r/graphic_design • u/arnauddsj • 1d ago
Discussion Tired to read about AI nonsense
Sorry for the rant but I’m tired of all these messages from young people saying they quit freelancing or their graphic design studies because “AI can generate images.” So what?
You think a marketing or brand director is gonna fire their graphic designer and start creating visual campaigns themselves by prompting an AI? Then what, he sends his “ready to print” files (300dpi, with bleeds and all that shite) to the printer, who replies “Sorry, this isn’t even CMYK…”? Or probably the AI will generate the 100 banners in 10 formats the e-commerce team need for their affiliation campaign.
And now developers don’t even need to talk to UI designers anymore. They build faster with AI, so of course, they’ll just prompt the design themselves too.
Wait, never mind. Developers are gone too because AI took their jobs.
So I guess it’s just one CEO now, prompting all day.
Stop the nonsense. Maybe you're just looking for an excuse to give up or be lazy. And for those who are ready to get sh*t done, good for them, less competition.
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u/Own_Writer2427 1d ago
You're missing the point though. The problem is not that GD will disappear, it's that a company will need only one or two GD instead of hiring more since the use of AI helps do the work faster. So there will be a fierce competition between GD job seekers for limited positions.
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u/Pristine-Lie2847 1d ago
I think it's so naive to not want to have this discussion as it's relevant to the very people who make up this industry. I get that people don't like to talk about it, but it's happening.
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u/Own_Writer2427 1d ago
There is a lot of big egos in the field of Graphic Design. A LOT. The ones applauding IA are the most irritating ones.
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u/No-Way7911 13h ago
People here really don’t understand the business side of things
No one pays for graphic design. They pay for results. It makes zero difference to the suits whether the ad creative that got them 4.5% CTR vs 4.3% CTR was made by an AI or a designer
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u/ThyNynax 1d ago
Unfortunately, it is a fact of life that when a new technology is invented…if you don’t learn to adopt it, someone else will.
That’s been true all the way back to something as simple as riding horses up to things as complicated as nuclear weapons and biotechnology.
The US nuclear program started because Germany was already on the road. US politicians decide to ban stem cell research and a couple of years later China is reporting progress on cloning.
AI and AGI won’t be any different. We either learn how to adopt it and regulate it, or you may literally have to start a war to stop someone else from using it.
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u/buginabrain 1d ago
Not only that, but if you are in a salaried position the automation of time consuming tasks will free you up to take on even more responsibilities with less team to help you and possibly at the same amount of pay or less.
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u/PudinStarved 1d ago
This happened to my last job. I worked remotely at a Marketing Agency that offered different design services (Meta Ads, Email Marketing, Social Media Design and Strategy, etc).
When we first started it was great to be a designer there! But at a certain point they started treating us as a factory. They laid off a bunch of designers while still acquiring more and more clients, filling the remaining designers with ungodly amounts of projects and work. I remember me and my colleagues crying and venting with each other after work!
I resigned one month ago and it has been the best decision. I'm still in contact with my colleagues, so they keep me informed about the status of the Design Team. Apparently, they noticed that less designers and more clients aren't working out, so they just hired a bunch of designers to keep up with all the projects they have in their pipeline.
So, I feel confident that designers are still needed 🙏
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u/Religion_Of_Speed 1d ago edited 1d ago
Exactly this, plus we will now be expected to utilize AI in our work and because of that will now be expected to take on duties not in the normal realm of design to a greater extent than recent times. "Graphic designer" now means motion designer, video editor, web designer, and web developer in some cases. Probably forgot a few things there too. I'm holding on to refusing to use AI beyond the occasional generative fill in Photoshop but I fear this is going to be quite difficult in the future.
Like pretend we're fish in a pond. AI isn't killing the fish, it's draining the water to make the pond smaller so only the super-adaptable and experienced fish will survive. Meaning there is no room for entry level positions, which means there's nobody coming up to be trained, and then we lose experience when the older designers retire. A similar thing happened in the trades, like welders and electricians. Different causes but it's the same end result, there was a huge dip in entry level workers and now we're running out of people who know how to do those jobs and all the experienced workers are retiring. That's just speaking for graphic designers, not all of the positions we will now fill because of the job duty expansion. That means for all the categories I listed above there will be the exact same problems, possibly amplified if they can't handle basic graphic design duties. Their employer will just find someone who can do both and will be okay with accepting less pay because if the market is that competitive companies can actually start an underpayment war. We'll be forced to take what we can get.
