How To Use AI In Graphic Design Without Losing Creativity

Are you still spending hours creating UI/UX copy or typography without getting AI assistance? Maybe because you are skeptical about its creativity and accuracy, or you simply believe that AI will replace your creativity.

Well, your concerns are justified, considering the exponentially growing number of AI-generated images and designs with hundreds of mistakes and hilarious elements.

But if you closely observe the effectiveness of some AI-generated designs in real-world business, you will be surprised. Nutella has launched 7 million unique jar labels using AI from thousands of color palettes and patterns.

Every single jar showcased different designs, which really attracted customers with different tastes. Consequently, all of the 7 million jars were sold out in just one month.

Paula Scher, an American graphic designer, rightly put it, “It’s not about knowing the software. It’s about knowing what to do with it”, which perfectly fits into this scenario.

It is not about what AI will do to your creativity or work; it is about how you are using it. If you can navigate where it actually works and where it loses control, you can definitely utilize the hundred percent potential of AI.

Here are six techniques to use AI for creative graphic design

Put Details In The Prompt

A good AI output comes from a creative prompt. The more specific the prompt you create, the more sophisticated visuals it will create. In fact, with a carefully written instruction, you can create a design from scratch.

For that, include as many details as possible. Explain every little object and element you want to have in your UX copy, hero image, or photos for your website.

Add storytelling and composition to the narrative of your prompt or brand narrative to make the visual more personally connected to the brand, attracting viewers and audiences.

Never stop after you get the first outcome. Keep asking for more edits and versions. You can ask for suggestions and explain your own ideas to improve the outcome. Simply consider it as assistance and converse with it for more creativity and innovative designs as much as you can.

After the final product appears, if you still find something improper, you can use an AI content detector to remove unnatural elements and misproportions, making it more realistic and perfect.

Repetitive Tasks

Using AI for doing repetitive tasks in graphic design is perhaps the safest strategy to include it in your workflow.

Designing a visual itself requires a certain amount of time. But editing the image also takes a lot of your time, which you have to do every day.

The repetitive tasks involve resizing, color grading or color palette selection, removing objects, changing the background, or cleaning it, adding objects, adjusting lighting and brightness, composition, and editing countless other elements of an image or video.

Not only that, you can get different layouts and design formats for a specific piece of visual from a tool and make a final product on your own.

AI can edit them in the blink of an eye, without touching the core concept behind a visual, allowing you to invest more time in improving your creativity.

Using Hand-Drawn Art

This is perhaps the most mind-blowing strategy of using AI in graphic design. You can simply draw a picture or upload a pencil sketch to AI, and it can turn it into a realistic design.

After it turns your hand-drawn sketch into a real-life image, you can ask for more edits and ideation to bring realism and instruct AI to implement them until you get exactly what you want.

You can also give it multiple pictures and ask it to create one piece of design. They can be two or three totally separate pictures or images of multiple elements. AI can combine them into a single amalgamation of all the given pieces.

So, the options and possibilities are many with this strategy, enhancing your creativity and innovation.

Align Brand Voice

By using AI, you can also create a design aligned with the brand voice you are working for while you are creating a piece of content and promote the forte of the brand in a nuanced manner.

Simply provide the name, objective, uses of the products, target audience, and voice of the brand, and ask it to integrate them with the logo, hero image, product labels, or any visuals you are working on.

Suppose you are creating typography for a burger or coffee brand. If you ask it to design it reflecting the brand, it may give you a visual of a coffee mug or burger buns with the brand’s name inside it. Burger King is a good example of this kind of typography.

Give Reference Images

Providing reference images is also another effective way to create an innovative graphic design.

For specifications and better understanding, you can provide real-life art, photography, and sample images to AI. Also, you can give individual images of elements and objects.

AI can extract the design style, format, color palette, and layout from the reference, adjust it with your given prompt, and provide an outcome.

When you are out of words to describe an image or what you want to focus on, these references can help AI understand what you need from it.

For example, you have a painting of Van Gogh hanging on your wall, and you are to design labels for perfume brands. You might want to design something inspired by Van Gogh to reflect sophistication. You can simply take a picture of the painting and add it to your prompt as a reference.

Get Reviews From A Third Party

Finally, to have the best result, always get an opinion or final review from a person who is not involved in the design process. This third-party reviewer can provide judgement without any biases.

They can point out inconsistencies and unnatural elements that often appear in AI-generated designs. Also, they can identify the scope of improvements in the design.

From their review, you can decide whether it is ready for publishing or you need further editing.

Final Thought

Using AI for graphic design in creating UI/UX copy, typography, and website designs may sound amateur at first, but it is actually a very effective and powerful strategy if you can use it wisely enough.

By using the strategies and suggestions, you can surely design your desired visual within a few minutes, without hampering your own creativity.

Just remember to keep control over it and never let it be heavy on you. Rather, use it as an aid or a tool. This way, you will enhance your own creativity and get more improved and impactful results.

Author
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Bogdan Sandu

Bogdan Sandu is a seasoned designer who has been designing websites since 2008.

Renowned for his expertise in logo design and visual branding, Bogdan has developed a multitude of logos for various clients.

His skills extend to creating posters, vector illustrations, business cards, and brochures. Additionally, Bogdan's UI kits were featured on marketplaces like Visual Hierarchy and UI8.

He also wrote in the past years on sites like Design Your Way, WebDesignerDepot, WPDean, Designmodo, Speckyboy, Slider Revolution, and more.