Why Taste is the New Technical Skill
The conversation around AI and creativity usually falls into two camps: total doom or blind hype. You’re either hearing that designers are obsolete, or that everyone is about to become a tech unicorn with a single prompt.
The reality, as always, is somewhere in the messy middle.
In Episode 201, we sat down with Darren Hughes, a creative veteran with over 30 years of experience. He’s seen the industry shift from letterpress and paste-up to digital agencies and global brands. Now, he’s navigating the AI shift. His take isn’t about surrendering to the machines; it’s about using them to reclaim the part of the job that actually matters.
The Barrier to Entry vs. The Barrier to Quality
One of the biggest takeaways from our chat was a simple truth: the barrier to entry for creating something has basically vanished. Anyone can generate an image or a block of code.
But because the floor has dropped, the ceiling has raised.
When everyone can produce high-fidelity work instantly, technical execution stops being the differentiator. The value shifts entirely to taste. Do you know why something looks good? Can you spot the difference between a generic generation and a distinct brand voice?
Darren argues that experience—those decades of understanding composition, typography, and user needs—is becoming more valuable, not less. AI is a powerful engine, but it needs a skilled driver to keep it on the road.
Moving Faster Than the Agency Model
For years, the agency workflow has been defined by handovers. Strategy to creative, creative to design, design to dev. It’s slow, expensive, and often dilutes the original vision.
Darren discusses how tools like prompt-to-code are collapsing this stack. He’s currently building social impact projects and working prototypes in days, bypassing the weeks of back-and-forth that usually define product development.
This isn’t just about speed; it’s about fidelity. A creative director can now build the thing they’re imagining, rather than just describing it in a deck and hoping the dev team interprets it correctly.
The Dopamine Trap
We also touched on the "one-shot" culture. It feels great to type a prompt and see a full website appear in seconds. It hits the dopamine receptors hard.
But building a real, usable product is different from generating a cool demo. The real work is in the refinement—the thousands of small decisions, edits, and logic checks that turn a "wow" moment into a functional tool. Darren warns against getting addicted to the start of the process and forgetting the discipline required to finish it.
The Verdict
AI isn't replacing the creative mind; it's demanding more from it. It’s stripping away the excuse of "I don't know how to code" or "I don't have the budget for assets."
If you have the vision and the taste, the tools are finally catching up to you.
Listen to the full episode:
YouTube: Watch here
Spotify: Listen here
Apple Podcasts: Listen here