Let’s talk about AI
In early 2025 we delivered a workshop to 20 clients and it was amazing. We had some great discussions and explored how the use of Canva and AI can be beneficial to their business, as a small part of the workshop on Brand Identity. I think I called the section “how to use AI without losing your soul” or something cheeky. One fella asked for our stance on AI - I said that if it helps to get some time back in your day and it means you can spend more time with your family as a result, then I think it’s acceptable to use it.
Some time has passed and in the interest of learning more and doing better, I want to talk a bit more about this. The dramatic impact on our planets resources, the theft of artists/copywriters work, and the butchering of jobs aside - do I still feel the same?
It’s complicated one. Sometimes yes and sometimes no.
As a society we’re outsourcing our thinking and recycling the same information over and over and over. I’ve heard it referred to as “dogs breakfast” and it doesn’t take long to realize why. It’s the same information, views, and ideas chewed up and regurgitated over and over. I think most folks agree that I’d much rather read your half-baked, typo-ridden LinkedIn post… respectfully 😉.
However, on the other side of the coin, I still think there’s time to be saved and doing good work efficiently is important for work/life balance.
But touching on those other things I mentioned; the uprise of AI generated social media posts, art, signage, event posters, mugs, t-shirts, and more is a sad thing to watch happen. The quick creation of these things cheapens their value and deeply impacts MANY jobs in the process.
It’s getting to a point where if you invest in human-intelligence, you automatically position yourself and your product/service as more reliable, trustworthy, high-end, caring, valuable, and worth investing in. So you can imagine what using AI positions you as.
Many social media platforms are taking a stand. Vine (I know), LinkedIn, and YouTube have all recently either banned or tweaked their algorithm to reduce the reach of AI created images, videos, music, and writing. This is something we’re going to continue to see as a trend.
And ask the kids what they think of AI. By using it, you’re alienating an entire demographic who is trending toward rejecting it.
Our whole job is to help keep you from getting lost in a sea of sameness… so we’d be doing you a major disservice if we used it.
So, do we have an AI policy?
Yes. We’ve seen a huge uptick in the amount of AI inspiration and design feedback we’ve been receiving.
We don’t use AI in the creation of our clients visuals and we don’t ideate logos using AI or knowingly use AI assets in final designs.*
We ask for the same courtesy. Please refrain from emailing us copy and pasted AI feedback or iterating on our work using AI. During the concept phase, the work is still our intellectual property and we aren’t using it to train AI for your own protection.
Feeding the work into AI makes it harder to guarantee your logo will remain unique to you and gives most AI companies rights to the work.
AI creations are difficult (and expensive) to trademark due to being trained on existing artwork, and copyright laws imply the work needs to be human-made**. This makes it difficult to truly own anything you use AI to help create.
And we prefer your own, authentic reactions and feedback to our work regardless! It’s meant to make you and your clients feel something after all!
* We do not claim to have never used AI and we don’t expect this of you either. Tools need to be explored in order to learn your position on them. We use AI for our own admin needs. AI is also baked into much of the software we use now, such as Adobe Programs, Zoom, Google Workspace, Email, Canva, Grain, Quickbooks, etc. Some of it is tough to avoid.
** These laws are constantly evolving, and we can’t be responsible for these changes.
