+ Krea, Midjourney and AIxC Advisory Consulting
Hello there! Here is another copy, reposting of our newsletter AIxCreative #36 from early January 2024. If you'd like to get these newsletters as soon as they are published, you can sign up by clicking here: https://daydastudio.substack.com/.
Welcome to everyone that joined since the new year! Excited by this one, so let’s get right to it.
- Workflow: Krea > Midjourney Ai+Design Workflow
- Workflow: Human Driver & Ai Horsepower
- Crystal Ball: A Quick Design Story
- Community: AIxC Advisory Consulting
01 / WORKFLOW
Krea > Midjourney Ai+Design Workflow
I have been exploring rapid visualization in Ai. I launched a whole course on it titled "Rapid Viz & Sketching with Ai" where you can learn to harness the strengths of Ai throughout your design workflow.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — I think rapid viz with Ai is where designers will find a ton of workflow use cases. It’s just that not many folks are looking at it that way yet.
The video above is a Krea > Midjourney workflow.
I utilized Krea to rapidly explore forms and proportions for a bottle concept. The video is sped up to keep things under a minute, but even at real-time speed, the visualizations are instantaneous.
I then took concepts from Krea and uploaded them to Midjourney to utilize as reference images for a higher fidelity exploration there.
At the end of my 10 minute session I had a couple handful of concepts to run with.
This is a powerful workflow. Check out another example below.
02 / WORKFLOW
Human Driver & Ai Horsepower
I have worked on a lot of structural packaging in my career. I intimately know the baseline for structural packaging projects - workflow, tools, budgets, etc.
In the video above you’re watching an exploration covering visual design language, proportions, stance, branding and cmf.
This exploration led to 76 selections to evaluate. Those were distilled down to 20 unique concepts, covering both structural and branding. Below are 8 of my favorites.
Ai didn’t just make these concepts out of thin air. Notice the first 22 seconds of the video, the Krea portion of the exploration. I still had to move shapes and angles until I got them where I wanted them. I still had to push and pull shapes until I had the proportions I liked. I still had to make selections out of thousands of micro variations.
I then started to identify what I liked. I decided what can stay or what needs to change due to aesthetic and/or structural/ergonomic/dfm requirements. I cant now edit in Ai or outside of Ai. It’s my choice. I’m in the driver’s seat.
There’s a ton of human creativity and experience in this process. There’s also a ton of impressive Ai horsepower.
As I mentioned, I know this traditional process and I know how game changing this Ai boost is.
It’s really f’ing game changing (excuse my language).
03 / CRYSTAL BALL
A Quick Design Story
I had an OE reach out. They wanted to learn more about Ai tools and how they may be able to benefit their company. They wanted me to help them implement Ai at their organization.
Two things stood out to me:
- They were focused on their people and ensuring Ai was going to benefit their team. They weren’t viewing it as a cost-cutting initiative.
- They work with a known design agency. They asked their contact there for their thoughts about Ai. Their contact said it was hype and not helpful.
Here’s the thing. These companies are going to look into Ai no matter what. They’re going to do their own research, testing and implementation, whether we, as designers, are there to help or not.
We are either going to influence the narrative of design in the age of Ai, or someone else is going to do it for us.
No one is better equipped for this than us (according to Fortune online):
04 / COMMUNITY
AIxC Advisory Consulting
I’ve now been dedicated to Ai tools for design workflows for over a year. I test out everything I can get my hands on and have a team helping me now.
Most importantly, all that testing is done with two filters.
The first is that of professional designers. Not Ai marketing folks or Ai tech folks, but designers. Designers that understand the unique needs we have.
The second is that of a business owner. I ran my own hard goods brand for 15 years. Everything I do is run through that comprehensive filter.
I’ve been teaching individuals and organizations how to utilize tools like Ai since the summer. Towards the close of the year, organizations started to get in touch, not just about learning tools, but more importantly, about which tools their team should invest in.
That led to the beginning of AIxC Advisory Consulting (stealth version), where we provide guidance and roadmap development for Ai integration at organizations. How do we do it?
- Audit your organization’s design team, tools, workflow and goals.
- Stress test Ai tools with your unique requirements and projects.
- Recommend the appropriate tools, Ai workflow improvements and implementation strategy, short and mid-term.
- Training for your team on the tools of choice.
- Implementation support.
This initiative will formally launch out of stealth mode this month (or next if it gets too busy), but if you and your organization would like to learn more, just reply here or fill out this form.
If you're ready to learn how to harness the strengths of Ai throughout your rapid visualization workflows check out our educational ai design courses here. Our "Rapid Viz & Sketching with Ai" courses are sure to help you get things moving along with different visualization levels, from loose low fidelity explorations and tighter digital sketches to orthographic drawings and flashy photoshop sketch renders.
Have a great rest of your work week!
Hector