Alternatively, since generating AI images isn't all that difficult, there might be an exodus of experienced designers causing sort of the opposite problem. There won't be any senior positions, it'll all just be general graphic design aka AI prompter and the field will lose all upward mobility, then there's just no reason to go into the field, then we lose the true designers and only have AI prompters. You can pay an AI prompter a whole hell of a lot less and they can "do" the job of many. They do it poorly but the people in charge probably don't give a shit if it's better than what they can do. Side rant: Since when did someone with no experience become a measuring stick? "It's better than I can do" is a phrase for defending bad work that's becoming a lot more common. Maybe "it's better than what the competition is doing" would be a better measure.
I don't blame anyone for calling it quits and going off to find more stable work. I'm considering it myself, breaking my back working on cars or returning to the kitchen sounds a whole lot better than fighting with kids who are more familiar with AI than design. I'd prefer to work in an industry that I know will at least exist in 10 years.
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u/Own_Writer2427 12h ago
I agree with everything you said. I'm even considering changing careers myself. I'm sick of always adapt to the demands of companies, having to know every field related to GD. It's great to learn new things but when they all become requirements for a job interview, it's really annoying. I dont particularly like coding, and my previous company told me it would be better if i learn coding so they dont have to hire a developer. GD is just becoming ridiculous.
Plus as you've said, the new ones coming will be much better at AI than doing the real work, or will just be immersed in the thinking part rather than the doing part. For me AI gets in the way of GD. Automaton can be a good thing but AI will make designers lazy and only into thinking mode rather than thinking/doing mode.
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u/UncreativeTeam 1d ago
Yeah, and the company owns all assets created by former employees. They just need to feed those into the AI model to generally replicate the style. And then you don't really need either GD and can hire a cheaper one to run the prompts and do cleanup work.
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u/AcceptableJacket5455 1d ago
My art school which teaches graphic design has been using AI for its social media and basically all creative/design work for a year, so I don't know... If even art schools prefer AI to graphic designers it seems that the future is pretty horrible
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u/arnauddsj 1d ago
Most Art Schools are scams, they reveal themselves
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u/AcceptableJacket5455 1d ago
In my country Graphic Design is not a """serious""" degree, meaning that it's not a degree you can get in a university, so if you want a GD degree you have to go to an art school, so how do you get licensed then?
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u/arnauddsj 1d ago
I've been doing graphic design (no illustration) for 20 years, I stoped school after High school because I hated it. I don't even know what a licence is for. You need to get good, the best even, at what you like doing, to have the chance to get a job. This always have been even before AI. I don't think I've any special talent, but I learn as much as I can and deliver value to my clients (or past employer). this is the only thing that matter.
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u/ohmarlasinger 18h ago edited 10h ago
Graphic Designers don’t explicitly need any sort of license, or college degree even, in the states. I do have a couple AA degrees & a handful of certificates but my “education” / skills are shown thru my work/ portfolio. In the creative industry in the states a degree is encouraged but time in the industry counts too, even self taught w no formal schooling is valid if your book & your work ethic back you up.
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u/Louis6787 1d ago
Not the CEO, but instead of having 10 designers they will have 2. If it is a small organisation with 1 designer, then it will be only Ai. Good news is, it will be much easier for anyone to start their business with a much smaller budget and compete with larger teams only by using Ai.
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u/arnauddsj 1d ago
I agree it might reduce the number of hires, but not that nuch. and also that small organisation with 1 designer, they won't replace them with AI. They might not hire a 2nd designer. But nowhere someone will take that person job saying "ok, I can do the prompt". Again, there is much more to design than just creating a final png visual.
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u/Own_Writer2427 1d ago
But the point is there will be a fierce competition between GD looking for a job since there will be less jobs. It is already a saturated market and will become even more saturated.
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u/arnauddsj 1d ago
not if everyone give up 😁 as it has been said, those designer on fiver bringing very low value to a need will indeed have hard time to counter that. but you don't make a career in a field targeting the lower end quality, or you might better be doing something else.
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u/Louis6787 1d ago
It is not the first time I read this type of "fiverr" comments. Any money you remove from the industry is money your remove, no matter if it goes to someone on fiverr or not or the value they bring. Those people will still buy assets for their gig (for example), or will move to something else if they can't make money and competition will increase somewhere else. If that clientele looking for cheaper jobs goes away, everyone will feel it one way or the other.
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u/arnauddsj 1d ago
I guess what's happening is similar to automation in industries. People were freaking it saying machines will take their job in the factories. And it did take jobs. But where are those people now? probably doing something else for an other kind of industrie. Many new job have emerged as well. I bet many other new jobs will emerged. "Ai prompt assistant", or "home robot maintenance" or whatever.
