterated through observation and deep user testing, then constructed with conscious choices in textile breathability, fill density, and ergonomic posture.
You could generate ten versions of this chair with an AI prompt. But you wouldn’t understand the design empathy behind it unless you worked through it — the moments of “too soft,” “not supportive enough,” “too hard in the corner.” Those human, felt moments are only accessible in the process.
AI as a Design Partner, Not a Shortcut
Designers are right to be excited by tools like Figma AI, RunwayML, and GPT-4o. They unlock speed, variation, and breadth. They help us test ideas faster and stretch our imagination.
But just as the rise of Photoshop didn’t kill illustration — it just changed it — AI changes design by changing how we relate to the work.
The danger lies not in the tool, but in skipping the discomfort that teaches us. Iteration is not wasteful. It is the space where you learn to see.
For instance, a generative logo system might output hundreds of variants. But the true designer doesn’t just pick one. They ask: “Why does this one feel right?”
That “why” comes from the process, not the output.
“The goal of design is not to make something perfect, but to make something matter.”
Poka-Yoke: Designing for Human Error, Designing with Human Compassion
One of the most beautiful examples of human-centred process is the concept of poka-yoke — “mistake-proofing” — developed in the 1960s by Shigeo Shingo in Toyota’s lean manufacturing philosophy.
A classic example is a memory card that only fits in one orientation. Or a microwave that won’t run unless the door is closed.
These are not technological achievements. They are design choices born of empathy. The goal is not just to prevent failure — it is to design systems that respect human fallibility.
As designers using AI tools, we can learn from poka-yoke. We can build processes that catch bad assumptions early, that prevent superficiality, that keep us grounded in user truth even when the tools dazzle.
Imagine a UI prototyping system that flags inconsistencies in spacing, not just numerically but based on perceptual harmony. Or an AI that generates multiple flows but highlights where friction or confusion might arise based on similar real-world apps. That’s poka-yoke in the age of AI.
Wabi-Sabi and the Beauty of Incompleteness
Another concept that matters now more than ever is wabi-sabi — the quiet Japanese philosophy that finds beauty not in the flawless, but in the flawed. Not in permanence, but in the ephemeral. Not in completion, but in the becoming.
Wabi-sabi isn’t a style.
It’s a lens.
It’s the appreciation of a ceramic bowl whose glaze has cracked over time, revealing a delicate spiderweb of imperfection. A teacup with an uneven rim that feels better in the hand than a machine-made one ever could. A wooden bench outside a Kyoto temple, worn smooth by the ritual of countless visitors.
These are not defects.
They are signatures.
In design, we’ve come to revere polish.
Smooth curves. Crisp lines. Perfect spacing.
We iterate toward symmetry.
We refine until friction vanishes.
And now, AI gives us that in seconds.
Layouts that align. Color palettes that harmonize. Logos that obey geometry like obedient soldiers.
But something goes missing.
The crackle.
The anomaly.
The human timing.
Great design — the kind that moves people — often lives in the cracks.
The places where something is off… but it feels right.
A little irregular. A little surprising. A little alive.
Think of a poster by Kenya Hara — stark white, a tiny smudge of ink, space doing most of the talking.
Think of Sori Yanagi’s Butterfly Stool, a shape that couldn’t have been sketched with a single gesture, but emerged from understanding how wood wants to bend.
Think of the first iPod UI by Imran Chaudhri — the wheel didn’t just scroll; it invited touch. It had rhythm. It had weight. It wasn’t just usable — it was lovable.
None of these were perfect in the algorithmic sense.
They were not generated.
They were discovered — slowly, with attention.
That’s the space wabi-sabi lives in:
the quiet confidence of restraint, and the deep intelligence of imperfection.
Design born in process has patina.
You feel the brushstroke.
You sense the hand behind the tool.
Wabi-sabi reminds us that not everything should be finished.
That some things — things-the best things—need to be left open.
Open to change. To interpret. To grow.
An interface that offers room to breathe.
A layout that accepts asymmetry.
A product that gains meaning as it wears, not as it ships.
In the AI era, we risk forgetting this.
Our tools promise answers.
But design is, and has always been, a question.
And the best questions are unfinished.
Process invites us into this unfinished space.
It teaches us to sit with the uncomfortable.
To resist the urge to resolve too early.
To notice what happens in the in-between.
Without this space — this realm of not-knowing —
We lose the chance to grow as designers.
Wabi-sabi teaches us that beauty is not what is added.
It’s what is revealed when we stop trying so hard to control the outcome.
A chipped bowl.
A broken line.
A system with a crack in it where the light gets in.
That’s where design begins.
And it’s also where we find ourselves.
Why Bother?
Why sketch when you can generate?
Why test when you can predict?
Why iterate when you can prompt?
Because the act of designing is what gives the work meaning.
Design is not production. It is attunement.
The iterative process is like a tea ceremony: measured, intentional, and deeply aware. You don’t perform the ceremony to finish your tea. You perform it to be present with it.
So too with design. The process doesn’t slow you down. It teaches you to notice.
At the Bauhaus, students were taught to work with wood, metal, glass, and fabric — not just to design things, but to understand how things want to be. That knowledge lived in their fingers.
In our time, the materials have changed. We work with prompts, models, systems, and code. But the principle remains:
Make to know.
Don’t use AI to avoid the process. Use it to go deeper.
Let the machine draft the obvious, so you can focus on the meaningful.
Let it simulate variation, so you can tune your taste.
Let it carry the load, so you can learn to carry the question.
Design is not the outcome.
Design is what happens in the process — when you slow down, look again, and discover something you didn’t know you were looking for.
References
- Hara, Kenya. Designing Design. Lars Müller Publishers.
- Munari, Bruno. Design as Art. Penguin Modern Classics.
- Sori Yanagi’s Butterfly Stool (1954) — a study in East-West form synthesis.
- Shigeo Shingo, A Study of the Toyota Production System, 1989.
- IDEO’s Human-Centered Design Toolkit
- Leonard Koren. Wabi_Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers
- GPT-4o Technical Report, OpenAI (2024)
