Clients, who would have them? I don't doubt that similar things happen in other sectors where there's a large knowledge gap between the customer and the professional, but dealing with unrealistic client expectations has always seemed to be particularly challenging in design.
Some clients will never understand why a design job takes so long or costs so much, or why different assets are needed for different applications. That's been an issue since time immemorial. But is AI making it worse? That's the question being debated over on Reddit (also see the debate about why graphic designers use Macs).
AI is ruining customer expectations from r/graphic_design
Writing on Reddit, one designer says that after some confusion between AI (artificial intelligence) and Ai (the Adobe illustrator file extension), they learned that a client wanted to print artwork made with the former. Unsurprisingly, the image wasn't good enough to print. When the client asked if the designer could make something from scratch, he walked out after learning that it would take a whole 30 minutes.
The anecdote has sparked a timely debate about client expectations in the AI era. Of course, not all clients are like this: there are many who understand the value of bespoke design, but the conversation has revealed some of the daily frustrations experienced in the profession.
"Let's be real. Customer expectations have always been a shit show in the sign industry. It's practically a combat sport," one person argues.
Many agree. "A huge issue is a lack of understanding between the layman and the professional," someone else notes, suggesting that clients struggle to understand design it's all "kinda hidden behind the Great Curtain". "They don't know why we do what we do and their baseline for what's considered good is 'better than I could do', they add.
For some, the stream of clients coming in with requests to print AI-generated imagery is such that they've started displaying disclaimers explaining that AI images won't scale well for print. "It’s really difficult to explain to people why something isn’t usable," one person writes.
"I wish 'sir this absolutely will not work for your intended purposes because AI is not capable of creating work which functions properly in this context' were a thing that you could just say and nobody would bat an eye," one person said. "Sometimes people need to hear that what they're doing is wrong. Politely, of course."
Others are specifically advertising their services to people who need to 'fix' AI-generated images to make them usable. One person made an analogy to something that happened in a very different industry.
"I’m assuming some of you are not old enough to remember that there was a famous haircut chain that was advertising $5 haircuts. The hair salons got on the defense and put up banners that said 'We fix $5 haircuts'."
It seems it's not just requests from the general public where AI is becoming an issue. One person who makes streamer graphic variations of existing graphics for film and TV writes: "90% of the work we don't design in house is now full of AI generated assets. Sometimes they're prompts, but often they come right from Adobe Stock. Needless to say, the amount of issues we need to fix in the art before we start the size variants are endless."
Another designer, who works in a corporate marketing department said leadership had been so impressed by AI platforms that there was now "an expectation that things can be turned around in the click of a button".
"The bar is lowered for both the time it takes and the quality of the output," they add. "Those expectations of a “magic design button” is what we’ll be fighting against the more these tools become part of our day to day."
Some believe they still don't have much to fear from AI. "People have always been able to produce shit. We are paid for our taste, not just for our ability to click buttons," one person writes.
But others aren't so sure. "The issue here is the client is the one paying for the work. If they are happy with AI generated image files, someone will provide that service for them." They add: "If you continue to hold out for customers suddenly realising your value then you will lose all your customers."
Some see positive sides of AI. "I'm a firm believer that AI will just continue to weed out the undesirable clients," one person says, while another contributor says that clients using AI can make design jobs easier: "There are clients out there who simply lack the need, budget, etc to hire a designer from start to finish, but will gladly pay one to get them to the finish line. It's easy work for us because the client now knows what they want, they just need it to be print ready.
For more graphic design debates, see the outdated graphic design trends that designers wish would disappear and read up on the growing trend of anti-design in branding.
