Double Click: Does Efficiency Kill Love? | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

Config 2025 framed AI less as a tool for maximizing efficiency and more as a way to deepen connection, care, and creative purpose. The article contrasts the slogan “Efficiency kills love” with the idea that “Design is chasing a feeling,” arguing that craft and intentionality should remain central as technology accelerates. AI’s role, therefore, depends on the values people choose to embed in it.

From Efficiency to Care

• Figma’s community expressed renewed enthusiasm for craft, emotion, and meaningful creative work.
• Smith & Diction’s presentation, “The Wild West of Collaborative Brand Design,” captured the mood with the declaration that “Efficiency kills love.”
• Figma CEO Dylan Field’s keynote offered a complementary idea: “Design is chasing a feeling.”
• Together, these statements suggest a shift away from treating productivity and speed as the sole measures of successful design.

Craft as the Conduit

• Yang You, Head of Design at Paradigm, summarized the emerging attitude: “Craft is king, and care is the conduit.”
• Designers are looking beyond target metrics and faster workflows toward:
  • Storytelling
  • Purposeful making
  • Emotional resonance
  • A sense of magic and meaning
• Microsoft design leader Brittany Mederos similarly described Config’s theme as making meaningful things with purpose.

Technology Should Reflect Human Values

• Madeline Gannon argued that automation is not inevitable; it is intentional and reflects collective cultural choices.
• This reframes AI from an unstoppable force into a technology shaped by human decisions about what should—and should not—be automated.
• The central question becomes not simply what AI can make faster, but what people want to create with it and why.

Slowing Down in an Automated World

• Polaroid’s approach illustrates how technology can support, rather than replace, human creativity.
• Its app provides AI-powered photography advice while preserving the company’s emphasis on slowing down, making physical things, and creating objects with personal meaning.
• The example suggests that even advanced tools can reinforce deliberate, hands-on experiences instead of eliminating them.

Ultimately, the article recommends treating AI as an augmentation of creative practice rather than an automatic substitute for it. Efficiency is valuable, but designers should protect the care, craft, and emotional intent that make creative work meaningful.