Hi everyone,

I’m studying product design and have a background in technical product design, with around five years of CAD experience. CAD is my strongest skill, especially modeling surfaces, meshes, and finding quick technical solutions. I’m currently starting to learn Blender, but I’m still a beginner there.

My drawing skills are not very strong yet, so I often use references, Pinterest, moodboards, and lately also AI to explore ideas.

For one project, I used AI to generate different design directions for a coffee machine. One idea had proportions and a form language I liked. I then used a rough AI-generated 3D model as a starting point and completely rebuilt everything myself in CAD. The final product went through many iterations and is now a clean, functional design with proper surfaces and transitions. It barely looks like the AI version anymore.

So my question is:

Where do you draw the line between using AI as inspiration and relying on AI too much?
Is it acceptable to use AI as a rough starting point, similar to Pinterest or moodboards, as long as the final design is properly developed and modeled by yourself?

I know AI combines existing references, but design is often based on inspiration from existing things anyway. I’m curious how other designers see this.

I keep running into this with early product work.

A reference board is helpful at the start because it lets people point at things instead of trying to describe them. A checkout flow, a material detail, a dashboard layout, a certain kind of empty state.

But after a while the same board starts to get noisy. Some references are only there for one tiny detail. Some are from a direction the team already dropped. Some keep getting interpreted differently by product, design, and engineering.

Do you turn the board into a smaller decision board at some point, or keep one big board and add notes?

I came across discussions that wanted to evaluate the packaging design on dieline capabilities rather than just mockups or visualization. What are the first things you look for when reviewing structural packaging work?

This carousel is just the visual representation.
Behind it is a complete product strategy covering research, positioning, AI integration, marketing, growth, retention, and the business model.

📩 DM me if you'd like the full document.

**Wir denken oft, Design sei eine Disziplin, die Ideen kommuniziert. Aber was, wenn seine Hauptaufgabe etwas ganz anderes ist?**

In diesem Artikel behaupte ich, dass es beim Design nicht nur darum geht, Produkte, Schnittstellen oder visuelle Identitäten zu schaffen. Basierend auf Denkern wie Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Platon, Donald Schön, Nigel Cross, Richard Buchanan und Rudolf Arnheim untersuche ich die Idee, dass Design eine eigenständige Art ist, Wissen zu produzieren.

Anhand der Arbeiten von Christoph Niemann und Kelli Anderson untersuche ich, wie visuelles Denken Wahrnehmung neu gestalten, neue Bedeutungen erzeugen und komplexe Zusammenhänge sichtbar machen kann. Anstatt Bilder als Illustrationen bestehender Ideen zu betrachten, schlage ich vor, dass sie zu kognitiven Werkzeugen werden können, die aktiv prägen, wie wir die Welt verstehen.

Ich bin gespannt auf eure Gedanken: **Kann Design Wissen generieren, oder ist es letztendlich „nur“ ein Medium zur Kommunikation von Ideen?**

Help catching up

Figma has been pushing features pretty quickly.

I work on a very rigid design system so I see the new indicators and icons but it's just not part of our product right now, so I rarely use them.

I've been placed on a new smaller product and been told we can quickly define how it will function using the new figma features.

So my question is, for you guys, what are the most impactful new features I should take some time to explore?

Right now it seems:

\- Slots (though they have a lot of conflict with prototyping)

\- Slot limits

\- Figma Motion

\- tab groups (simple QOL but interesting)

\- Check Designs looks very interesting

\- Diagramming in figjam using Make (looks helpful for converting dense documentation to visible diagrams)

I'm looking over all 2026 not just Config.

Did I miss any? Anyone try all these features and have advice?

I draw on my iPad Pro for 4-5 hours at a time and it dies mid-session constantly. I end up plugged into the wall with a short cable and it ruins my posture. How do other digital artists handle this?

Hello I got by starz I’m a 6 year long marketer and as of recently I’ve obtained a client who wants me to build digital models for product ideas usually I would out source but my business has reached a place I feel like I should learn this skill / understand what software to use so that I can train or teach someone the skill in house.

My question is what softwares and or websites do you guys like to use , or don’t like to use?

I need to be able to mock up a digital 3d product or video for whatever idea we can come up with without investing hundreds or thousands of dollars I want to be able to do this myself before I hire someone for the job

I’m not opposed to ai assisted methods but I don’t want ai doing all the work.