How AI Tools Are Transforming the Design Development Process
For the last few years, generative AI has definitely revolutionized the design industry, making design for businesses cheaper and more accessible. According to Google Trends, the active use of generative AI in design began to gain significant momentum at the end of 2022 and into the beginning of 2023.
Adobe reports that 83% of creative professionals use generative AI tools in their work, and 74% use them in their personal lives. Moreover, 66% of surveyed creative pros use generative AI reports to make better content.
The rise of platforms like Adobe Sensei, Canva, and Figma, equipped with powerful AI capabilities, keeps further accelerating the adoption of generative AI in design. These tools allow businesses to automate routine tasks, generate unique visuals, and facilitate real-time collaboration, thereby reducing the time and cost associated with traditional design processes. As a result, companies are able to scale their design efforts, create more personalized and engaging content, and stay competitive in a rapidly evolving market.
In this article, we will explore how businesses benefit from AI in design, highlight the most popular AI-powered design tools available today, and discuss whether AI can truly replace human designers.
How do businesses benefit from AI in design?
AI-designed tools have revolutionized the market, helping companies of all sizes, including the smallest ones, to create highly competitive content. One of the most significant benefits is cost efficiency. Businesses can save substantial money using AI tools instead of hiring full-time designers. For instance, the average salary for a graphic designer in the U.S. ranges from $50,000 to $70,000 per year. In contrast, a subscription to AI-powered design tools like Canva Pro costs around $120 annually. This stark cost difference allows companies, especially smaller ones, to allocate their budgets more efficiently while still producing professional-quality designs.
Time savings are another significant advantage. Adobe’s research indicates that 62% of creative professionals using generative AI report a 20% reduction in time spent on tasks, allowing them to focus more on strategic and creative activities. This reduction in manual effort directly translates into cost savings, as less labor is required to achieve high-quality results. For example, a marketing agency implementing AI-powered design tools can reduce project turnaround time by 30%, enabling it to take on more clients and increase revenue without hiring additional staff.
AI also greatly enhances the scalability of design processes. By automating repetitive tasks, design teams can manage larger volumes of work without a proportional resource increase. Adobe’s survey found that 58% of creative professionals noticed increased content they could produce using generative AI. This scalability is vital for businesses looking to expand their marketing and content production efforts, allowing for greater output without significant additional investment.
AI not only boosts productivity but also fosters innovation within design teams. According to Adobe, 66% of creative professionals believe they are producing better content with the help of generative AI tools. Additionally, 69% think AI offers new ways to express creativity, promoting a culture of innovation. These improvements in productivity and creative output help businesses stay competitive and agile in a rapidly evolving market, driving continuous innovation and ensuring they can meet the dynamic demands of their industry.
Last but not least – accessibility. AI design tools grant small businesses access to professional-level design capabilities previously exclusive to large companies with substantial resources. This democratization of design allows small businesses to create appealing and compelling content. A survey by QuickBooks found that 83% of small businesses already use AI, with 36% using it daily. Furthermore, 65% of small businesses are eager to increase their use of AI to boost productivity further and cut costs.
How AI-powered tools help in design
In 2024, there are hundreds of AI-powered tools for design, such as Canva, led by CEO and co-founder Melanie Perkins or revolutionary RunwayML, led by Cristobal Valenzuela that even helps to create movies nowadays. The subscription costs vary from as low as $10 a month for basic features to $4000 annually for more advanced professional options. At Kitrum, our graphic designers also harness the power of cutting-edge tools to get inspired and improve their creative process. Let’s explore what tools they use and how exactly they use them in their daily design adventures.
Midjourney: the creative spark
Imagine starting a project with just a seed of an idea. Human designers fire up Midjourney to explore an array of design possibilities. It’s like having an endless sketchbook where each page reveals a new concept. For instance, when brainstorming for a new app interface, designers can input a few keywords and watch Midjourney unfold a series of stunning visuals. This initial spark fuels their creativity, guiding them towards unique and original designs. But, as brilliant as it is, Midjourney’s suggestions need the seasoned eye of our designers to refine and perfect.
Recraft: the refinement tool
Next comes Recraft, human designers’ go-to for fine-tuning their visions. It’s like having a virtual sculptor’s chisel, helping to shape and detail designs precisely. Let’s say designers drafted a new website layout. Using Recraft, they can adjust elements, tweak colors, and polish the overall look until it gleams. While Recraft can suggest improvements and alterations, human designers breathe life into the designs, ensuring they resonate with the intended audience.
Ideogram: the storyteller
Ideogram is where words and visuals meld into captivating narratives. When the team of designers works on branding projects, they can turn to Ideogram to craft compelling visual stories. For instance, creating a brand guide for a client might involve using Ideogram to combine imagery with text, presenting the brand’s journey and ethos in an engaging format. It helps to visualize the story, but only human designers can weave the elements into a cohesive, compelling narrative that genuinely speaks to the brand’s identity.
Stable diffusion: the finishing touch
Finally, we have Stable Diffusion, the master of blending and smoothing out the final details. Imagine working on a complex infographic. Human designers use Stable Diffusion to ensure all elements flow seamlessly together, creating a visually harmonious and appealing result. It’s like adding the final brushstrokes to a painting. While Stable Diffusion helps to achieve a polished finish, it’s the designers’ artistic sensibilities that ensure the final product is not only flawless but also memorable.