That being said, I see a future were human almost don't work anymore, but this is an other topic
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u/Louis6787 1d ago
That's why I said that the competition will increase somewhere else. The creation of new jobs will not be instantaneous, it will be not a certainty, and it will not be without pain.
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u/Own_Writer2427 1d ago
I'm only referring to companies hiring GD. I'm not talking about Fiver. Companies hire a team of designers, but soon only one or two GD will be needed do the work. It will be so competitive to have just a decent wages and make a living from our work. We'll be fighting for scraps. GD will always be there but they'll only be used for design thinking, the rest will be automated. Also consider that many small companies are stingy and wont spend on GD work if they can play around with automaton and IA.
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u/arnauddsj 1d ago
Maybe one day, for now I don't see any AI creating catalogues in indesign or editing video based on a client brief, that is often too abstract, or browsing all clients assets inside a DAM to get the perfect visual that could work for banner ads without cropping the product, thinking about dead zones, using the client font types, the right logo etc etc etc... we are very far from that
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u/THIR13EN Senior Designer 1d ago
Designers can be tired and frustrated all they want, it isn't going to change the trajectory of where AI is taking this role. I think a lot of folks that are in denial or talking shit about AI not being able to do this or that, haven't been on the job market lately. It doesn't matter what we think is going to happen, we need to pay attention and adapt or be left behind. No one is saying it will take over all roles, but there will be a significantly lower number of job openings compared to the last 10-15 years. So what happens to the hundreds and thousands of graphic design graduates that are going to be thrown on the job market? They will all be fighting for a few available jobs, so what happens to the majority that doesn't make the cut? The reality is, companies depending on their size, will need less and less designers on deck taking on projects. This is what people are feeling on this sub, but they are expressing it purely as "AI taking over" without identifying how exactly is it happening. And this will only get worse. AI will be able to do better in a very very short amount of time. Things are happening fast!
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u/official_sp4rky 1d ago
Yeah, I don‘t understand it either. First of all, you don‘t own the copyrights of ai generated stuff. And AI won‘t give you a continuing coperate design. I think AI is good to give you a general Idead of how something can look, but if you want to have a tidy and unique design, you still need to hire a professional designer!
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u/DoubleScorpius 1d ago
How many clients outside of Fortune 500 companies care about copyright though? Not to mention coke, Schechers, etc. have ALREADY used A.I. in national advertising!
Not to mention, every time I see “AI can’t do blank” all I think is just wait six months…
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u/owlseeyaround 1d ago
Every single company needs to care about copyright, because people are litigious? You’re not a professional are you.
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u/Curious_Fail_3723 1d ago
Copyright is a thing. Or are you really ok with stealing other people's work? Come on, this should be common sense. I wouldn't work with a company that flouted copyright laws. Just as I would (and never have) worked with a company that pirates software. Be honest, be forthright.
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u/arnauddsj 1d ago
my point is that AI will not replace the person who might prompt the AI and handle the execution/project planing etc. Companies might hire less because designers work faster, but there is still need for designers and expertise
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u/mikelasvegas 1d ago
That’s the whole crisis. Hiring less designers IS AI taking jobs. Not sure why that concept is so difficult to understand.
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u/arnauddsj 1d ago
Yeah, AI is changing the game, no doubt. Some tasks are faster now, and companies might need fewer hands for basic production work. But that doesn’t mean no hands. It just means the role evolves. You still need someone to prompt the AI, direct the creative, prep files properly, make sure it all fits the brand and campaign strategy. That’s not going away.
Some might be starting businesses they couldn’t have started before. AI lowers the barrier to entry. I’ve seen non-devs launch products, solo designers could create CPG and run full-on campaigns etc. That leads to new revenue, more projects, also more demand for skilled people. So even if some jobs shrink, the overall market might grow.
This happened before. Spreadsheets didn’t kill finance jobs, they exploded the whole industry. Photoshop didn’t kill illustrators, it created digital art as a field. AI should be the same. It’s not replacing designers, it’s replacing the ones who don’t evolve.
You can complain AI is taking jobs, or you can use it to get more done, faster, better. I’m sticking with the second one.
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u/mikelasvegas 1d ago
It devalues the profession in terms of compensation not because of AI's capabilities and speed but the cultural and commercial perception of the craft. Design will soon forever be looked at as not much more than an intelligently crafted request to an AI, with an expected turnaround time of minutes instead of days or weeks.
