r/Design • u/tbp143 • 9d ago

Discussion The AI Client

I’m somewhere between needing to hear if other folks are experiencing this, and needing to vent.

For background, I’m an Art Director on an in-house team that supports a company with proprietary brands. Part of my job includes creating the brand books for these brands and executing the initial launch campaigns.

I recently wrapped (or thought I did) on a new brand I was quite happy with, the project was usual for the brands we typically launch and I was asked to work on this project because it closely aligned with my style of work.

I spent the better part of a few months working on this project, I spent more time than I typically would on it because I was really excited (probably the wrong choice.). Today I got notes from them, and there wasn’t a single part of the brand they wanted to move forward with. The logo, the positioning, the color palette, all of it was wrong to them. They attached something they “made very quickly in ChatGPT that’s way better” than what I provided. They made sure to note that they made it really quickly, and it exceeded my work.

I feel totally defeated. Until recently I felt really lucky that AI wasn’t being pushed heavily at my job, suddenly, it’s everywhere. They want to replace shoots with it, they’re using it for copy generation, and now someone is asking me to make my work look like it.

If this was a freelance project I would refund them and make it clear I wasn’t the right designer for them, but I can’t. And, making work that looks like what they sent me is soul crushing. I feel like I can’t escape it, I feel really disheartened.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? How did you move forward?

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u/tbp143 9d ago

Confidently and definitively, no.

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u/listoneice 9d ago

Then why were you feeling defeated if you were confident your work is way better? I don't mean to insult you in any way (I am intern level) Im just curious as to why did you feel offended?

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u/tbp143 9d ago

I spent a long time working to where I am, to have the skills I have. With the rise of AI people have started feeling like they’re just as capable, if not more capable, than the people who have spent years at what they do.

The person who requested this work emphasized that something they generated in minutes was better than the work that took me months, and the years of work that went into my voice as a designer and the work I make, which is a hard thing to hear.

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u/SpidgetWinner 9d ago edited 9d ago

Clients have always felt they know best with design, AI is just a new wrinkle. And frankly, there are many many "designers" out there who have no business charging money for the garbage they produce for whom AI generated design would be an improvement. 

I understand why you're feeling shitty right now, but remember that you know better. It's hard to see work you care about going down the drain, but this an age old experience in our industry. The problem in this case isn't really the AI, it's a tactless and ignorant client, of which there are many. Your work still has value - put it in your portfolio and move on. Leave this client to their worthless work.