Why AI cannot fully replace human designers
While Midjourney, Recraft, Ideogram, and Stable Diffusion improve designers’ capabilities, offering new ways to explore, and refine ideas and even can be a solution for some companies that cannot afford designers, it is important to understand that AI cannot replace a human designer for many reasons, and here is why:
The illusion of originality
People often think that AI image generators like Midjourney or DALL-E create completely original visuals. Yes, when you input a prompt, the resulting image appears new and unique. However, while the output image may be novel, the underlying visual concepts are not. This is because AI systems are trained by analyzing billions of existing images. Through this process, they extract small pieces of meaning from each image they review.
For example, if you ask for an image of a “mountain landscape,” the AI will combine elements from millions of images of various types of landscapes – snowy peaks, forested mountains, desert ranges – to produce a new image that represents an average of all these influences. On the contrary, when humans design, whatever they create is always fully original. Human designers draw from their unique experiences, perspectives, and emotions to craft designs that are truly one-of-a-kind.
AI produce anomalies
While AI can generate almost any visual content you can imagine, it is still not perfect. For instance, it may sometimes produce images with anomalies such as people having 6 fingers, 3 legs, or other unrealistic features. These artifacts can range from subtle inconsistencies to glaring errors that disrupt the overall coherence of the image. As advanced as AI has become, the human touch is still essential in ensuring the quality and realism of the final product.
Human touch
As Louis V. Gerstner Jr., the former CEO of IBM, once said, “No machine can replace the human spark: spirit, compassion, love, and understanding.” Despite advancements in AI, there remains a significant gap between AI-generated designs and the emotional intelligence of human designers. AI doesn’t have the ability to truly understand and respond to the subtleties of human emotions. Human designers possess the ability to think outside the box, experiment with new concepts, and infuse their designs with personal experiences, emotions, and empathy. This human touch in design leads to unique and innovative outcomes that AI cannot replicate.
In 2021, Burger King decided to rebrand. They could have completed the task in just a few minutes using AI, and it might have looked good. However, they chose to collaborate with professional designers (Jones Knowles Ritchie, a creative brand communications agency) to ensure their rebrand resonates with customers by evoking nostalgia, enhancing brand recognition, and creating a more appealing and contemporary dining experience.
The rebrand addressed lingering perceptions of unhealthy food by emphasizing fresh, natural ingredients through a retro-inspired design. The cohesive visual identity, featuring nostalgic elements and a bold color palette foster a sense of familiarity and comfort among long-time fans. This strategic makeover increased customer trust and craving for their food, leading to a 66% increase in consumer purchase intent over McDonald’s, a 39% rise in visitation intent, and 1.1 billion impressions within 5 days.
Cultural and contextual understanding
Human designers possess a nuanced understanding of cultural and social contexts, which is essential for creating designs that are relevant, resonant, and sensitive to specific audiences. This deep comprehension allows designers to incorporate cultural symbols, narratives, and values into their work, creating a stronger connection with the target audience.
For instance, Nike’s “Just Do It” campaign, particularly its ad featuring Colin Kaepernick, transcended traditional marketing to become a cultural and social statement. By aligning with Kaepernick’s protest against racial injustice and police brutality, Nike took a stand on a highly charged issue, resonating deeply with communities advocating for social change.
This campaign’s success hinged on a deep understanding of the cultural and social landscape, making it impactful and relevant. Such cultural resonance is challenging for AI to replicate, as it lacks the lived experiences and contextual understanding of what is happening in the world. Human designers can intuitively navigate these cultural nuances so that their designs not only meet functional requirements but also engage and inspire on a deeper, more personal level.
Low quality
One of the main problems with AI-powered design tools is their inability to consistently produce high-quality and cohesive graphics. In real-life scenarios, using AI for design often results in low-quality design in 99% of cases, and the graphics lack consistency. While impressive AI-generated results exist, they typically require extensive time spent on crafting precise prompts and retouching. This makes AI impractical for projects with tight deadlines, where it’s often easier and more efficient to hire a human designer. Additionally, creating a uniform style across multiple elements, such as 20 icons, is nearly impossible with AI alone and takes more time than a designer manually aligning them in Photoshop. Therefore, AI tools, while potentially faster for simple tasks, can’t match the flexibility, creativity, and nuanced understanding that human designers bring to more complex and stylistically cohesive projects.
The sense of taste
People have an inherently subjective sense of taste and a refined appreciation for beauty that AI cannot fully emulate. Subtle choices in color, typography, and composition that stem from personal experience and intuition – it’s all about humans.
This is especially true for UI/UX designers, whose role is crucial in creating intuitive and aesthetically pleasing user experiences. Yes, AI can analyze and mimic existing styles, yet it lacks the unique personal taste that human designers bring to their work. For instance, the delicate balance in a color palette that evokes a specific mood or the choice of typography that conveys a brand’s personality are decisions deeply rooted in human creativity. AI, despite its analytical prowess, cannot achieve the same level of nuance and personal expression, making the human element indispensable in crafting truly beautiful and resonant designs.
Brand design
Strong brands always embody distinct identities, emotional connections, history, and a unique tone of voice. While AI image generators can produce visuals at scale, they capture only a small part of what defines a brand. AI-created images can support brand messaging if they are carefully curated by humans who understand the brand’s vision, target audience, and sensitive topics to avoid. Brands risk losing their essence and potentially offending if they rely solely on AI for their identity. Human designers, with their deep understanding of emotional and historical context, are essential in maintaining a brand’s true value. AI can improve, but never replace, this human insight.
