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A Designer’s Philosophy on AI
Artificial intelligence (AI) has sparked debate within creative circles. Yet, AI is not a magic machine—because it functions more like a fully automated clip art and font system. Since the inception of graphic design in the late 19th century, royalty-free clip art has been a common tool for designers. Now, we witness AI draw from the history of online clip art to produce it in any shape, style or color we want, which is an earth-moving technological development, to say the least.
The Historical Context of Graphic Design
Graphic design emerged as a discipline in the 1880s with advancements in lithography and print technology. As creatives began exploring new methods of visual communication, clip art became an essential resource. Pre-made borders, shapes, and subject matter illustrations expedited a graphic designer’s work—saving them time in getting the great results their clients were seeking. From hand-drawn illustrations to early digital graphics, each era has introduced new tools and techniques. This evolution has paved the way for today’s digital landscape where AI offers designers the highest levels of flexibility in considering layouts, fonts, colors, and relationships between shapes.
AI: A Tool for Efficiency, Not a Replacement for Graphic Designers
Today, AI is revolutionizing our workflows. We can generate visuals based on sketches—which speeds up the creative process and allows us to explore countless variations quickly. While AI can produce cool looking graphics, it still lacks the nuanced understanding of human emotion, conceptual development, and storytelling that skilled designers bring to the table. The unique vision of your graphic designer is irreplaceable—AI can assist but cannot replicate their conceptual depth and intentions.
The Necessity of Human Creativity
New clip art, font designs and other elements made by people remain a key aspect of the design process as we move forward. Just as yesterday’s designers incorporate artistic elements drawn by human hands into their creations—this practice continues today as designers infuse evolving styles into AI-generated outputs.
For instance, while an AI tool may generate a floral pattern based on user input and the clip art in its database, it is the designer who refines these elements—adding personal flair and creative vision to ensure that the final product pops and serves its purpose well. AI technology can yield extraordinary results when there’s a systematic deliberate approach that prioritizes originality, quality and style; but, without the graphic designer’s guidance, design itself would be in danger of stagnating and collapsing into some boring uniformity its machine brain deems fitting.
Professional Design Practices
So how can you recognize AI generated designs made by non-designers? Such work consistently demonstrates a lack of conceptual depth and knowledge of color theory, for starters. It also often hard to read while failing to speak to the audience it is intended for in a memorable way. Why? Because formal design knowledge remains an essential part of the design process, despite AI.
Emerging technologies are valuable resources, yet the expertise of formally trained designers continues to prevent subpar results. Design’s future therefore blends technology, creative vision and technical execution—while AI enhances creativity rather than overshadowing it.
OCO strives to be just one of many emerging examples of how the best results will always come from those highly skilled in both technology and professional design practices.
No one can disagree that technological advancements give designers greater access to countless years of clip art styles. However, OCO predicts the need for traditional graphic design tools, handmade artwork and preliminary sketches will remain.
So what’s the secret to OCO’s visual success? Classical professional design practices combined with cutting edge tools such as Adobe’s Creative Suite gives us uncommonly high levels of control over AI. Plus, nothing beats applied experience in the field of design. Nothing. Not even AI.
Enabling Recreational Industry Entrepreneurs
OCO exemplifies how AI can be more effectively deployed to assist entrepreneurs in the recreational industry—enabling them to start up faster and at lower costs with product and website designs. So OCO is here to help business owners access high-quality design support without breaking the bank, as AI-assisted design enables our tremendous contribution to Oregon’s growing outdoor recreation economy.
AI tools now streamline the creation of logos, websites and product visuals—so OCO offers the benefits back to you, the outdoor recreational entrepreneur. Those we support gain access to higher quality work, infinite digital resolutions and speedy results.
Join us in the fun and send your ideas to get free samples that will help your business standout from the crowd!