Creativity and AI – become the creative conductor you were meant to be
There are no two ways about it. AI has already changed the industry we are working in and our creative flow, forever. While most of us only heard about it last year, April 2022, when ChatGPT was launched, it has been working its way into our favourite creative programmes a few more years before that. Let’s now delve into some different industry thoughts flying around about what it means for our creative livelihoods.
According to the articles we’ve been reading up until now: AI is a good thing because it strips out automated tasks like image search, it’s a bad thing because it can write as good as a mediocre copywriter or create images as good as a mediocre designer (meaning such ‘beand and butter’ jobs will eventually become obsolete), it’s easy to distinguish from a real creative person, it’s almost at the level where you won’t be able to distinguish from a real creative person, it (AGI) will take over the world and need regulating, or we’re still years away from that possibility. It all seems to depend on what sources you’re hooked up to. The one clear thing to bear in mind is that no one really knows where it is going to go and what it is going to do. As a creative, it’s better to be fully prepared for any eventuality.
Midjourney prompt: Jony Ives conducting creatively
AI is a good thing, it will enhance creativity and everything will be hunky dory
We asked Poe what AI would do to help or empower creativity, and this list is what it responded with: AI can help you automate repetitive tasks (including image search, tagging and research copywriting)—this ‘could’ leave more time for actual creativity, optimize your content (highlighting key words, and analysing how many key words are needed), personalize content(—for example for shopping), create new content, improve your workflow with organisational AI tools, create immersive experiences, analyse and understand data more quickly and for more creatives, improve accessibility, automate (i.e. audience or user-testing), and stay up-to-date on new creative advancements.
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AI is a bad thing, it will cut out the creative process, and soon we’ll all be jobless
This is what Poe had to say about it on the negative side: Automation of repetitive tasks also means less jobs and less job security. Diminishing creative skills (the whole profession needs less skills in order to get the same kind of creativity done), there could be a lack of authenticity on creative work since algorithms tend to work with what has already been done before, there are already intellectual property right issues and misinformation issues, decreased value of creative work, an increased dependency on technology, lack of control over creative processes and the work produced, ethical and plagiarism issues. Artists are understandably pissed that many prompts are using their work as style examples, vaguely copying their work, and there is no credit for it since artistic style cannot be copyrighted.
Midjourney prompt: Woman morphing into flowers
Changes caused by AI in advertising, creativity and branding
Worlds like branding and advertising are used to change. Perhaps they even thrive on it. Not so long ago, an art director was drawing ‘scamps’ on paper, cutting video manually and splicing it together with tape, and typesetting copy on an old typesetting printer before presenting collages to the client. Final artwork was done by hand and would be presented weeks later as a work of art (– usually a photograph, print or hand-drawing). It’s only in the last 20 years that absolutely all those creative processes have been digitalised. To stay on top of them, creatives only needed to learn the programmes. Creative individuals like copywriter and art director could suddenly do everything a mini creative department could do, on their computer, and within a few days. Did it kill creativity, or make it better? We (and AKQA) think the latter. Originality soared and great ads and creative ideas ruled for a few years.
Yes, AI now means that now anyone can create an ad using AI tools, but what about the thinking behind that ad, the strategy, research, the idea? Or putting it all together? That hasn’t changed, and ideas are still very much needed, even if to know how to prompt the AI in the right way. And someone still needs to drive the whole thing, put the right pieces together to make an amazing whole. You can try it yourself and see how you do.
Branding also changed forever. Firstly there were no brands, brands grew from family-owned businesses and word of mouth. Before the Coca Cola, Apple, or the Nike/Adidas’ brands of this world, there were only a few basic posters in local shops, billboards and women’s magazines. Then big brands, and eventually branding designers, became a thing, allowing anyone to hire one, create a logo and positioning and off they went. Big or small businesses could create a great brand that stood out.
Brands were based around strong USPs, back in the day, which has evolved over the last few years to brand point of views, because let’s face it—all that’s different between certain brands is how they talk about themselves. Like Patagonia (leave the world better or as good as you found it), Nike (empowerment via sports), or Tesla (sustainable electric alternative to fossil fuels). To have a strong point of view as a brand is a great thing because it means they have to contribute more than only products to the world.
Yes, AI means that anyone can create a logo and a brand. But have you tried it? It’s not that easy. We tried on Midjourney, and DALL-E, where it took us the best part of a week of prompting and thinking to create our brand. And yes, in the end we are happy with it, and proud we could do it ourselves. We are sure a branding designer would do better, quicker, more slickly—but it’s still a great start. And a strategic copywriter still had to do all the positioning, tone of voice, and values work in order to have somewhere to start with for the brand and prompting the programmes. That thinking is still necessary to create something interesting.
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Should we creatives all be scared about losing our jobs?
If those creative AI programmes still need guiding why, then, are we getting so scared about our jobs? Is it because creativity has suddenly been put into the hands of people who are not at all creative? Up to now it’s been an elite privilege where not everyone could create. Now, marketing managers, retail managers, any other kind of manager, and everyone in-between, may be able to create pieces of creative themselves and cut out the creative minds. The question then becomes, how good will that creative be, will it be as good as what we creatives do?
Midjourney prompt: Einstein looking scared
Creatives will need to become conductors of AI technology
We put it to you that once again creatives will have to adapt. And we’re quite good at adapting, historically. Ordinary people will not be able to create something as amazing or original as a true creative. We will still have to use our creative skills to produce things, but in totally different ways and using the AI that’s around. Art directors will create the perfect images for campaigns, cutting out expensive shoots possibly and delivering even more creativity at cost for clients. Brand designers, also, will have to learn how to create logos in Midjourney, Firefly or DALL-E and create something quicker, or at least be able to give more rough options quicker. The thinking and the brand strategy will still have to be there, and we haven’t found a way to do that really effectively yet in AI. Photographers might well be able to do shoots they only dreamed of having the budgets for, one such photographer crossed animals with humans in the Netherlands creating striking images at a fraction of the cost. Those who can use AI to create value for money for the client, while still being original and coming with their vision, will do better than someone who sticks to traditional shoots.
It is certain that in the next few years the industry will move from generative and more functional AI to more creative AI, and we will all have to learn to use the technology to enhance what we can do and widen our skills. Who’s in??
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