Yes, GenAI can design things. You still need a human designer.
I’ve recently become involved in starting up a non-profit theater company. (Long ago, I was going to be an actor. A story for another time.) Right now we’re all volunteers. So anything that saves time and money is helpful.
Enter AI. It’s amazing at building quick layouts. Since most of our volunteers aren’t trained designers, some have been using GenAI to build designs for things like flyers.
I’m a trained designer. (Another story for another time.) So I’ve contributed by reviewing those designs.
When I look at the GenAI output, I see some good work. Aligned columns, consistent margins, consistent color choices, attractive (if not thrilling) layout. But also colors that don’t match our style guide (which I created), or page lengths that don’t fit standard paper because the AI stretched the page to fit in more text.
Why? Generative AI, in its perpetual quest to please the user, will stretch its constraints.
But that’s not all of the problems. Sometimes the AI introduces weird little changes to graphics — almost the same, but noticeably different. Sometimes people’s names are removed completely, or just… suddenly spelled wrong. (That one got me! My last name was misspelled in one iteration of a design.)
Possibly the worst part: asking the AI to make precise changes often results in unexpected changes to other parts of the design.
With GenAI, and particularly GenAI design, if you don’t review everything after every revision you’re likely to miss the errors it introduces.
There are professional-level design programs with AI features, and you can usually expect better results from them than from standard GenAI. They’re a much better choice for work that counts. But even those still need a human eye and a human touch.
There’s a both/and here. GenAI is amazing at coming up with quick design prototypes. It’s great for testing a layout idea. But its output will probably not be thrillingly unique, and it will probably introduce mistakes. Like all AI, it needs human oversight and (in the case of our new theater) actual human redesign to create the final products.
Two other humans and I ended up rebuilding the AI’s design in Canva. We ended up with something AI-prototyped and human-finished, and it came out great.
What mistakes has AI quietly slipped into your work? And did you catch them in time?