AI in Design: How Algorithms and Automation Can Help Artists

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We’ve already discussed at length how AI is being used to narrate audiobooks and even write stories.

But what about when it comes to design? Do artists need to worry about losing their paychecks to a robot?

In this post, we’ll explore how artificial intelligence is already being used to enhance designs, and how it can help (but not replace) human creativity.

How Is AI Used in Design?

Below are 5 ways that AI can be used to create and enhance designs.

1. AI enhances creativity.

When you think of AI as more of an assistant rather than a replacement to human creativity, you can better appreciate all of its wonderful possibilities.

By taking care of the more mundane tasks, AI frees up more time for designers to do what they do best: the creative work.

For example, Adobe Sensei uses AI to identify patterns in photos for patching, among other tasks. This helps the creative expedite their process, do a more thorough job, and have more time for generating ideas and creating their own designs.

2. It creates personalized user experiences.

AI can also help create a more personalized experience for your target audience. For example, it can generate unique homepages and landing pages for a site based on user profiles, preferences, and tracking data.

Moreover, it can help users find what they’re looking for more easily—sometimes before they even realize they want it!

You know how when you’re scrolling through a streaming service like Netflix, and you get recommendations for certain shows or movies “because you watched House of Cards“? That’s AI working to make Netflix’s main menu and interface more effective at delivering stuff you’ll love.

3. It helps designers create higher-performing products.

By analyzing large amounts of data, AI can help designers create high-performing products based on the best-converting designs and other known metrics.

This means that AI will help improve the speed and optimization of many products and services, from web design to mobile app interfaces and more.

Because it can analyze data and metrics so quickly, AI can also help make suggestions for design improvements.

Designers can then choose which of those suggestions they want to implement, adjust, or use as inspiration for other changes.

4. It can create a variety of options.

If you feed AI a pattern, it can create… infinite jars of Nutella?

In 2017, an algorithm created over 7 million unique labels for the company’s “Nutella Unica” campaign.

This is just one example of how AI can take a set of colors and patterns and use them to create millions of different designs.

Not only is this helpful for designers who are stuck in a creative rut, but it quickly gives designers multiple variations to present to their clients based on their preferences.

5. AI helps non-professionals and non-creatives.

What if you’re not a designer or artist by trade? You’re exactly who AI may help the most. You can use AI to design logos, websites, and graphics for your business like a pro, even if you have zero training or creative skills.

Choose which color schemes and other elements you’d like to use, and logo generators like Adobe’s will return with several options and countless customization possibilities.

And that’s not the only way AI can help non-professionals get pro-level results. For better or worse, advanced photo editing tools are now available to anyone with a smartphone, and often for free.

No longer do you need to call up Vogue’s in-house airbrusher to get perfectly refined and retouched photos.

Simply upload your photo to any of the hundreds of retouching apps out there and AI can identify and correct any blemishes, make suggestions, and show you what you’d look like with whiter teeth, fuller brows, and a more defined jawline.

I won’t get into the ethics of this, because that’s a whole other conversation. I mention it simply as an example of the many ways you can use (and probably already use) AI in design today.

Example of AI Software

Fronty allows you to create a web page by simply uploading an image of a design. From there, Fronty will automatically generate the front-end code (HTML CSS) within minutes.

You can easily modify your website’s content and design using their user interface editor.

Check out more AI design tools for graphic design, web design, and image enhancement.

Will AI Replace Designers?

Just as technology has helped make our lives and work easier in so many ways, AI just might make our work smarter—but it won’t replace us.

As I stated earlier in this post, we should think of AI as assistant, rather than a threat, to our creativity. It can help us to achieve what would otherwise be humanly impossible feats—like designing 7 million unique Nutella jars.

But don’t forget that to start that project, a very human designer had to set up some basic color schemes and patterns for the AI to work with so it wasn’t just spitting random images of Michelangelo’s David onto the wrappers.

AI will put designers and creatives in the director’s chair, deciding some of the most important things when it comes to art, like which emotions and feelings they want the design to convey. For now, this is one human capability that AI won’t soon replace.

Did you find this post helpful? Let us know in the comments below!

 

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