AI Image Design Manual
An introduction to how AI Image generation works and how to utilize it in the design process
My Roles
Project Design
Prompt Engineer
Editorial Design
Timeline
September – December 2022
Midjourney
DALLE-2
Stable Diffusion
invoke ai
Diffusion Bee
Adobe Indesign
Adobe Photoshop
Tools
Team
Solo Project
The Challenge
How will AI tools affect the design process?
AI image generation has shown incredible results that often mask the work taken to achieve them and the lack of flexibility in the products produced. Will these tools actually be useful for designers in the near future?
The Solution
A realistic take on what AI can really do and how you can use it for design.
The information this manual contains is worthwhile and applicable to the use of these tools (for the moment). I believe that it will continue to be of interest in the future as a marker of where we once were, where we thought we were going, and, hopefully, how far we have come.
Influences on the Manual
Scott McCloud‘s
Understanding Comics
Armin Hofmann‘s
Graphic Design Manual
My own successes and failures with AI image generation models
“The instruments and aids that are placed in our hands nowadays are far too tricky for us to use them unquestioningly. The more cunningly devised they are, the greater the knowledge that is required before they can be put to wise and responsible use.”
— Armin Hofmann (1965)
Excerpts from the manual
Image Generation Models
Context Specific Re-generation – “In-painting”
Use Case Scenarios
Next Steps
Given the rapid development of AI-based technologies, it is clear to me that the capabilities represented in this manual will be surpassed in the very near future.
It would be interesting to revisit this type of project years from now to see what new developments are causing upheaval in the design world and how best they can be contained and described in a similar format.