AI art tip: Microsoft Designer

Asdrael

Asdrael

Well-known member
A bit shameful, I know, but I have been doing most of my pedal "art" using either decals or laser engraving. To generate the art, I have been using AI tools - actually only one that is free and generates very "pedal friendly art", https://designer.microsoft.com/ .

You can chose a vertical aspect and if you use at the start of your prompt "simple black and white line art..." you will basically get a laser ready image. Replace the "black and white" by whatever color scheme you want and you get the same from decals.

Enjoy!
 
I'm genuinely not trolling. Feel free to engrave this. I'm sure no one will notice the troll with a missing horn typing on a nonexistent keyboard, the other troll with an ear that's also a horn, the troll with different number of fingers on each hand typing on a keyboard plugged into nothing, the Packers cheese heads floating in the background, etc. It will look great on a delay or something.
 
Not that I disagree with you as an early adopter, AI is grossly over used already like every trend. And has grown tiresome, but I don’t see it going away. It has its place. If anything it make us truly appreciate real talent more. But I don’t knock anyone for using it on a project just like I don’t care if someone uses it the quantize feature in a DAW… it a tool that has turned into a crutch.
 
Paradox916 said:
it a tool that has turned into a crutch.
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Definitely. I can agree with you on that. I just find it practical to cover an aspect of pedal building I suck at and can't see myself investing time in, and this particular model (with proper prompts) spits out graphics very, very close to the type of pedal graphics I actually like. And for my own use, that's good enough (y)
 
I'm not jumping in to judge the use of AI here, or your workflow. Just thinking of AI tips...

I'm not in the graphic design world, I don't know the latest tooling available. I bet most people around here are a better resource for that than I am.

One thing I've noticed- the whole "vibe" workflow with LLMs, where you keep tweaking a prompt until you accept the output, will likely not yield the best results. The "slop", if you will.

And as paradox916 touched on, the risk of offloading cognitive tasks can contribute to skill regression. I remember driving somewhere new before we always had navigation in your pocket. Or dialing a friend's phone number from memory. But I might not want to lose what little artistic skill I do have.

Fortunately, there are better ways than just writing prompts. It's better to remain fully engaged with the task at head, and treat LLMs like a dumb assistant that does small, well-defined tasks faster than you can do them manually. The phrase Copilot gets used a lot... you are still the pilot.

I'm sure there's stuff like that in the professional graphic design world... Shade this, increase radius, blah blah.
 
At work, I am an avid AI user. I’ve got ChatGPT open all day at work. Right after logging into my email account, it's the next thing I open. I'm in sales so I use it for prospecting and knocking out boring stuff like padding RFPs just to meet length requirements. I could spend 10 hours doing something that ChatGPT can do in seconds and with less than 10 minutes of edits, I can have 30 pages ready to go. While the work week is 40 hours, the expectation in corporate America is 50-60 hours of throughput. Sad but true and a topic for another day perhaps.

When it comes to AI images, I’ve made a ton but all for laughs. One of my favorites is the "notanothertubeschemer" render I posted here. I also made one of my boss, he reminds me of an '80s sitcom lead. The guy who screws something up every episode, gets bailed out by his family, promises to change but then does it all over again next week. I had AI generate a photo what the show’s intro would look like because I’m a man child and was stuck in a two hour training that easily could’ve been a two paragraph email.


As for pedal art - I’ve got personal opinions, right or wrong.

If I were building commercially, I’d 1000% hire an artist/designer. No question. Artists have skills I wish I had and it’s worth paying for that.

But as a DIY guy? I haven’t done it yet but I’ll probably end up using AI to make some graphics for my own builds. It’s just for me, I am not trying to sell anything and do not possess the skills to create what I can imagine. Right now I mostly use existing art like an 8-bit Zelda graphic or the Casa Bonita logo. I’d love to commission a local artist but it’s just not realistic money wise. Spending a couple hundred bucks on artwork for a single pedal isn’t something I can justify even though their time is totally worth it.


