Hallmark

Hi — Tudinh here.

The word hallmark comes from an actual hall, Goldsmiths’ Hall in London, where since 1300 silver has been tested against the sterling standard and struck with the hall’s mark, so you could trust it without knowing the maker. A word that once signified quality now names the opposite: the hallmarks and giveaways of AI. Work where the tool led and the person barely shaped it.

William Badcock, A Touch-stone for Gold and Silver Wares (1677). Capturing the rigorous work required to guarantee absolute trust.

Work that looks competent is now trivially easy to produce, and most of it is slop, fluent on the surface and hollow underneath. At the same time, the gap between mediocre and great is far easier to see, which pushes the value back onto substance and the people who can deliver it. But there is a tension in that. We lean on the machine to stay productive, even as its sheer volume leaves us assaying each piece in turn: how was it made, is it any good, and can its maker be trusted?

The constant in the change

Photos by Angela Grabowska

I gave a talk at Birmingham Design Festival this month, where the theme was change. Mine, Mapping What Lasts, was about what doesn’t. People have always made maps, with tools changing beyond recognition, from Hokusai’s woodblocks to satellites, and now AI. The mountain hasn’t moved, nor has what we want from it. The tools change, the making lasts, but what makes a map matter is who drew it, and why.

We were invited to the Google DeepMind session at London Tech Week to see how tools are evolving and being applied. Work that once took months can be modelled in minutes, with one startup testing a message on a simulated US Congress of half a million personas before a real person saw it. Before long, orchestrated agents running simulations like this will be routine in brand, campaign and UX work. Even so, someone still has to read it and decide what it means.

We’ve also just returned from Figma’s Config. It has plenty to excite us, but each new tool widens what is possible and narrows what is common. Shader effects are the obvious example, offering sophisticated visual expression. But without intention they will lead to sameness, as Photoshop filters did twenty years ago. And the completion gap remains, where the tool only takes you so far. Getting from there to something great requires deep intent from whoever’s wielding the tool. Some things never change.

A spectrum of craft

What you see on the surface is rarely the whole picture. No single case study holds the full depth of our work, but across a growing showcase the range speaks for itself. This month we’ve published case studies from a financial platform, a pricing engine, a new way to index search and the next generation of customer experience. We’re now publishing a new case study each week, helped by our custom-built engine, a story for another month.

See our Case Studies

The makers behind the mark

Made by ON is its people. They shape who we are, what we make, how we make it and why we make it. Our team are publishing their thinking out in the open, to sharpen our point of view and share what we’re learning. This month we have covered creating foundations to enable brand expression, defining where video earns its place, using prototypes and going beyond just caching.

Read our Field Notes

The tools will keep changing, as they always have. What people come back for is the maker behind the work. Something that matters more now, not less.

Until next month,

Tudinh Duong

Founding Partner & CEO

Made by ON

Ps. The hallmark was never one stamp but several. One had to be the maker’s own, struck on everything they made. Researching this dispatch I read some wonderful stories of makers, craftspeople and creativity over at Goldsmiths’ Company Stories.