Designed by Sarah: October 2025 Studio Recap

I keep thinking about AI and how I feel about it. I like using it for research and to test my assumptions. I like getting quick advice on cooking and actually have solved some fabrication puzzles by uploading a doodle of what I’m picturing and getting good advice on how to build it. I like using generative fill and to ease parts of my admin that previously took forever. But it’s also set a lot of my studio process on fire: platforms I use to find creatives for hire like Behance and Upwork are overrun with AI slop; people send me mockups or logos or photos they “made” with AI and want me to fix; and I get written content for design that was clearly written wholly with ChatGPT and not fact-checked, edited, or maybe even read before it was sent.

AI is speeding up my process in some ways but slowing it down in others. Adobe is putting AI in every single app without updating bugs that have been present since pre-COVID, and a thing that is meant to be helpful ends up slowing down an already-bloated program. I am curious to see how Canva will do this now that they’ve made Affinity, a pro-level design tool that is not a multi-billion-dollar company like Adobe but still very good, totally free forever.

I’ve been thinking about adding an AI disclaimer in my contract language: your work is made by and cared for by a human; someone who can attend your event and has touched the swag she’s designing for you and can listen to your fears and dreams for what you’re building and working on. It’s important to me that people know that. But in the end, do they care? Or do we just want it faster, no matter the quality? I’m trying to not fully resist AI because it’s not going away and it’s in a lot of ways a good way for a non-designer to show me what they’re thinking.

I want to connect with people more closely and go for quality over quantity. I want to have more gatherings. I’m thinking about how I structure my workload and how to make more time for existing clients instead of taking on new folks so that I can really stick with my people over a period of time and help them grow.

This year I found myself moving back to slow and handmade media (as you may have noticed…). We’re hosting a dinner at our house this month and I made paper invitations and simply mailed them out. The funniest part of doing that was not hearing back from people for an extra-long time because a lot of people (I am finding out) check their mail once a week. No one gets fun things in the mail anymore, only bills and junk. Which is a great segue to: do you want things in the mail? I want to send you things.

Happy birthday in November to Rachel, Mobs, Lauren, Rachel, Liz, Gina, Kayla, Lee, Christian, Perla, Ashley, Nick, Savoy, Francis, Caroline, Nicky.

Warmly,
Sarah 

This is a more general aminal fact: Have you heard of Indicator Species? These are species who act as bioindicators for an ecosystem’s health. They are sensitive to changes in their habitat (aren’t we all), but if one is missing or declining, we know that the environment is in trouble. Monarch butterflies, lichens, salmon, and certain species of owls are all different indicator species. These are different from Sentinel Species, which can be used to detect risks to humans (like canaries in a coal mine). Technically, you could argue both are the same thing since ecosystem health affects humans’ health… but I don’t have enough words here for that.

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