The detail is breath-taking. Every brushstroke is placed with intention. Each flood of color tells part of a story. You can feel what the artist felt. You can see what the artist saw, capturing the shape of a dream. Backing away from the piece, you marvel at how accurately it conveys the human experience.
Just then, the curator behind you snickers. You find out that the artist knows nothing about the human experience. The painter is a robot.
If this bait-and-switch happened to any of us, we’d feel like we were in a blind taste-test commercial. A curtain would rise, revealing we’ve been on a soundstage this whole time. Our smiles would fold into confused smirks, nervous laughter. “Ha, of course I knew it was a robot’s work, Bob!” Personally, I’d feel duped, and frankly, quite stupid.
We’ve spent years talking about the dawn of artificial intelligence (AI), but its age is upon us. Throw a rock and you’ll hit advertisements boasting about how AI can make your marketing more effective, help you process a return, rewrite your emails to be more professional, or even recommend the right mattress. Our worlds are saturated with complex deployments of AI that are ostensibly invisible.
Like most emerging technology, we’ve moved past the existential dread phase into the practical phase—which is to say, I haven’t had to battle a single robot mercenary yet. However, new questions arrive on the heels of market maturation.
As someone who shapes visual identities for a living, the question I’ve wrestled with the most is:
What does AI mean for meaningful brands?
Clearing the air
Before I step atop my soapbox to rail about the importance of human-centered brands, allow me to first mention what I’m not planning on covering. This is all in the hopes of quieting any cynicism.
1. It’s complicated
I’m not even close to being qualified to outline the complexities of the catch-all term “artificial intelligence.” Though context is critical to productive conversation, I’ll keep my terminology quite broad and philosophical.
2. I’m no luddite
I don’t hate AI nor do I think it’s a major threat to the craft of design. Like most technology, it’s a tool, and one that can harness a tremendous amount of creative power.
3. I’m interested in the practical
I’m not diving into how-tos, and I’m also not evaluating ethics because plenty of existing literature sails upon that sea of concern thoughtfully. I’m interested in the practical philosophy of the matter, so that’s where I’ll stay.
Let’s dive in, shall we?
Brands are human
Meaningful brands are human. I’ve spent my career experimenting with how brands can effectively tell stories across various forms of media. Why stories? Because it’s how we relate to each other as creatures. Show me a human, and I’ll show you an infinite web of experiences. For brands to be meaningful, they have to symbolize our common denominator: our humanity.
Last year, with the help of my talented colleagues, I penned a manifesto: Brands Are Human. These claims draw a line in the sand around what I consider to be a meaningful relationship to a brand. Its structure consists of seven key tenets.
The manifesto reads as follows:
A brand is only as good as the human endeavor it represents. Meaningful brands transmit value, dignify viewers, portray products and services authentically, reduce waste, clarify confusion, and resonate with our highest ideals.
Human brands mirror the good we long for in the world. They remind us of the communities we are a part of and the change we work to embody together.
I don’t think meaningful brands are a market force that encourages more wasteful consumption. Nor do I think they are merely the currency of late-stage capitalism. I still believe that brands can mean more to us than that—but only if crafted well and designed within a community.
The tenets of the manifesto are meant to serve as a helpful guide for identifying meaningful brands. Asking such questions as, “Does this brand resonate ideals?” or “Does this brand dignify viewers?” gives us practical ways to challenge ourselves and produce accountability. Answering these questions honestly helps us grow brands toward being symbols of mutuality rather than more noise in the marketplace.
For a brand to be meaningful, it has to be forged through the foundry of empathy, experience, insight, and wisdom. I chose this list carefully because these are all descriptors that don’t describe artificiality. There’s a monumental difference between being made by humans and being made for humans. Could an AI tool create a handsome mark, evaluate design trends, and suggest a sustainable path for maintaining a consistent brand identity? Of course, in milliseconds.
However, it isn’t information, or even knowledge, that makes brands meaningful or even interesting. What makes them meaningful is their connection to a lived experience. Though to some it’s quite obvious, I think it’s worth the reminder: A robot doesn’t know what it’s like to be a human.
I could just copy and paste the iconic park scene from Good Will Hunting to articulate what it means to be human. However, there’s something beyond the defense of the human condition that matters to this conversation. If our goal is to foster brands that resonate with our highest ideals, there must be some real, lived experience to connect with them. If not, we’re just selling more junk. “Your move, chief.”
Using the right tools
Now that I’ve gotten my impassioned speech out of the way, let’s pivot from the philosophical to the practical. If I don’t think AI is an effective substitute for the craft of creating meaningful brands, what should it do?
I’ve got four areas where I think AI can be a useful tool to brand design:
1. Research
AI is an incredibly powerful research tool. Whether it’s using ChatGPT to comb the internet for summarized information or using an image creation software to visually articulate ideas, it’s powerful and fast. I’m not suggesting that we use its efficiency to circumvent evaluating useful information. This is where wisdom must be paired with intelligence. However, AI has proven to be incredibly good at pulling from a wide variety of sources and offering back key findings. All of this can help power the curiosity of design research. It gives us a high-powered telescope with which to evaluate the landscape of possibilities.
2. Ideation
AI can also be quite helpful during the ideation phase of brand design. You can illustrate ideas quickly and evaluate whether they are worth pursuing further. You can provide an AI tool with a ton of context and allow it to see the patterns within. It can be used as another form of sketching, providing a variety of approaches to our abstract ideas. It can also be used effectively to generate a lot of ideas, allowing us to go wide before we refine things down to their essence. It’s not a replacement for craft but rather a tool for exploration.
3. Sustainability
With the proliferation of good, cheap, and thoughtful design tools available comes an opportunity for AI to help us create visual consistency within our brands. Tools like Canva can be equipped with brand assets and help folks create branded media that is unique and fresh. It lowers the barrier to entry when it comes to creating pieces that are “on brand.”
4. Experimentation
Another exciting area exploration is AI’s ability to create generative design. This is another aspect of design that can use brand elements to create new, ever-evolving pieces of brand art or imagery that are truly fluid. The right AI-powered tools can create dynamic motion from static concepts. These concepts can adapt over time to a maturing brand.
The common thread amongst these deployments of AI is their reliance on a human curator. I don’t think it’s enough to create the ideas. A human must evaluate their value and discern their meaning. It’s only through that connection that a truly human brand can be created and fostered.
This is why an AI-generated art gallery isn’t very interesting. We can either allow our lived experience to guide the brushstrokes—or else we’re just watching robots paint.