Many people believed that modern technology will first replace the low wage jobs from the industries that are dependent on manual labor rather than intellectual work. However, the latest innovations in robotics and A.I. tend to contradict our previous beliefs: we are now entering a new era, of A.I. based design that hopefully, will change everything for the best.
Until recently, computer generated design was regarded more as a sci-fi idea rather than a reality. The development of artificial intelligence was focused on other goals and nobody could have dreamed about it being capable of actually delivering something useful to mankind. Sure, we all have at least once admired beautiful fractals generated by computers but let’s face it, they were not actually visual designs. They were visual math and nothing more.
Design and marketing
While artists draw for pleasure and sometimes for fame and money, digital design is esigners and web developers. Every brand needs a logo, every website needs a header, every marketing campaign needs a banner and a slogan.almost exclusively focused on marketing. Sure, there are people who are drawing or designing just for fun but at the same time, the professional designing software programs are mostly used by designers and web developers.
We cannot separate design from marketing and vice versa. However, we have reached a point in our technological development in which we can expect to rely more on automation and save our precious time to find inspirations for a marketing campaign. How? Well, thanks to the newly developed A.I.s, we can now take a look into the future of design and marketing. And we can see that our world is changing and so are the ways we work.
How did A.I. design change the world?
Well, let’s not jump to such a conclusion, at least not yet. They didn’t change the world, at least not yet. While design and marketing go hand in hand and we are already aware that there are A.I.s out there capable of performing both these tasks, we are now only grasping the beginning of what the future will look like. Nevertheless, there are at least three examples of great A.I.s that worth to be mentioned for the purpose of this article. Let’s find out about each of these successes:
- Tailor Brands
Over time, there were some really great improvements and innovations in A.I. based design. However, the greatest news comes from Tailor Brands and their artificial intelligence logo design software. While other similar apps are quite basic and cannot deliver many alternatives to the user, the A.I. used by Tailor Brands is adaptable and capable of learning, considering it is used on a frequent basis. Moreover, Yali Saar, CEO of the company, believes that their software is capable to “design logos, promotional products, and even social media campaigns”.
Why are logos important?
A company or a brand logo is the first thing that people see when they land on your web page, when they see your banners or other types of ads. In a blink of an eye, your logo gets to be noticed or forgotten, depending on how representative it is for your brand, and how easy it is to be mentally associated with it. A company or a brand logo is therefore, the first and most important step of your branding process. Everything you do from now one in terms of marketing depends on your logo’s visual style.
How does this work? Apparently, things are quite simple but you should already know that nothing is as it seems. The A.I. will help you design your brand logo but you have to pay attention to all the following steps, in order to help the machine learn about your business and generate relevant and accurate designs.
After you have signed up on their website and write down your brand name, the machine will ask you a series of questions. First, you have to describe your business and what you are doing.
Then, you will select the type of the logo you want to create. Let’s say, you want a “name based” logo.
Next, you get to choose from a series of styles and fonts. At the end, the A.I. will generate a few sample logos from which you can choose the one that best suits your brand. At this point, you can edit the chosen logo and personalize it even further.
- AutoDraw
We are not all designers. So far, it was almost impossible for an individual without talents to draw an accurate doodle. Everything changed however when AutoDraw.com introduced their A.I. based experimental drawing app. You can start drawing, use the artificial intelligence based suggestions and quickly turn your image into a really cool looking doodle. It won’t be a work of art but it will look better than if it were designed by someone without any skills of this sort.
How can we use it for marketing? Well, you can use some of your most inspirational drawings to create memes and cartoon based images that you can share on your social media accounts. Or, you can create beautiful collages for you website headers.
- Prisma
The next example comes from Prisma. They have a mobile app available on IOS and Android that transforms pictures into works of arts, based on styles of famous artists such as Picasso and Van Gogh. What makes Prisma app different from other similar apps, is that it “uses a mix of artificial intelligence and neural networks to produce imitations of art styles produced by the human hand”. Currently, they are working on developing a similar A.I. app that will be able to also process videos, not only images. What is important however is that the app works and it does a great job. For instance, you can turn a collection of photos into a very stylish looking graphic novel with just a few clicks. And of course, you don’t need any other skills besides shooting photos with a camera.
How can we use it for marketing? Apps similar to Prisma will probably become quite trendy among mobile users, considering that each smart phone is virtually a handheld camera capable of shooting great photos. As we all use images and photos in our marketing campaigns, I don’t see why giving them a stylish look would not be a good thing. On the contrary, it may save you many hours of work, doing digital design.
Should designers and marketers feel threatened?
As we know, marketers and designers should work together and be more productive, they need a team collaboration software that can help their work. But what if AI will take over their work?
Considering that there are several A.I. based apps that are capable of delivering actually good designs, I am sure that there are many professionals that are wondering about their future careers. For the time being however, this may not be the case. Sure, technology develops sometimes faster than we can imagine but there are some tasks, the artificial intelligence machines cannot do. Here are some of these things that are strictly dependent on human input:
Inspiration: You need it should you want to create a design or a marketing campaign that will prove to be successful. We’ve learned that you can create a logo or adjust some drawings with an A.I. based app but there is more to a marketing campaign than these things. You need content, you need great visuals, and maybe, an adjusted A.I. generated logo with some extra visuals added.
Retouching: This is another type of work that computers are not quite able to perform yet. Machine generated visuals may prove to be a real thing but sometimes, they are not perfect. Hence, the need to retouch the designs or even to add new layers of visuals on top of the basic A.I. work.
Marketing strategy. There are several apps that can help you narrow down on your targeted audience, to research keywords, markets and so on. However, the ultimate choice is human based. Only the marketer knows exactly what should the campaign look like, be addressed to, and for how long. Computers can calculate analytic data and generate stats but the marketer will actually be the one to read and comprehend them and adjust the strategy according to their findings.
Art: We’ve seen that A.I. machines are capable to transform images in beautiful works of art. However, everything depends on whether a specific picture is worth it or not. Sure, you can adjust a basic shot into a beautiful one but in order to make it artistic, it has to say something. You need an eye for photography, inspiration to take it at the right time and a good sense of colors and objects composition.
Conclusion
Artificial Intelligence is not a new concept. However, the last few years, brought us some advancements in this field and we can expect that the technology will develop even further. On account of the design and marketing industry, there are already a few players that can make our lives easier and help us save time with our designing tasks and marketing campaigns. However, designers and marketers will not lose their jobs, they will rather adapt and learn to work with these new tools and apps and deliver better results with less effort.
What do you think about the latest developments in A.I. design technology? Did you try some of the apps described in this article? Were they helpful? Feel free to add your inputs in the comments section available below. I will be more than happy to learn about your opinions and experiences.
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