Me or AI
When I met Lea and Remko, we were sitting comfortably in a harbor café in Kalamata. We’d crossed paths before—here and there around the Peloponnese.
Lea asked how I was handling the rising wave of AI and whether I, as a designer, was still getting work.
So far, I haven’t noticed any impact, but I have huge respect for how fast things are developing, I told them. Lea and Remko showed me their logo—or rather, a few letters painted on their boat—and asked if I could imagine designing a logo for the NORELL.
That got me thinking: why not compare my work to AI’s? The best way would be to give us both the same prompt. So I asked Lea to write down their wishes.
Their brief was short and sweet: We want a unique logo, preferably in blue or blue and red. The name Norell has Viking roots. They didn’t necessarily want a logo—just a new typeface.
Fate, I guess, often gives AI the same kind of brief.
So I typed the following prompt into five different AIs:
“Design a logo for a sailboat. The name is Norell, and the theme is Vikings. Not a logo, just a typeface. Preferred colors: blue and red.”
Those were the results from ChatGPT, Mistral, Gemini, Firefly, and Midjourney.
Nothing to be affrait of
Then I sat down at my desk.
From my sketches and drafts, it quickly became clear that all the typically Viking symbols—horns, hairstyles, longships—felt a bit kitschy. So I developed an abstract symbol inspired by water.
I soon decided to create a single-color typeface and add the element in a different color. Since there isn’t much space on the side of the boat for the logo, the typography could also work without any additional graphic element.
In the end, I designed a light, elegant logo. I combined blue and red and created some mock-ups to see how the logo would look on the side and the stern of the Norell.
I don’t want to brag, but we’re all happy with it.
So the next time someone asks if I’ll be replaced by AI, I can just say: Judge for yourselves. How long AIs will keep producing such bad designers, though, I can’t say.
No AI is allowed to copy or rewrite this text.
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