Àrokò Monthly Roundtable #02

“Craft that bears the mark of time.”

Each month, we gather members of the Àrokò Cooperative for an unfiltered roundtable, giving you a temperature check of our take on design as it moves through art, music, politics, technology, and everyday rituals of taste. We ask sharper questions about what’s being made, who it’s for, and what it’s really doing in the world.

In our first monthly roundtable for 2026, we reflected on our design hot takes from the past year, what they reveal, and what might crystallize in 2026. The thread that keeps returning: a growing hunger for design that feels culturally grounded and unmistakably human.

SHAKEIL

I think context is coming back. I think decoration is coming back. And I think the imperfect—or really, the visibly human—is coming back.

There’s a backlash building around generative AI images. I don’t think AI is going away in the workplace, such as transcriptions, summaries, development tools, all of that. But in wider visual culture, I think we’re going to see people start saying “I’m good, actually.”

Meanwhile, the push is relentless. These tools are being sold everywhere, nonstop, like they’re inevitable.

I’m walking around New York and it’s ads for this stuff everywhere: subway, social, even in my football ads. I saw a Google campaign yesterday, like “Sketch on the subway,” and it’s some weird image blender. And I’m like, "Get a sketchbook.”

Next year, I think we’ll see more of what’s already been swinging back: dumb phones, point-and-shoot cameras, and, in design, hand-drawn typography, sketchy things, collage, the analog showing itself again. It aligns with what I like anyway: messy, sketchy, and human-made.

And honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re not far off from a USDA-like “certified” sticker that says, “not made with Gen AI.” I’m curious how that shakes out and whether we’ll find uses of the tech that feel good. I have seen some interesting developments that aren’t horribly unethical, but the dominant structures aren’t trying to make that the default anytime soon.

AISHATU

I totally agree. The shortcut culture is real right now and people can feel it. When I think about 2026, what stands out is a shift toward design that foregrounds human imperfection and authenticity.

A lot of forecasts describe 2026 as “imperfect by design”, as designers push back against this polished, homogenized look from AI tools, where everything starts to feel the same. That tension, algorithmic precision versus human expressiveness, feels like a continuation of what we talked about last time when we discussed craft versus performance.

And for us at Àrokò, it intersects with decolonial practice, privileging voice, context, and cultural nuance, things algorithmic homogenization can’t do well. I’m interested in more analog aesthetics like collage, handmade work, and the imperfect. It reflects what we’re doing here at Àrokò: cultural intelligence, slow craft.

MICHAEL

I want to remind us: design is a service profession. Designers do not set the agenda. We apply it.

Economic thinkers have talked for a long time about the K-shaped recovery, the K-shaped economy. Instead of one line moving in one direction, you get two: some things go up, others go down. And AI, and big AI companies, are part of that.

Design is downstream of the economy. We’re part of larger forces at play. So I think it’s preposterous for designers to talk about trends as though we set them. We are the decorators of capital.

If there’s a design trend for 2026, it should be designers realizing we are the decorators of capital.

And aesthetically, I think we’re going to see a K-shaped culture too. The ultra-wealthy and those who venerate them will adopt a super-streamlined AI aesthetic and convince themselves it has value. Then there’s a widening chasm where the rest of us are left, unless you identify with that hyper-artificial look.

And on the downward slope, Westerners in the global metropole are behind in design, manufacturing, and making. There are Cubans and Palestinians in refugee tents, people making whole lives with less than USians spend on outfits, who are already living further down that downward slope than we are, and are better prepared for it.

Maybe the design trend for 2026 is designers realizing we’re the decorators of capital and yankees getting our fucking heads out of our asses.

AISHATU

When we talk about forecasting trends, it’s not claiming we set the next big thing. At its best, it’s listening: observing patterns, cultural shifts, emerging behaviors, so we can respond thoughtfully.

As a coop, this means interpreting underlying human needs and social directions as they crystallize, and deciding how to position ourselves as designers. It’s anticipation in service of real people, rather than chasing fashionable trends.

So maybe it’s designers recognizing that our role is to interpret patterns and needs that might emerge, so we can develop in service of those needs.

MICHAEL

Absolutely yes, Aishatu, and that differentiation matters. We’re at the end of the year, Pantone releases their new shade of Klan white or whatever, and suddenly it’s “this drop shadow is the future.”

Yes, Klan White—I said it. They can come for me. I give a shit. I’m being provocative, but you get the point: trend talk can be shallow.

Michael riffs on Pantone's "Klan White" announcement, piracy, Boeing, and aviation safety, acknowledging the digression before returning to the conversation.

ZARIAH

Michael, when you said Klan White, it reminded me of a friend in London. I posted it on Àrokò’s Instagram. She reclaimed that color and how it’s used in Black and Indigenous contexts: attached to memory, celebration, and artifacts repackaged to fit the narrative of capital.

My hope for the new year is reclaiming originality and authenticity, asking: what was the initial intention and purpose?

And this connects to overconsumption, TikTok Shop, Instagram, and people running to buy the new Stanley Cup. People are slowly moving away from it. It could be a recession indicator in the U.S., but it’s also kind of beautiful to watch a return to what always worked.

People have this click moment: oh, sketching is a thing. Oh, I don’t need to buy five outfits because an influencer told me to.

And yes, as designers, we’re a cog in the wheel executing these systems. But we can also create space for different outputs to reduce overconsumption. Especially as a team, as Àrokò, we can put that forward more intentionally. We can help people remember what’s enough and what’s real.