Since March 2022, I've lead a studio focused on the practical applications of generative AI in my design field of architecture, interiors, and experiential design. I'm the first person to shift and openly embrace new processes and technology, but at the same time I am a pragmatic realist. AI is, and will continue to displace a ton of the design workforce by significantly reducing the number of paid positions available for present and future designers. Sure, start your own thing, but in terms of a current career path in design, it is forever changed. There are so many paid projects I have personally completed that would have previously required a team to execute, or at least a collaboration with certain specialists. In all of these cases I did the work myself. Sure, that enables me, but the consequence is that those other designers never had the chance to be paid for their decades of experience.
We'll see what happens. I agree it will create new types of jobs for those who are open to that, but the current education and expectations are not prepping people for that future. And, not everyone has the entrepreneurial mentality to pivot.
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u/arnauddsj 1d ago
on that point, this project you could handled that would have required a full team to work on. maybe your client wouldn't even try to get a team on it because too expensive. it opens your client possibilities, and opens work for you.
And yes it "displace" and "changes" a lot. but I don't see her "destroys" or "kill".
People need to adapt, all the time. I remember my parents in the early 2000' being lost looking at their kids future "what will they become" looking at internet and the futures jobs that yet we didn't know about. It's intimidating but no choice to adapt.
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u/mikelasvegas 1d ago
That is also my perspective. AI democratizes design and opens doors for work that otherwise may have been passed over. However, that doesn't change that it does shift the perception of value for any specialized task. Clients will now expect more for less, and the one thing that doesn't change no matter how good the tools get, is the biological limitations around strategy and analysis. So, what we are left with, or could be left with, is a race to the bottom in terms of duration and fee with ever-increasing expectations of creativity and productivity that, while possible, outpace our human ability to keep up. We need time to process, think, decompress, and step away. I'm afraid AI is making promises that are unsustainable, and that the only result will be to develop tools that take the human out of the equation to bypass these limitations.
Time will tell.
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u/owlseeyaround 1d ago
It can’t THINK. That’s a people thing
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u/buginabrain 1d ago
Listen I'm against AI illustration but we live in a world of disney remakes, marvel after marvel movie, and multiple sequels on the same tired old franchises because studios and producers don't want to take the financial risk of a new IP.. I don't think originality in the real world matters as much as it does in terms of 'internet OC' or whatever. If the worlds largest employers of creatives don't care, that means you can count on way less opportunities in the future.
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u/arnauddsj 1d ago
Sure and what about all the time saved with editing. it's an amazing tools and we get much more done with it. But that's about it. it doesn't take decisions and doesn't understand clients brief, that even human have hard time to understand because the client don't even know what he wants.
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u/buginabrain 1d ago
Have you tried copying and pasting a clients brief into a chatgpt convo? I haven't, but I'm curious as to what the results might be. If it's able to interpret the brief and come up with concepts in the time it takes to hit "Enter" then I'd say it's a lot more proficient in the task of figuring out what the client needs. I'd also say that all the time saved cheapens the value of the job. That money saved on hiring an Illustrator or purchasing stock images isn't going into the designers pocket, and if they're getting their job done early they can either take on their coworkers workload or be let go themselves.
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u/arnauddsj 1d ago
the briefs are too abstract most of the time. But I do use it when the brief is clean and easy to understand. I have a custom GPT that rewrite the brief correctly, and translate it to english. I use this to pass down a task to my designer.
80% of the time I have to rewrite the client brief, or I handle the work myself.
Also it involve getting files to some sharepoint or DAM which an AI is not able to do yet . Maybe later with agents but I can't see how it would select the best pic for the job, download 100MB TIFF file etc.0
u/Xepobot 1d ago
I agree, also Midjourney literally save me hours from trying to find that one stock image I need.
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u/owlseeyaround 1d ago
Wait, you’re using AI images instead of stock photography? What’s happening?
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u/Xepobot 1d ago
Well, it's more like what my needs are:
If I need something imaginary, I use Midjourney.
If I need something that I know have a real photo or need a very high resolution on something, I go Stock photography.
There is no one better than the other. Just use the right tool or source for the job that needs it.
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u/owlseeyaround 1d ago
I’ve used ai for storyboarding or concepting but never for final art of any kind. It’s so obvious and bad I could never.
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u/Xepobot 1d ago
I mean for illustration. I use it the same way people use photo in digital art before this AI BS. I treat Midjourney as a glorify stock image site.
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u/owlseeyaround 1d ago
I…would fire you.
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u/buginabrain 1d ago
I wouldn't hire you if I could get the work done faster from someone who knows what they're doing. As a designer you couldn't retouch an image that's already 90-95% complete?
