For years, we laughed nervously.

Everyone who’s worked in design knows the nephew — that mythical (and unfortunately very real) person who “knows Photoshop,” charges peanuts, and somehow still lands the job because the client thinks “it’s all the same.”

The nephew didn’t study design.

 They don’t understand visual hierarchy, colour theory, or user flows.

 But they still get the work.

Meanwhile, those who’ve studied, practised, built portfolios, and lived through the craft… are left watching from the sidelines.

And we survived.

Then came WordPress.

 “They’re saying web designers are done!”

 Every new template sparked panic.

Then came Wix.

 Then Canva.

 Auto-generated mockups.

 AI logos — where you swap the name and get 300 identical results.

Then came AI — for real.

 AI that generates layouts, logos, branding, pitch decks, landing pages, and even full websites.

 Responsive. Animated. All with a single prompt.

Yes, I criticised it.

 I laughed at Wix.

 I dismissed Canva.

 I rolled my eyes at mockup generators.

 I raged at the logo factories.

And yet… I adapted. I learned to use the tools.

Because what those platforms produce is surface-level.

 It looks decent — sometimes great — but lacks context, originality, strategy, and intention.

Without critical design thinking, empathy, and understanding of humans, business, goals, and culture…

It’s decoration. Not design.

So we designers pushed on.

 Shaky sometimes.

 Resilient most times.

 But we never stopped.

Meanwhile, developers?

They stood still. Calm. Untouched.

 Code was sacred.

 Backend complexity was a fortress.

 And no low-code tool could breach it — until now.

The tables have turned, haven’t they?

Suddenly, I see devs on forums, X, Reddit, YouTube saying things like:

“The code from this AI is a mess.”

 “Prompt-based logic doesn’t scale.”

 “It’s not secure.”

 “This isn’t real programming.”

Oh.

 That sounds… familiar.

It sounds like what we said about Wix.

 Or when people told us, “The client did the design on Canva.”

Today, platforms like Replit, Framer, Webflow, Lovable.dev, Builder.io, GitHub Copilot, and Chatgpt give people with zero coding experience the power to create working apps, structured databases, connected APIS, and full-stack interfaces.

Designers with systems thinking are already shipping real products — entirely independently.

For the first time, I see developers express the same discomfort designers faced a decade ago.

Welcome to the club.

We’ve been here before.

 We’ve lost jobs to templates.

 We’ve heard, “My cousin did the same thing for free.”

 We’ve been undervalued and told our work was too expensive, when it was just thoughtful.

But we adapted.

 And we learned the truth:

Tools don’t replace critical thinking.

 They can replace execution.

 They can automate.

 They can reduce time.

 But they can’t replicate deep, contextual, problem-solving thought — yet.

This is not devs vs designers.

 It’s just the new reality.

This isn’t a “haha, now it’s your turn” post.

 This isn’t a designer vs developer thing.

This is just the new world.

 A world where tools are becoming extremely powerful.

 Where prompts can deploy full experiences.

 Where both roles are being redefined.

I’ve got nothing but respect for developers.

 And honestly? This moment opens up a new space for collaboration.

This is for hybrid thinkers.

 Builder-designers.

 Designer-devs.

 People who can talk logic and aesthetics.

 Flows and functions.

 Databases and whitespace.

The ones who will thrive aren’t the ones who fear change.

 It’s the ones who stay curious, adapt, and think critically.