The Changing Role of Digital Designers in the Era of Artificial Intelligence
The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping a gamut of industries. It’s no longer a buzzword. In fact, it’s here to stay. It’s omnipresent. Take ChatGPT for example. It has changed the content and copywriting landscape for good. Tasks that would take humans hours to complete, AI does it in seconds. Safe to say, it’s revolutionising the way we work, think and live. Should designers and writers be scared of losing their job to the capabilities of AI?
While it does have the potential to make a few creative jobs obsolete, it will not replace human designers forever. Students are still pursuing graphic and web designing programmes despite the emergence of AI.
AI-generated design is surely promising an exciting future. Through this blog, we aim at exploring how the role of digital designers is changing as AI has set the stage for a creative revolution.
Designers in the Era of AI: What to Do & What not to Do?
When AI made its debut, graphic designers were pretty intimidated. However, they soon realised that their jobs would only become obsolete if they don’t use AI. As an upcoming designer or established designer, here’s what you should be doing if you want to take advantage of this dynamic technology:
Collaborate, don’t replace
AI cannot foreshadow the end of creative human imagination. Use AI to quickly generate templates. Instead of just copying what you see, use it as an inspiration. To create uniqueness in a creative, it’s important to use the human brain. AI technologies only enhance a person’s talent rather than replacing them altogether. For a creative to connect with an audience, human personal touch is still required.
Get inspired by trends
When it comes to identifying new trends, AI is a big boon. As a designer, you should be relying on AI to identify trends. AI tools usually scan social media platforms, search engines and consumer data to predict trends. Based on this data, designers can work on creatives that align with these trends. If you want a particular demographic or target audience to take a particular action, you need to stay relevant, and AI makes this possible. The work of AI is only to predict trends. It’s the human mind that should interpret these trends.
Don’t fall prey to the homogenization trap
As a designer, if you excessively use AI tools, there is a major risk of the designs becoming less unique and more machine-led. Though you might use AI to churn out design styles, it’s important to infuse your work with innovative ideas. In fact, research suggests that AI’s understanding of responsive design is also increasing. Thus, if you use AI to produce websites that are intuitively responsive, chances are that there may be another designer doing the same. AI has the ability to deep dive into user interactions and website metrics. For this reason, websites designed by AI are highly responsive. With that being said, you still need to put in unconventional thinking if you want to stand out in the sea of similarity.
Use it to automate repetitive tasks
There are a series of tasks graphic designers usually dislike. Resizing is something they consider super time-consuming. One way in which AI can help designers is by helping them with mundane/repetitive tasks. There are several AI platforms that can do it for you. From making UI prototypes to editable product mock-ups, AI can definitely automate all the tedious parts of the design process.
Be mindful about ethical considerations
Ethics around AI tools still remain a matter of controversy. Though AI has great efficiency, there are quite a few ethical issues it raises. For example, certain AI tools can reinforce biases if they were present in the data sources. If such a situation arises, it is important for AI to evaluate any prejudices. It is the moral obligation of a graphic designer to modify the creative to ensure it promotes inclusion and justice.
Summary
Will AI change the face of graphic design forever? Well, no! AI in no way aims at replacing graphic designers. It’s just an attempt to harmonise human creativity with technology. As a designer if you want to navigate the landscape confidently, you only have to be creatively inclined, infuse emotion and storytelling in your designs and take inspiration. The future of graphic design will be a fine balance between AI innovation and human creativity. Pursuing a certificate course in graphic designing is a good place to start.