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u/owlseeyaround 1d ago
I’m the “someone who knows what they’re doing”. Which is why I don’t use AI slop and I don’t let my designers do it either
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u/Rat_itty 1d ago
But they're literally firing us. Especially if you work in marketing.
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u/arnauddsj 1d ago
you got fired because of AI? So AI do your job at a company you were doing?
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u/Rat_itty 1d ago
At my first job that I left over ~2 years ago because of AI yes, some of my coworker friends still work there but all they do is prompt and fix slop AI spews out. It would literally be faster and better if done from scratch but higher ups still insist on AI. For everything, from 2d illustration, through animation even 3D models. They mostly deal in creating apps and projections/multimedia instalations for museums/exhibitions etc, mostly historical. At the company I work right now there are mass layoffs and big push for everything AI. For designers that are left they train them in AI too, and the worst part is that they're all excited for it.
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u/arnauddsj 1d ago
oh you are doing illustration? For illustrators I agree it's gonna be super difficult. If you are not super talented with a unique style, I don't know how you can survive 🥲
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u/Rat_itty 1d ago
Oh I do everything. There I was doing little bit of illustration work, but mostly hand drawn animation, motion design, 3d modeling and animation and ui work/optimizing for unity. Right now I do more graphic design than before, branding, dtp, socisl media posts, mailings etc. In the meantime I was also animating/rigging characters for 2d games I guess ai can't do that quite yet with optimizing for engines, keeping mesh vertices low, keeping eye on physics constraints etc... but work in gamedev is scarce and unstable. I guess that's every job now though. And tbh doing illustration and simple animation work for random private clients on the internet has been going better than ever for me so that's cute, but I do need a stable income 😭
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u/arnauddsj 1d ago
yes this industry might be worse than other, budget always have been crazy tight and workers commodities, more than other industries I think. They will replace as much as they can with AI also because they will stay closely aware of any tech improvement. Where other traditional companies don't even know what you can do with AI.
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u/Enuebis 1d ago
I believe the issue more lies with young designers not willing to put in years of learning a craft when, with the rate AI is advancing, in those same years AI could very well be good enough to do everything you make fun of it not being able to do now.
I’m in year 22 of my career so I’m comfortable at the moment. But if I was just starting out and seeing things advance at the pace they are currently, I’d 100% question if it’s worth pursuing.
It’s honestly not a question of if, it’s a question of when. Look back 30-40 years and see where we were at tech wise compared to today. Just cause it’s not perfect now doesn’t mean it won’t become good enough later.
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u/MeaningNo1425 1d ago
Actually this is why: https://www.reddit.com/r/graphic_design/s/96yHmSSKJN
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u/Lil_Fuzz 1d ago
And we've already seen larger companies ready to lose some quality to save some money (looking at coca cola and their winter ad campaign lol)
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u/Ninja-Panda86 1d ago
Indeed. I quit the industry even before AI because people were offering me beans. Firms wanted part time workers only so they didn't need to pay benefits. Friends and family kept saying art isn't worth it.
Ironically I learned to code instead, and allegedly AI is taking that job too
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u/MeaningNo1425 1d ago
Coding is safe unless your entry level job. Realistically most coders just googled and copy pasted patterns anyway. At worse there is a reduction 25% for some roles. At worse.
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u/heliskinki Creative Director 1d ago
Indeed. In the short to mid-term the only thing AI will effect is the Fiverr market - the people who have a £50 - £200 budget for a brand design. If that's who you envisage as your client base, it won't put enough food on the table or a roof over your head anyway.
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u/Xepobot 1d ago edited 1d ago
I mean Fiver and some of the freelance site is really a race to the bottom. Designers Try to out compete by charging a lower price which in turn lower the value of designer work....Now? AI can take the cheap stuff.
Designer are now the Swiss watch maker, AI can make the cheap watches for those who can't pay a premium.
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u/Pristine-Lie2847 1d ago
Designers already do this? They give products with lower quality to UHNW people who are willing to pay for a decent enough product. Otherwise, luxury design houses would've ceased to exist years ago. Nothing is as good as it was in almost every consumer product.
People are okay with paying a high price for good enough.
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u/Louis6787 1d ago
And where do you think those freelancers will go? If that market goes away, competition will increase somewhere else.
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u/fckingmiracles 1d ago
Fiverr designers have no design skills, though. It's gonna be hard for them to pivot.
