“It’ll do.”

AI isn’t good

2026.05.12   


Creating a magazine cover with Artificial Intelligence was not something I saw myself doing. I am not a fan of AI for many reasons and most of my clients have policies against its use anyways. However, when one of my magazine clients needed cover art to illustrate a feature article about AI it only made sense to try it out. So after I spent some time learning how to craft a prompt on Midjounrey by making some goofy junk (this can be fun, not gonna lie) I typed a few words into the machine and it made my cover in less than a minute.

The end product was good. It looks striking and it works as a cover. It didn’t really take less than a minute though. It still took hours of planning, ideating, a few dozen attempts with different prompts, and extensive photo editing. It also took layout work and a skilled editorial team to tell the story that the image was made to represent. Plus, this image only really made sense because the story was specifically about AI. So, it doesn’t really prove the value of AI as much as it simply begs the question of its own existence.

Despite my own dislike of AI I understand that everyone (including me) feels a huge amount of pressure to cut costs, work faster, and to not get left behind. However, I’ve had a few more experiences with the technology in the graphic design process since that first cover and I can only describe it as annoying and disappointing.

The experience of using generative AI is nothing like the experience of effortfully engaging with an idea and slowly bringing a story to life with sketches, or writing, or photographs. Instead, it’s far closer to the experience of the bored scroll through a social media feed. It allows you to create things that look more superficially impressive than a quick pencil sketch or rough photo mock up, but it is simply a different way of using your mind. It’s motionless rather than active. It’s like hoping that answers will appear, but not actually searching for them. It’s like jamming an endless supply of random objects into a lock hoping it will open instead of looking for your keys. Chapstick? No. USB dongle? No. Multivitamins? No. Piano? No. Hammer?Maybe?

As a designer a big part of my job is guiding a client through a creative process. I’m trying to make their ideas come to life, and that requires their active participation. When I’ve had clients bring AI into the mix it short circuits that process. Fast, cheap, and easy puts the process on a path to a dead end. Endless iterations create the illusion that something great is around the next corner. But it’s not, because there’s just nothing there.

I will continue to not use AI, and to discourage clients from using it. It adds nothing meaningful and if it’s claw are too deeply embedded in the design process the end product will simply make you shrug and say “it’ll do.”