Tag: AI

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AI is Affecting Graphic Designers 

By: Kate Ellis-Logsdon

With Artificial Intelligence taking over the world recently, many are questioning how it will affect their jobs in the years to come, especially in the digital world. Graphic designers have dealt with changes for centuries from the printing press invented by Gutenberg in the 1400s, to Bauhaus in the 1900s, and finally to the digital era of the invention of Adobe Photoshop in 1990. Being able to adapt to these changes is vital to the design world and the development of graphic design as a whole as well. Artificial Intelligence is reshaping and revolutionizing the industry by providing designers with tools never seen before, changing the way they think, create, and work.
Adobe being one of the largest companies out there for creating design tools recently came out with Adobe Firefly in March 2023. Adobe Firefly is a generative AI program that lets you generate images from just a text description, or remove or add objects in photos with just a prompt. This text to image tool can create posters, flyers, graphics, illustrations, and product mockups. This largely changes the industry as before, designers needed to reach further into the creative process and create these things by themselves. This also takes away the need for hiring designers as businesses alone can create and produce products without the need for talent from a designer. Another text-to-image platform that is recently available is Midjourney. Midjourney is a platform on Discord that generates images that can range in detail from a simple, or intricate prompt. Midjourney creates copyright-free images that can be used in any project, or public domain opening up availability for creativity with prompts but also for inspiration with projects and ideas to start the creative process.
A huge concern in the design industry due to the development of AI is that the more these tools become available to the public and refined further, they start to take over tasks that were done by designers. Image editing, content creation, and layout creation are just a start of where AI is now so imagining where it could go further is concerning. AI also can create an overreliance on these easily accessible templates, layouts, and logo designs. This can hinder designers’ creative process and create a similar look amongst designs, removing the individuality of the designer and their work. AI may be contributing to a loss of unique designs in the next couple of years with more and more mass-produced AI content being released and being published.
While AI has many negative aspects causing concerns to arise, tons of potential and tools that may be helpful to designers are evolving from AI. Many designers are excited about the revolutionary platforms being produced and view it as a way to save time with projects, creating more time for thought and strategy about how to go about a design issue. Conclusively, it is all up to the designer how they choose to use AI while thinking about the ethical concerns that may arise and the quality of work with generated content

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AI Won’t Take Your Job

AI Won't Take Your Job

Katrina Cameron, TGC alumni, shares her experience using AI the right way in the PR field.

By: Paris Auerweck

As public relations students and soon-to-be professionals, the question that’s been circling our minds is this: Is AI capable of taking our jobs? The recent surge and development of AI technology has made us wonder about the future of the PR workforce. 

Katrina Cameron, TGC Alumni and Client Relations Lead at Cred agency, has been using AI tools in her daily work and recently took a course on LinkedIn called “How to boost your productivity with AI tools”. We chatted about her key takeaways and what role AI is playing in the PR field. 

“I was already using ChatGPT before taking the course, but the course really validated how I was using it,” Cameron says. These platforms make writing (or copy and pasting) too easy. What it should really help with, she says, is brainstorming, strategizing, forming inspiration and creating organization. 

“It’s really just making our jobs a little easier… Using AI can really help you streamline your ideas,” she says. 

As busy students and professionals, our attention is divided. Our thoughts can run in different directions making it difficult to concentrate and communicate ideas in a concise way. For those who struggle with some attention deficit problems, like Cameron and myself, using AI can help you put your ideas in order, build a list, or relate ideas to one another. 

“The biggest takeaway of using AI is that you have to give it context to work… By doing that you kind of have to let it play a role,” said Cameron.

What does that look like? Not using AI and ChatGPT to write for you, but to make it work for you. Cameron described how, in the event space, they need to write a lot of event descriptions. Using AI to help her put her ideas in a list, develop a certain order, or prompt it to write from a PR professional perspective, aids her in starting the process, but doesn’t do all the work for her. 

Katrina Cameron smiling in front of Bay Area view

“It definitely can’t do your job, you still need to be the human element to it.” 

We specialize in public relations for a reason, all of us care about the way brands and our organizations interact with the public. We know what is best, we show that we care. Our writing and content naturally lets the human in us shine through. And as Cameron noted, “you always have the final say in whatever it does,” so your voice and your ideas are still an important part of the picture.  

With graduation and professional life in the near future, I wonder about how I can make sure I stay relevant or needed with AI around. 

“Since I’ve been working in PR and tech for a few years now, I’ve seen the best way to make yourself indispensable is to learn how to use the technology,” Cameron said. “Use it to fuel your creativity, use it to make you better at your job.”

Development of AI has undoubtedly created a new pressure to beat AI, we need to be better. With Cameron’s experience, it’s reassuring to know that generative AI is not taking our jobs anytime soon. In fact, we can use it to our benefit, we can use it to be better.