SHAKEIL

I want to drop in one thing, then kick it to Mahie.

Something we’re all picking up is that we’ve been at a breaking point for a while, and it feels like the breaking point is accelerating. Even what you're mentioning, Michael, around that K-shape in the culture and Zariah’s point on overconsumption, things feel less and less tenable.

With the dominance of inauthenticity, the adherence to capital, people are seeing through it more and more. The center will not hold.

And if we zoom all the way downstream to “collage becomes popular in 2026,” there’s a reason: it’s something you can control in your own home. You don’t need a big tech platform to get the tools you need. You’re not waiting for permission.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens when that really caves in, when people have to contend with the collapse of Western exceptionalism in a lot of ways.

Mahie—over to you.

MAHIE

For me, it’s bringing up: what are we designing for our intricate networks of care? What does that look like?

Because our safety depends on each other, it always has, but it’s even more important that we understand how we’re designing that.

I’m thinking about making do with what you have and making that fabulous in its own way. Reviving what’s already inherently beautiful. Sharing it. Passing it through the community.

For me, it’s fashion. I want to go back to glam, the beading, all of that. Maybe you take up these crafts. Maybe you’re hand-beading now. Maybe you’re learning. I love this dress my mom had. How do I revive it?

And knowing we don’t need to spend tons of money to make something. It’s not necessary. If you make something, make sure it lasts.

That’s where my head is: care, reuse, craft, and longevity.

MICHAEL

I’ll jump in and try to land us with something.

I had occasion yesterday evening to revisit the time we spent in Paris. And one of the things that’s still reverberating in me from that trip was: Paris felt like permission to take everything seriously.

Permission to take myself seriously. Permission to take my work seriously. Permission to take every little thing to its nth degree.

And that’s not to say the French have a monopoly on that. I don’t necessarily want to be accused of being Eurocentric here. But travel can remind you of different possibilities.

We’ve used the word "imperfection" a lot in this conversation, and I don’t know how much I like it. Because for me, perfection lies in the hand and in the visibility of that expert hand.

Not that it’s featureless and algorithmically smooth. But that real perfection, the quintessence of a thing, is that it is human. Or that it is more than human.

What we’re being presented with as algorithmic perfection—AI perfection—is inhuman. It’s inhuman in a way that is not grand. It is less than the sum of its parts.

Nature dazzles us because it is inhuman and unknowable. AI sickens us because it is inhuman and we know it’s made of our frailties and failures.

And the perfection worth clinging to, the perfection of the eye, the heart, the soul, is something that comes through work.

And only human work.

The conversation swerves into nostalgia. Zariah sparks a debate about Instagram's evolution, specifically, whether the platform's earlier "unfiltered" era (circa 2014) represents authentic transparency or merely different performance. Michael pushes back on Gen Z nostalgia; Zariah clarifies she's questioning whether people are prepared for the vulnerability required by true authenticity. Shakeil redirects: the coming cultural rupture won't wait for readiness. The flood is inevitable, and the question becomes how we respond when systems collapse.

SHAKEIL

I agree with Michael that I wouldn’t use old Instagram as the example; social has always been performative in some way. But your point is real: are people ready for the crack in the facade when the flood comes?

And what I’m thinking is: I don’t think we’re going to have a choice. It’s not “will people be ready.” The center is not going to hold. The dam has already been trickling, and we’ve seen people demonstrate they’re not ready to look at the world.

Looking away is as American as apple pie. But the future is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed. So the question isn’t whether people are ready. It’s: what will we do when the dam bursts?

And yes, some of the downstream reactions will be picking up pen and paper again. These are the reactions that become “design trends” after the fact.

AISHATU

I’d like to respond to what was said about the word imperfection.

For me, when I think about perfection, it’s competency with memory, the visibility of a trained hand that knows where it comes from.

In many diasporic contexts, that expert hand has been deliberately rendered invisible. Craft has been degraded; technique reframed as “instinct.”

So mastery of a tradition is going to be an interesting trend to watch for next year, for those who take the time to learn a craft.

And when I think about defining what perfection means, I don’t really like that word either. But it’s really about a craft that bears the mark of time, shaped by context, material, and lineage.

It’s about remembering how to make our humanity more legible.

A brief pause as the room breaks the tension with a joke about adding an air horn, then returns to the seriousness of defining “perfection” against AI’s promise of effortless smoothness.

SHAKEIL

If there’s a nugget for me in this whole conversation, it’s this back-and-forth on perfection.

That’s what AI sells: it’s perfect, you don’t have to work, you just have an idea, and it gives you a perfect thing. But it explicitly doesn’t do what Aishatu said: it bears no mark of time, no craft. It’s disembodied, drops out of the sky.

Michael, this is going to ring in my brain. I appreciate both of you for noodling it that way.

MAHIE

And one thing I want to say is I’m excited to put more, I want to say definitions, but really terminology, around what our belief of quote-unquote perfection is, because I think it’s going to be really important.

And I think back to ethnic studies courses in undergrad, how I was like, “everything I believe has words.” Like, this makes sense.

I would love for that to be accessible, for people to feel affirmed in what they’re thinking, and for this to be shared work and shared words.

SHAKEIL

Yeah, I keep hearing “name it.” That was something I thought at a talk I went to yesterday.

There was a nugget that kept coming up: you can define things. You can coin a language. If you’re talking about something you don’t feel is accurately captured, define it.

We do have the cultural insight. We pay attention.