Real-World Applications of AI in Design

AI is quickly becoming mainstream in many industries, including graphic design. The technology is making the designers giddy with excitement because AI can make the designing process so much faster and easier but — it’s also scary at the same time because we’ve seen what AI systems are capable of.

One of the earliest examples of AI entering the graphic design industry is The Grid, a website which creates modern-looking websites for customers in minutes. Users just need to upload the content and using AI, the Grid will begin setting up the website. The website was launched in 2015. A lot of AI-powered tools for creating websites and generating logos have been introduced ever since, including Tailor Brands, Squarespace, Wix, etc.

In 2017, Ferrero partnered with an advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather Italia to get more people to buy Nutella. Their plan was to have an algorithm design the packaging. The algorithm was then provided with database patterns and colors to create seven million unique jars that were sold throughout Italy within a month.

nutella jars designed by an algorithm

Does that mean AI will replace human workers? According to a report by Oxford University and Deloitte, 800,000 jobs were lost in the UK due to automation between 2001–2015. But according to the same report, 3.5 million new jobs were created. You see, it’s not all doom and gloom. It’s true that AI can do so much in the creative realm that we humans can imagine. But creative professionals cannot be replaced by machines. At least not in the next couple of years.

There are certain jobs that require knowledge of culture, emotion, timeliness, identity, etc. AI just cannot mimic those tasks. In all honesty, AI is more of a friend to graphic designers than an enemy. As IBM CEO suggested, “the initials AI would be more helpful to artists if they were understood by designers as augmented intelligence, instead of the scarier-sounding artificial intelligence.”

With the help of Artificial Intelligence, designers can create multiple designs at improved speeds and reduced costs. There are a lot of amazing ways AI can be used in graphic designing. Designers and Robots can work side by side and do wonders. Let’s see how AI will help in the designing process.

Automating Legwork

A designer’s work involves a lot of legwork. Designers on an average spend 20% of their time in solving problems that can easily be automated by Artificial Intelligence. Some tasks like cropping images, correcting colors cannot simply be automated since they require human attention as these tasks take place.

But AI could do this job for us. In fact, it has already started helping us with the problem. Adobe has launched Adobe Sensei that powers intelligent features and help designers do their work more efficiently. It uses AI and Machine Learning in a common framework to improve the overall design and delivery of the final product.

Adobe Scene Stitch identifies various patterns in the image and can help edit, or even create a new scene. Netflix is also leveraging augmented intelligence system for artwork personalization. Whenever there’s a need to create multiple banners for a show in different languages, all a designer has to do is look at the banners created by robots to approve or reject them.

All these things can save a lot of time for the designers to work on more crucial things and make decisions about product design.

Improving The Design Elements Of Websites

According to the Adobe survey, 69 percent of the creatives believe that the use of AI will increase drastically over the next five years. They also believe that AI systems are not going to take away their jobs. It’s clear that a lot of people are optimistic and the demand for such technology is high.

Tools like Tobii Pro Sprint, which uses eye-tracking technology, can help improve the design elements of the websites. It allows UX designers to record the eye movement of the participants while using the website and it will help the designers to fix the usability issues and improve the design.

tobii.com

But companies like EyeQuant are taking it to the whole new level by teaching AI to predict what kind of ads people like with 85% accuracy.

Smarter Design Systems

AI can also help you make your design system smarter and more robust. Companies trust design systems to keep their product consistent to its users. Implementing AI in design systems will help us analyze how users interact with all the elements of a design system and we can understand which one is best for each function. This helps in better optimization.

The more the system learns about what is working and what is not, the better the results will be. Companies like Squarespace and Wix are already using AI technology to help designers with decision making. Wix ADI makes use of client’s feedbacks and its algorithm to design websites to perfection.

Some other tools using AI in Graphic Design

DesignScape

DesignScape has an impressive AI system that provides helpful tips and hints to the website designers to craft a website to near-perfection. It doesn’t design the website on its own but it is very helpful to improve the efficiency of the designer.

AI will not be able to design the websites like the humans do, not at least in the near future but it will indeed reduce maintenance efforts for us.

Tailor Brands

Tailor Brands specializes in creating logos for businesses. It has a very advanced and powerful AI that can quickly create a logo without human interaction. Users just have to answer a few questions and provide information about their business. The AI system will then analyze the results and create dynamic logos.

Turbologo

Turbologo is another great tool for creating eye-catching logos for your business. You need to enter your company name, select color choices, and pick some of the icons that you like and it will create awesome logos for you. Once you enter all the details, it will generate a lot of ideas and you can choose from them. It’s really simple to use. Turbologo uses AI and machine learning to design the logos that you can use.

FontJoy

FontJoy generates font combination using a deep learning system. It helps the developers choose the best font pairing. Well, it is hard to say what exactly makes a good font pairing and the developers are aware of that. So, they start by asking what makes a lousy pairing which is an easier way to get started. Using a deep learning system, the website allows you to generate awesome font combination.

These are just a few of many tools using AI in designing. You see, AI is transforming the graphic design industry and we all should welcome it. Designers should not feel intimidated by this technology. It will create a lot of new opportunities and by leveraging its power, designers will be more creative and productive.

Real-World Applications of AI in Design was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.