We get asked about this a lot at the minute…”could I have just done this with AI?”
Honest answer? Bits of it, probably.
There’s tools out there right now generating logos, colour palettes, even full brand boards in minutes. Some of it’s very rough and some of it’s genuinely not bad. And that’s exactly the bit that should make design agencies sit up, not roll their eyes.
Because here’s the thing we keep coming back to; the barrier to making something that looks professional has dropped through the floor. What hasn’t dropped is the barrier to making something that actually works for a business. Those are two very different jobs, and for years the industry let clients believe they were the same one.
Two brands, two very different bills
We’ll have a client generate a logo for next to nowt in an afternoon using some free tool. Meanwhile we’re sat writing proposals for brand projects running into five figures. Both are “branding.” Both produce a logo at the end, so why the gap?
Because craft on its own was never really what clients were paying for, even when they thought it was. They were paying for someone to turn a vague feeling in their head into something concrete, the thing that has to happen before a single pixel gets placed.
The three jobs AI still can’t do for a client
Strip a rebrand right back and there are three problems sat underneath it that no generator touches.
1. Working out where a business actually stands. Who are you really trying to reach, who else is fighting for that same attention, and what’s left on the table that competitors haven’t claimed? Skip this and you’re just designing something that looks nice, which is a increasingly rubbish place to compete from.
2. Deciding how the business needs to be seen. Not what the founder likes or what’s trending. What perception actually moves the needle on the goal. If research shows people don’t trust a new brand yet, that’s not a colour problem, that’s a credibility problem, and it changes every decision that follows.
3. Turning all that into an actual direction. This is the bit we reckon agencies have the biggest opportunity to get sharper at. Research and insight are nowt without someone willing to make the call; here’s the problem, here’s the direction, here’s why. That’s the bridge between strategy and design, and it’s the bit a prompt can’t build for you.
So where does that leave the craft?
Still mattering, just not on its own. A logo built on solid strategic footing and a logo generated in thirty seconds might, on a screenshot, look weirdly similar. But one of them can actually carry a business, hold up under scrutiny, and flex as that business grows. The other is a nice picture.
We’re not precious about using AI in the process either, we use it ourselves for research and for pulling competitor info together quicker. What we won’t outsource is the judgement bit; asking the awkward questions, spotting when a client’s answer contradicts what their customers are actually telling them, and putting our name to a recommendation.
That’s the difference between being someone who makes things look good, and someone a client trusts to tell them what their brand should actually be.
