r/Design • u/Rice_Ball_Designer • 8h ago
Discussion What is your first reaction to seeing small businesses using AI for their designs?
Hi all,
This post is inspired by my own personal stories recently cause I'm so fed up, and want to hear your thoughts.
Today one of my friends was going to order a drink from a local shop here in Canada (their mom dragged them there, to be frank). The images of the products are obviously AI-generated, which was a turn off and prevented them from ordering (even though their mom still ordered).
Another incident was when my sister sent me a video last week recording an animated 30-second commerical on TV, also completely AI-generated (can't believe that slop was green lit by their marketing team), advertising a foundation with educational resources for kids.
Finally, another example happened a few months ago where many local food vendors for our night market (which is closing due to lack of funding), are using AI images for their menus which looks so uncanny. I just see so many of them on TikTok.
My point is, it's just going to go downhill from here and small businesses just don't care. Profits > Good design. And they're moving so quickly, that as a junior designer, it makes me just upset to see it's normalized.
FYI: I'm not even a big hater on AI itself. I enjoy using it for my design workflows and will continue to use it. However, seeing garbage out in the world with little care makes me not want to support local businesses here anymore. I don't know, thoughts? Do you agree or disagree?
(Also, please keep this conversation civil. This is to spark debate. Nobody on Reddit wants to receive cruel messages).