Four reasons why AI isn't going to replace Branding Designers
What are my thoughts on AI and design? There's been lots of buzz recently about new AI image generators, using ChatGPT for written content and platforms like Squarespace letting you use AI for website content.
For me, AI is good fun. I'm really impressed with the designers who use it as a cool tool for creating illustrations and imagery - but I'm not at all concerned about it taking over the design process for brands and logos. And I strongly think it is a great tool that can be used alongside Designers, rather than as a way to replace them. This view generally boils down to four things that are needed in the design process - Experience, Details, Design Style and the People!
Also as an exercise, I wanted to see if the new Photoshop Beta AI could create some logo and icon designs for me based on a short brief and the results were as clunky, inconsistent and a little strange. Photoshop AI isn't as powerful yet as Mid-journey or some of the competitors so I’m still optimistic that it will catch up. In recent weeks, I've seen some amazing results from some lovely designers who use Midjourney for illustrations and awesome surreal imagery - so looking forward to trying that!
THE FOUR REASONS:
1. Experience and Collaboration:
With AI - it isn’t so advanced yet that it can take a full brief and information on board to give clients a personal, collaborative experience. It doesn’t have the knowledge to think about how your brand will be perceived by others, how it will be printed, and it can’t make choices based on your values or collaborate on ideas with you. I also am lucky enough to have gone to art-school to study design and then worked in design agencies for 6 years and that experience allows me to make suggestions and tweaks to my designs to allow them to be better, stronger and more thought-out. No shade to AI, I love it and use it often for my imagery and copy - but at this time it can’t replace that personal and collaborative process.
2. AI isn’t detail-oriented
Designers sweat the little stuff - we love making sure your logo suites are perfectly exported, we love creating balanced colour palettes and we adore making sure your social media is shining with consistency and all that lovely brand personality that we worked so hard on.
AI very much focuses on one image at a time. It isn’t able to focus on these details, think strategically about the brand as a unit and create a consistent brand across all the touch-points that you need. It will also be unable to tell you ‘why’ it has done things a certain way. It just looks through the internet and pulls together ideas that it finds for similar projects. And at this time, most generators will struggle to get the spelling of your business and most of the designs will feel chunky, generic and a bit stock-imagey!
3. Our Design Styles
Designers often have a design style or niche which make them unique, sought-after and helps them offer their clients a unique take on a project. These styles are reflected in their own branding or portfolio. For example - I really enjoy working on fun, playful yet premium design. AI is sourced mostly using stock images and the internet, so at this time it can’t replicate a style you love or understand some keywords that would help guide it towards a style you want to use.
When asking AI to create designs for this exercise, I often found that the results couldn’t follow style or font instructions such as “minimal logo” or “logo that uses a Serif font” - and instead gave me the same generic imagery. I also struggled to ask it to tune it’s colours, and when I asked for a particular shade of light pink, it instead offered me a regular pink. This works much better on Mid-journey or in photographs, but for design, it feels more like the AI struggles to see different design elements individually and adjust it.
4. People love People
I love working with my clients and other professionals. That personal connection and investment is really important and makes ideas better. AI would struggle to replicate that, even if it started to generate better designs. You wouldn’t have the same warm conversations over a cup of coffee and I truly think that people who want to collaborate with a person in a 1-1 way will always be do that.
An AI generated photo of a desk with colour palettes, a laptop and plants on. You can see the paper on the table is ripped in a strange way as the aI struggles to refine the edges. This is a common trait among AI imagery - the image looks good on the surface but something isn’t quite right with it.
Ways I use AI in my business:
I love using AI as a tool alongside my designs and here are some ways that I do that in a way that feels good to me:
As a way to rewrite captions or social media posts if I’m feeling stuck or that my writing skills are struggling!
When posting on Pinterest, I craft a first caption then ask AI to rewrite the caption 20 times for me so that my pins always feel fresh. This is a huge time-saver and I love it.
If a photo I’m using on a website needs more white space, AI is a great way to extend images quickly and really intuitively.
Providing prompts for writing or passion projects. For example, if I’m feeling a bit creatively stuck, I’ll ask ChatGPT to write me a brief for a new project and complete it as a small exercise.
Ask ChatGPT questions about CSS coding or use it as a tool to gather information.
Things that I absolutely do not do (but no shade if you do!):
Ask AI for design ideas or colour palettes. This one might be controversial but I'm happy to create my own design ideas - it's my favourite part of my work.
Ask AI to write emails or documents for my clients. Everything clients will receive is written by me with all my experience, professionalism and personality.
Ask AI provide feedback on designs. AI struggles to think critically (as it mostly pulls it’s information from other sources) and it also can’t see… which I know sounds weird but trust me. If you upload an image to ChatGPT, it will struggle to see and understand your design. Again, no shade if you do! But I like to lean on my intuition and gut when moving forward with decisions or strategies.
Ask AI to write blog posts or generate ideas for me. I think it can be a great tool for inspiration, but I don’t feel cosy using it to talk to my followers or clients in that big of a way. Sure - I’ll rewrite captions but generating content feels a little too far just now. I like using my own tone of voice and I think it helps people feel closer to me and I’d hate to lose that!
So I’m pretty confident that AI isn’t coming for me and that clients who want a personal, experience lead process will still be excited to work with me!
But I do still think it can be a fun, creative tool for writing, imagery and illustrations and I’m quite excited to see how that goes and how that continues to develop.
Hey! I’m Amy, and this is Begin Studio.
Here I create unique, thoughtful brands for small businesses in the UK and beyond. I work on projects of all sizes, from logo and branding pieces to packaging, websites and even the social media launches. I also run a small blog with resources for new designers and graduates who are just starting out in the freelance world.
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