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u/Louis6787 1d ago
Not all of them, maybe the quality is not the top, but there are some doing a great job for the price, there are even small studios offering their services there, at least until a couple of years ago. Also, in any case if that market stops is still money out of the industry. I can easily imagine someone buying an asset for their gig, now gone. Just an example. The repercussions of losing that clientele would be felt on the whole industry
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u/heliskinki Creative Director 1d ago
If they were good enough, they wouldn’t be working on Fiverr. And TBH, anyone who supports the Fiverr business model isn’t a concern to me, they enabled the race to the bottom. They shall reap what they sow.
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u/Corgon Creative Director 1d ago
I mean I agree but all the things you mentioned are not far off in terms of possibility. Eventually there is going to be a time where people below a certain level of experience or leadership or those with a defined skill set are going to be dead in the water plain and simple. Diversify now.
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u/arnauddsj 1d ago
people below a certain level of experience we're having trouble finding job before AI
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u/avidpretender 1d ago
I’ll admit it’s a lot of the same posts but the conversation is still relevant as AI will have a profound effect on the job market moving forward
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u/RaccoonNo7501 1d ago
Lol guys I don't see same panic in coders why are you guys freakin out ?
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u/draker585 Design Student 15h ago
Because coders have to take that output and understand it, know how to implement it properly into what they’re doing, and fix it wherever it goes wrong. The average person can’t do that. The average person can make an AI design workable. The bar has dropped, and you need a lot less hands to make a design.
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u/seamew 1d ago
ai isn't replacing print any time soon, even a lot of digital stuff either. all you're seeing right now are youtube side-hustle bros pushing this nonsense to get clicks on their channels, because that's where they make money, not by actually using these tools.
the recent "ai just replaced ad agencies" videos are also bs. the amount of time a person would spend making an ad in chatgpt, a designer could custom make it for multiple formats on social media sites. at best, it can be used as an assistance tool, but it's nowhere near able to replace someone who knows what they're doing.
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u/graphic-dead-sign 19h ago
Fiver, Wixs, AI. lol. Good luck competing in a saturated market while learning to be the jack-of-all trades for poverty wage.
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u/MundanePresence 14h ago
Lost my job for that exact reason. Stop thinking no people will loose their jobs, some countries are already stuck with way more graduate than job before ai rise, so why would students even choose that field ??
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u/arnauddsj 13h ago
what was your job exactly? you are telling me that we can close all graphic design schools and stop student from choosing this field? this seems to be a huge opportunity for me 👍
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u/Vivid-Illustrations 1d ago
It is disheartening to hear people "give up" on drawing and painting just because something else does it """better"""" or faster. Ha! Better... AI has yet to be "better" than any other artist. Yes, I am including even the beginners. Getting the fundamentals right is only the bar for entry in a studio or to pitch to a publisher. You need to know hundreds of other things about the craft to even be considered for publication or print. These things AI aren't going to master any time soon, because they are incredibly nuanced, situational, and need to be repeated many times with no variance.
I know these things, I work at a print shop. When a client comes to me with their prompt-driven design it makes hours more work for me. AI does not produce a useable image for print, web, or brand packages. Image generators do not understand the process to prep something for launch so there are thousands of small errors that make the images completely unusable. In every case, I had to remake their generated nonsense by hand so the printer would read it properly.
Also... "Better" makes me chuckle. What metric is that? What does that even mean? We already established that getting the fundamentals perfect is just how you get in the door. It does not land you a job. If all you can do is get the fundamentals of art and design down then you are no better than a first year art student. Some of the art schools themselves don't accept people because their fundamentals aren't perfect yet. So, congratulations, AI image generators, you might be accepted into a community college. Come back to me when you can produce an image that invokes the flavor of a cheeseburger and milkshake at the same time. Then you might be good enough to be a 2nd year art student!
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u/ThorsMeasuringTape 1d ago edited 1d ago
I always say that the biggest problem with generative AI is that it requires you to prompt it by telling it what you want and if clients were good at that they wouldn't want AI.
And you know, I can't even get clients to problem solve when the status on our project management software doesn't get updated correctly. And that's two clicks to fix. Five seconds at most. You expect them to iterate through AI prompts?
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u/arnauddsj 1d ago
my clients write briefs in 2 sentence because I know the industry they work in, I know them, and some ar every bad at writing briefs (also they are lazy af). So if they are too lazy to write a corrext brief there is no way they will want to prompt for an 1h for the perfect image they will have then to recreate with illustrator or ps to make different working format for the marketing. nop, they need someone to do it, because they are stuck in marketing meetings all day ! 😅
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u/owlseeyaround 1d ago
People who use this tech instead of hiring a designer will experience a massive drop in quality which will lead to a loss of business. It’s a self correcting non problem and anyone complaining about it simply isn’t a good enough designer to compete in the market.