And now for the can of worms - is using something like Illustrator really art? On one hand you are using tools to create something. But on the other, using a mouse to fill in colors isn’t exactly the same as drawing with a colored pencil. There’s definitely skill involved in Illustrator but it’s not the same type of skill as traditional mediums.

Discuss.
 
Asdrael said:
for my own use, that's good enough
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jcpst said:
the risk of offloading cognitive tasks can contribute to skill regression
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Facts
Asdrael said:
for my own use, that's good enough
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This is a exactly how I feel as well
CheapSuitG said:
If I were building commercially, I’d 1000% hire an artist/designer. No question. Artists have skills I wish I had and it’s worth paying for that
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💯. Someone’s talent, time, and creativity has value, I feel better about using free generated art than “stealing” someone else’s for personal means
 
Paradox916 said:
Facts

This is a exactly how I feel as well

💯. Someone’s talent, time, and creativity has value, I feel better about using free generated art than “stealing” someone else’s for personal means
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Adding to the discussion - what is considered talent?

I know a production designer that is so lightning quick at editing illustrator files that watching them work makes me motion sick. That said, one of the least creative people I know.

That said, if there is someone with a creative vision, the best idea ever, but can not execute it, is there a difference between passing that concept to AI vs the production designer to create?
 
Now you are just arguing semantics…you know what I meant. if someone can fart in any specific key on demand technically that’s a talent… and I would give them a dollar to prove it… is this where we are at now comparing AI art to whistling Dixie with your butthole?… well, fair enough.
 
I have to say, in the interest of full disclosure, that my logo was AI generated.

Other than that, I don’t use AI.

I’m a fan of doing things within my wheelhouse for myself.

I’m stupid enough already that the last thing I need is my brain atrophied.

I already told my kids that the first time I hear from a teacher that any of thier work was AI generated, I’ll lose my fucking shit.
 
I got my schooling in graphic design, so I'm leaning on that and minimal illustration abilities, hiring actual artists/illustrators where I need it going forward. I won't disown (7 of) my previous builds using AI generated assets, but I'm done with them. I treated them like vector stock assets, tweaking them as much as I needed to for the given idea in my head.

If you're doing stuff for yourself/own pedal board, I personally don't care. Making scratch off your builds adds ethical complexity to the situation, however.
 
CheapSuitG said:
If I were building commercially, I’d 1000% hire an artist/designer. No question. Artists have skills I wish I had and it’s worth paying for that.

But as a DIY guy? I haven’t done it yet but I’ll probably end up using AI to make some graphics for my own builds. It’s just for me, I am not trying to sell anything and do not possess the skills to create what I can imagine. Right now I mostly use existing art like an 8-bit Zelda graphic or the Casa Bonita logo. I’d love to commission a local artist but it’s just not realistic money wise. Spending a couple hundred bucks on artwork for a single pedal isn’t something I can justify even though their time is totally worth it.
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Totally agree. If I were to sell what I build, I would commission someone that I like the work of for a series of illustrations for a myriad of reasons. For a one off that will never leave my pedal board, I'll keep doing what I prefer and that is using the tools I have at my disposal that allow me to compensate for my own shortcoming: I despise everything I draw.

Mind you, for commercial stuff I would also obviously pay the license for the font I am using.

I already told my kids that the first time I hear from a teacher that any of thier work was AI generated, I’ll lose my fucking shit.
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Man, if only the teaching institutions could catch up and incorporate proper use of generative and corrective AI early on in the cursus, that would be great. My Uni just basically came up with guidelines, so imaging how it was with correcting thesis until now. Even Master students use ChatGPT in such a weird way, while it can be a time saver and a great way to get out of a rut when used properly. I hope the framework will be better when my kids reach "AI use" age.


And to be voluntarily be an ass and devil's advocate, considering most of us are building 99% clones, I'm not sure AI art for private use is the main concern here ;)
 
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