The tools don't matter
Every few months a new design tool promises to change everything. They never do. The real creative advantage is taste, not tooling.
The cycle
Every few months, a new tool drops. The timeline fills with threads about switching workflows. Designers rebuild their entire setup around it. Three months later, no one talks about it anymore.
I've used Photoshop, Sketch, Figma, Illustrator, After Effects, Cinema 4D, Blender, Processing, p5.js, DrawBot, Python, and probably a dozen others I'm forgetting. The best work I've made could have been done in most of them.
What actually matters
Tools are a delivery mechanism. The thing that makes work good (or not) happens before you open any application.
- Seeing clearly. Understanding what the brief actually needs, not what it says.
- Editing ruthlessly. Knowing what to remove is harder than knowing what to add.
- Having references. Not to copy, but to understand what's already been said.
- Sitting with discomfort. The best ideas feel weird at first.
None of these are tool-dependent.
The exception
There's one case where tools matter: when the medium is the message. Generative art made in Python feels different from generative art made in TouchDesigner. The constraints of the tool shape the output in meaningful ways.
But that's a choice about expression, not productivity. Pick the tool that makes the work feel right, not the one that makes it feel fast.
The point
Learn your tools well enough that they disappear. Then forget about them.