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u/ham_sandwich23 1d ago
You need to take the posts on this subreddit with a pinch of salt. All that this sub has now become is a bunch of AI techbros who think design is as easy as drawing a sketch and feeding it to AI or students who have never worked a day in their life as a professional. I would say ignore and focus on your work. I am working w an ad agency that has access to the best of AI tools and AI generated slop isn't something we can show on our decks to the client, let alone then being finalised creatives.
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u/arnauddsj 1d ago
totally, I should not react but I think it's too bad that some genuine people would read those and get discouraged thinking it's the end of design. 😥
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u/Jedi-InTheHouse 1d ago
I’m glad that you wrote this cause I was feeling like I was the only one who felt the same. If anything, I think that the AI for graphic design is not advanced enough. They’re aren’t editable, masking is not perfect and changing colour scheme is still a headache.
The other departments in my company are now making use of AI and Canva for their materials for in-house. However, guess who they come crying to if they want their EDMs, posters, presentation slides to look more professional and polished for clients?
👉💁♀️👈This designer here.
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u/arnauddsj 1d ago
exactly. and if ai allow to make everything editable like a softwear does, or through a softwear, then it's one more softwear to learn for graphic designer, not the HR using it. because let's be honest, prompting text to change details, I don't see this to be possible, whatever how advanced is AI. "no, the shape in the right, below the red one, not the blue one! make it 10% smaller and change the red to #38822"... OK je give me a mouse or get it done already
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u/Matyg123 1d ago
Not only will AI do all of what you said. It will output layered files with live type and swatches soon.
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u/draker585 Design Student 15h ago
I think you miss this part of it: why go into an uncertain field? Why not go and get a degree for something more general like marketing? May not get as many connections, but if the door for designers is still open by the time we graduate, we can always put together a portfolio. Or, if the threat of AI does not come to pass, there’s general business opportunities available. Hell, you can get your MBA from a degree like that.
It’s not logical to go learn to be a designer when since the time I’ve been in high school (senior right now) I witnessed AI go from first-footfall to where it is today, when there are connected fields that leave the door open while not forcing me to question if I’ll have any chance at a job by the time I graduate.
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u/arnauddsj 15h ago
marketing, coding, finance, all of it is evolving because of AI, not just design. Playing it “safe” doesn’t actually shield you from change. If anything, design gives you unique creative leverage that AI still struggles with: taste, context, storytelling, and hands-on execution.
General business grads are everywhere. It’s harder to stand out without a craft or specialization. Good designers who evolve with the tools (including AI) are still going to be in high demand, just like good marketers who understand brand and strategy.
It’s not about avoiding AI risk by picking something broader, it’s about picking what you actually want to do, and committing to learning how to stay relevant with AI.
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u/draker585 Design Student 14h ago
I think that by the time I graduate college, to be a designer you’ll have to have the knack for it. I’ve met people with that knack; they’ll be fine. I don’t have it. I figure that the average designer’s something like me: capable of using the tools to create something that works, but without any richness.
Those are the people that are rethinking going to college and spending tens of thousands to learn the skills necessary to be proficient, when the field is already shrinking rapidly, and only projected to shrink further. Those people I’ve met will have already found a solid foothold in the industry, and we’ll all be left scrambling for the slim pickings.
I (and, as it seems, many others) am aware I am not going to be relevant in the design field compared to AI. I’m going somewhere that I have an opportunity to be relevant.
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u/Slow_stride 10h ago
Donald Glover said something interesting in an interview that changed my perspective on ai, “AI isn’t going to steal your job, someone who utilizes AI is going to steal your job.”
Up to that point I was firmly anti ai and offended at the idea of using it at work. Now I have found many uses for it
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u/Dr__Dooom 6h ago
Isn’t this stuff dreadful for the environment as well? I think there needs to be more awareness, if so.
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u/cmarquez7 1d ago
It’s amusing because artificial intelligence can generate marketing plans, yet I don’t observe any marketing professionals being laid off. In fact, the opposite is true and more marketing people keep getting hired.
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u/yourpersonnalJesus 1d ago
Sounds french disguised in english language. Totally agree good message
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u/iheartseuss 1d ago
Agreed.
The part people are missing is that the work being done by AI wasn't going to go to you anyway. It's great for one off projects and thumbnails but that's essentially it. You can't get a layered file from it. Can't get a mechanical. You can't commercially use ANY of it.
It'll disrupt in the sense that not using it at all in your workflow is a very bad idea (you should at least know how they work) but I don't see it replacing everyone overnight. Technological adoption doesn't work like that.
