Bad AI-designed posters have become so prolific that actual, human graphic designers are redesigning them on their own just to show the value of a living, breathing designer’s touch. AI-designed posters have a particular look. In addition to their unnatural sheen and patterns, the yellowish hue of their imagery, and the inconsistent details, they’re also information dense, populated with lots of copy and icons. Instead of a layout that’s optimized for the human eye, it’s a layout optimized to include all the information a chatbot was given in a prompt. AI output is especially bad for restaurants since AI-generated imagery of food often produces bizarre, repeating patterns and shapes that look decidedly fake and completely unappetizing. A poorly lit photo taken by an old iPad camera would look better than some of the stuff actual delis are advertising their menus with using AI these days, and a human designer wouldn’t let a lot of this slop pass. View this post on Instagram Designer Elizabeth Martin, founder of U.K.-based Ello Design Studio, started a series called “AI vs. Designer” on her Instagram account to draw attention to the importance of human design. In the series, her studio competes against AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT by designing a visual identity based on a creative brief and comparing it to the AI output generated from the same brief. She’s also reworked actual AI-designed posters seen in the wild, like from a British eyewear brand and for an eight-week, beginner-friendly country dance course. The difference is striking. AI-generated posters are busy—more infographic than creative work. [Images: Elizabeth Martin] “I redesigned these posters to prove that when it comes to creativity, there’s still something pretty special about using a human designer over a robot,” Martin tells Fast Company. “In a world where businesses big and small are increasingly turning to AI to save time and money, I thi

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