Tom and Jonny reflect on their live workshop at Product Unleashed in London, explore the history of designers building their own tools, and dig into how AI can be used as a counterbalance to your own working style — not just an amplifier.
Chapters
Building a Design Tool in 15 Minutes at Product Unleashed Tom and Jonny recap the workshop they ran at Product Unleashed, where they built retro design tools (Etch A Sketch, MS Paint) live in front of an audience — twice. They discuss how the challenge evolved, why they pivoted from serious tools to fun ones, and how they got the final result live on the internet using a QR code.
Why Designers Building Their Own Tools Matters Jonny shares the narrative from the workshop's opening slides — a Gutenberg-moment argument for why designers are now able to build hyper-personalized tools for the first time, referencing Adobe, Figma, and the growing landscape of AI-native design tools.
Historical Examples: Eames, Lennon & the Apple Calculator Tom walks through three historical examples of makers building tools to unlock their own creativity: Chris Espinoza's Calculator Construction Set for Steve Jobs, Ken Townsend inventing automatic double tracking for John Lennon, and Charles and Ray Eames creating the Kazam machine to bend plywood into new furniture forms.
The Value of Craft in the Age of AI Jonny reflects on Karri Saaranen (founder of Linear) and his view that design is the thinking — and there's no shortcut to it. The conversation explores whether something made quickly can ever be truly iconic, and why craft still has real, felt value even as AI capabilities grow.