The spork didn’t kill the fork
Everybody says the canvas is dead. I’ve heard that one before 🤘
“I say there is no species of technology that have ever gone globally extinct on this planet.”
— Kevin Kelly, Co-founder of Wired (NPR 2011)
Everybody says the canvas is dead.
Figma, Paper, the whiteboard, anything that lets you throw ideas down and look at them side by side. AI writes the code now, so why would anyone push rectangles around? Claude is even building its own infinite canvas into the desktop app, which a lot of people are treating as the final nail.
I’d defend the canvas anyway. Honestly, I’m not sure anything we keep burying has ever actually died.
We’ve been here before (a lot).
Stock photos were supposed to kill photography. Photographers are still booked.
Canva was supposed to kill design, and Figma with it. Both are fine, and somebody still gets paid to design the templates people drop into Canva.
Website templates were supposed to kill web development. Squarespace launched before the iPhone did, and people are still hiring developers.
The spork didn’t kill the spoon or the fork. It just became a third thing you find in the bottom of a KFC bag.
Film photography was supposed to be gone for good once every phone had a camera. Then it came back for the better part of a decade because it was cool. Same with vinyl. People still pump quarters into arcade cabinets, and they still cook dinner with a drive-thru on every corner and a meal kit sitting on the porch.
Fonts were supposed to kill calligraphy. It’s still there, on certificates, expensive wedding invitations, and album covers, drawn by hand by somebody who could have just typed it.
Even the horse and buggy is hanging in there. A friend of mine rode to her wedding in a horse-drawn carriage, and people pay real money for a carriage ride every Valentine’s Day. Nobody commutes in one, plenty of people still want one.
Here’s what actually happens:
The easier thing shows up and takes over the work the old thing was only doing because it had to. What’s left is everything people do because they want to, because it’s better for that specific job, or because it feels like something special and significant. A carriage ride isn’t transportation anymore. It’s a feeling of regality and extravegence.
That’s why I’m not worried about the canvas. Sketching, on paper or in Figma, was never really about producing the final file. It’s where you put five bad ideas next to one good one and can finally tell the difference. Maybe AI ends up making the final file. I’d still want somewhere to ideate, critique, and completely rip them apart side-by-side.
Tools don’t die. They just stop being mandatory.
Keep the sketchbook.
— Zach