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u/ohmarlasinger 18h ago
The pendulum swing is already happening. The evidence of an actual human’s involvement in, anything really, is becoming more valuable. In creative ofc but also even things like websites’ little chat bots. You can tell when you get to a human & it makes a difference. Consumers feel more confident in a brand/ product if humans are involved. The ‘uncanny valley core’ stylings of AI makes ppl uncomfortable, even when they can’t pinpoint exactly what’s triggering it.
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u/mimale Art Director 1d ago
Big fan of this take. The last 5-10 years have been rife with new folks joining the industry/career because they tried using Canva and like the idea and aesthetic of being a designer. I think we're at the precipice of a time where we'll get back to weeding out low-effort designers who aren't willing to put in the mental effort and hours it takes to become both technically proficient and hone your creative/critical eye.
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u/UnemployedCat 1d ago
Do you get that much €6,200/month clients ? if ever ?
Why would they pay this amount if they know they can get away with AI images ?
I've worked with big agencies and they're not stupid most of the time if they can lower the budget like a lot.
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u/arnauddsj 1d ago
I do have one client paying 3200k every month in a yearly contract and these past 2 months they have added another 3200k subscription to double the work.
I have an other client at 3200k. No contract but they have been paying for more than a year now. They have asked for a second subscriptions on busy months.
So yes, it's paying well, but I have only 2 clients and have hard time to find others, as they are big groups. If they quick me out I'm done, so its risky. That's the risk of entrepreneurship. for now they are swamped and they surely won't do the work I do with AI.
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u/Gman71882 1d ago
AI is a tool to help make us more efficient. Learn how to master the prompts and it will make us indispensable to those who need us.
Use it to do your design job better and faster. We don’t need to tell everyone we used AI to create it.
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u/arnauddsj 1d ago
yes, So far I never had to tell people I used content Aware fill on photoshop.
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u/Gman71882 1d ago
I love the generative content aware ai tool. That’s a great example of how useful it can be. 15 years ago I used To spend hours rubber stamping and clone stamping areas that needed cleanup in photoshop.
We are so much more efficient now.
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u/stabadan 1d ago
I work for an apparel company, The project I am on uses AI extensively to generate parts of our graphics that would be impossible ( too expensive ) to create otherwise.
Before getting transferred to this team, I was pretty anti all of this myself. After doing it for 6 months or so, I am realizing that this workflow CREATED the jobs of everyone on my team, the photo retoucher we just hired to help us prep the generations for our designs, the one or two additional production people that would have been hired to help get the clothes made, and the sales and support ppl that go out and sell the garments.
The entire project is made possible by this technology. Not a single person in the company has lost a job to it yet. That is not to say it won't come for us eventually but the story so far is not what I would have expected at all and that has been encouraging.
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u/barfbat 1d ago
impossible and too expensive are not synonymous lol. it would be possible if it was in the budget
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u/stabadan 1d ago
right. so being too expensive makes it functionally impossible.
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u/barfbat 13h ago
no, you just didn't prioritize it in your budget. you prioritized the costs of the textiles and notions, and of the size range you produce. i honestly can't think of anything else you'd prioritize because i don't trust this company you work for to prioritize anything that might denote quality.
what do you actually use gen ai for? if you say tech packs i'll laugh
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u/arnauddsj 1d ago
I've worked 6 years as a creative service manager for a Footwear brand and now the 2 main customer of my agency are big Footwear groups. I can relate so much, there is no less work, just more work can be done.
They ask me everyday for visuals they wouldn't even ask before. But they still care to create Product campaign with production agencies, photo shooting with models etc. I don't think it's gonna ever stop.
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u/Game_Karma 1d ago
I’ve been wanting to break into graphic design and art more so, but my girlfriend is very much against it because of, in her head, AI is taking over this space. I don’t think so, but confused on how to convince her I’m not wasting time like I did with going to school for social work.
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u/Ashamed-Lunch9922 1d ago
I love where conversation is going on this post, I am actually one of those who made a post about AI and if I can get into graphic design now, although there were a lot of positive opinions there was also a lot of gloom and doom. I like this take
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u/AcceptableJacket5455 1d ago
Sorry but this take is cope, companies always do anything that reduces the total cost, people who don't see it is because don't see how the job market really is
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u/Ashamed-Lunch9922 1d ago
doesn't feel like that to me the op is giving out valid reasons as to why AI isn't going to replace all designers
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u/nikoriz 1d ago edited 1d ago
I agree. Companies/people who use cheap AI generated images were never gonna hire a designer in the first place. They would have stolen pictures, get them from canva/fiverr/freepik, etc.