February 3, 2026
Flashbacks & fightbacks
SVGs are uniquely legible to LLMs
Designers say AI can finally ‘read’ their drawings—no code, just make it move
TLDR: A new workshop shows designers using SVG (text-based graphics) with AI to add motion and data without coding. The crowd is split: fans say it’s Flash’s creative spirit reborn and practical for non-coders, skeptics call it a shiny shortcut that devs will have to clean up later.
Design Twitter is having a full-on Flashback over a workshop claiming SVGs (vector images that are actually text) are super readable to LLMs—aka big AIs that understand language. The pitch: label parts of your graphic, let the AI wire up animations and data, and boom, interactive art without writing code. Cue cheering from designers who’ve been told for years to “just learn JavaScript,” and eye-rolls from devs guarding the gates. Sturbes dropped the mic with a pragmatic take: bitmaps (pixel images) are a black box to AI, but labeled SVG parts are like clear instructions, and the included helper tool makes it simple. Meanwhile, brudgers sparked a meme storm by resurfacing the original title—“Make It Go!”—which instantly turned into jokes about a big red button that designers smack when the client says “more sparkle.” Nostalgia oozed through the thread: people mourning the handmade chaos of Flash while rooting for a safer remix, since SVG is sandboxed and plays nice in the browser. Skeptics warn it’s all fun and games until someone ships a dashboard that’s held together by vibes. Believers fired back: the browser-based, local, open-source vibe feels like reclaiming power. No code, more control—and the drama is delicious.
Key Points
- •The workshop teaches designers to create interactive, data-driven SVGs using Figma/Illustrator and an AI-guided workflow, without coding experience.
- •SVG supports embedded CSS and JavaScript inside the file, which are sandboxed from the surrounding web page.
- •LLMs can manipulate SVG’s language-like structure, enabling AI-assisted animation and interactivity.
- •Tools enable round-tripping between design programs and AI; an SVG AI Helper tool and open-source code are provided and run locally with no data retention.
- •A Pratt Institute class used an HTML page of SVG files for a functional dashboard despite students’ lack of coding experience, guided by an AI “Skill.”