WTF is Craft? A Recap of Design:Unfiltered IRL with Engine, Walmart, and Hebbia

Craft means different things to different designers. For some, it’s attention to detail. For others, it’s care, taste, or restraint. And for most, it’s a word that gets used often—without anyone ever really stopping to define it.

That’s exactly why we chose it as the topic for our most recent Design:Unfiltered IRL session in New York.

Hosted live in Tribeca, the event sold out ahead of time and brought together designers from across the city to unpack the question: What the f  is craft, really?

We don’t record these sessions (yet), so if you weren’t in the room, here’s a look at what went down. 

we asked: what does craft mean in design context today? 

"Craft" is a word that gets thrown around in every design conversation, job spec, and portfolio summary. But ask five designers to define it, and you’ll probably get five different answers.

We wanted to explore the tension: Does craft still matter when speed is the priority? Is it about aesthetics, systems, or something else entirely? And how does the rise of AI shift what we value in the process of building?

To dig into the topic, we invited three panelists with distinct points of view:

• Alison Yard Medland (Design Director, Walmart)
  
  
• Arjun Mahesh (Product Designer, Hebbia)
  
  
• David Mikula (Founder, Engine)
  
  

Each brought perspective from a different design environment—corporate, AI startup, and agency. That mix helped surface some of the most useful tension of the night.

Here’s a sample of what the discussion touched on:

• Is "craft" still valued when teams are moving fast and shipping daily?
  
  
• How do different environments (startup vs enterprise) define quality?
  
  
• Does AI change what good design execution even looks like?
  
  
• Is "taste" the same as "craft," or are we confusing the two?

The goal wasn’t to settle on a definition.  It was to open up space for real perspectives, unfiltered. It was to see how the meaning of “craft” shifts depending on who’s speaking - and what kind of work they do.

Some of the ideas that came up:

• For large teams, craft often gets tied to consistency and systems
  
  
• For smaller teams, it’s often about speed and taste under pressure
  
  
• For some, craft is visible polish. For others, it’s invisible structure
  
  
• In AI products, traditional ideas of craft are being challenged, and sometimes replaced
  
  

Some answers landed. Others led to more debate. One thing was clear: the meaning of craft depends entirely on the context. It’s personal, subjective, and shaped by who’s doing the work.

what 's next: more rooms, more real conversations

Design:Unfiltered was created to give the design community a space for open, honest, and sometimes uncomfortable conversations. We’ll be hosting more events this year focused on the topics that don’t usually make it into conference decks or PR panels.

Thanks again to Alison, Arjun, and David for their time and insight - and to everyone who showed up, asked questions, and brought the room to life.

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