Artificial Intelligence (ai) seems to be all the rage. If you check it out it seems to be the solution to all problems. My curiosity was peaked. So I checked it out to see how it works and how I could benefit from it.

The start

After some research I decided on an app called Starryai which I downloaded to my iPad, to start out with artificial intelligence (ai). I like a low friction approach so I am not a person who will try out others. I will leave that up to you. Also up to you is to find out how Starryai works and whether or not it is right for you. This post is not about that. 🙂

After downloading the app I started entering random prompts to see what it would come up with. It takes some time before it comes up with results. But then it will give you four different results based on the same prompts.

Since my poster and wall art design style is mostly abstract and geometric, this is what I look for and added Bauhaus (which works for me) to the prompt I entered. For my first run that I will share here as an example, I used only four words in my prompt: “Abstract Geometric Face Bauhaus“. That’s it. My reasoning behind this was that starting simple would trump starting complicated.

Some coffees later these were the first results the app spat out.

I think I doesn’t come as a surprise that the final image got my interest. So I chose that one to continue.

Working on the art

First thing I did was – with the same colors as the image from Starryai – create a design in the same color palette. Below you can see my first iteration. What you see is a screenshot from Affinity Designer.

You can also see after the initial version I started working on some color versions. Because although I was intrigued by that color palette, for some reason it fell as it wouldn’t be my design then. So I quickly decided I needed other colors.

Although this first design is already appealing, it only serves as a starting point for me. Because what happens when you remove elements? So that is what I did.

Minimizing the amount of elements can be beneficial. It think think is potential in this design. So what happens if I’d remove more?

Okay, clearly a step too far. But what if … I make these elements bigger …

Now we are truly getting somewhere.

The end result

Based on that final design I made some tweaks here and there and finally decided on the following designs as a series in multiple colors. Click on each of them to be directed to that poster in the shop.

Conclusion using artificial intelligence

Personally it feels like cheating if you’d use the result from – in my case – Starryai. It is not my design, and it doesn’t fully adhere to my aesthetics. So I need to make changes.

So my conclusion is that artificial intelligence can be a great starting place and a good source of inspiration. Somewhat in the same way as you would go online and Google and are presented with results. As part of your process, but for me it is not a shortcut.

So I will use Starryai again (and have), but only as a source of inspiration.

The majority of my designs are done without the inspiration of artificial intelligence.