Artificial intelligence (AI) can be used in many ways to enhance the design process for printing products, making them faster, more efficient, and more customisable.
Because I have been designing for over 12 years, you could say that I am snobby (I like to call it specific). And I might be biased as I am an Adobe Creative Suite type of girl. Nonetheless, here are a few different situations in which artificial intelligence can be incorporated:
- Design Assistance: AI can assist designers in creating their designs by suggesting layout options, colour schemes, and fonts. By analyzing customer preferences, AI can help designers create designs that are more likely to be successful.
- Image Processing: AI can analyze and process images used in designs to automatically remove backgrounds, enhance contrast, and adjust the colour balance. This makes it easier for designers to create high-quality designs without spending much time on image processing.
- Automatic Layout Generation: AI can automatically generate layouts for printing products such as brochures, flyers, or booklets. By analysing the content and format requirements, AI can create layouts optimised for readability and visual appeal.
- Custom Design Generation: AI can use customer data to generate custom designs for printing products such as business cards, postcards, or banners. By analysing customer preferences and behaviour, AI can create unique designs tailored to individual customers.
- Design Optimization: AI can analyze and optimize the designs of printing products for specific printing processes, such as offset or digital printing. This ensures that the final printed product looks as close as possible to the designer’s intent.
I have taken it upon myself to investigate some of the artificial intelligence design tools that can help you out. And even better, I have rated it for you out of five. Five being an amazing AI tool.
Artificial Intelligence Tools:
It is important to note that most of these AI tools come with a little bit of credit for you to test it but you will need to look at using the paid version if you want to use this continuously.
Patterned.ai: (3.5 out of 5)
Patterned.ai is a nice online ai application that helps you create patterns using different prompts. I found it really simple & easy to use. The nice thing about the application is that on the paid version you can download an SVG and edit your colours. 100% Editability is a very nice add-on. However I know how to create patterns from scratch in Illustrator so for me, so I felt like it wasn’t producing what I envisioned as fast as I could have done it myself. If you don’t know anything about creating patterns then this will really benefit you.
Stockimg: (3 out of 5)
This site gives you the opportunity to create your own visuals using prompts. It’s a nice tool if you want something specific that you can not find anywhere else. At about R330 for 500 credits, my question is, how many prompts will it take you to get exactly what you envisioned? Each image generation uses one credit giving you a lot of credits to work with. Due to the fact that there aren’t really editing capabilities At the end of the day my socks weren’t rocked (I warned you I’m a snob). You can check it out here.
Playground AI (4.5 out of 5)
Yes, please! I really liked this AI tool. The software gives you the option to regenerate in order for you to get a different base idea. It gives you the option to change specific elements in the design and last but not least, you can apply filters and upscale it. I mean I replaced my ginger cat with a mouse people! It’s such a nice tool and I’m pretty sure you can get exactly what you need here. You can download higher-resolution images on the PRO plan.
Midjourney (4 out of 5)
This ai tool is great & super creative, the only thing that is bothering me is that it isn’t as user-friendly as some of the other tools. I feel like you need a degree to function in this alternative universe. You can watch a tutorial on how to use it here. The nice thing about it is that you can generate something that is completely unique for free.
Khroma: (4.5 out of 5)
This colour match tool gives you combinations of colours that can work together. These colour palettes can be saved for future use. It’s a nice reference tool as it also shows you which colours work as gradients and it adjusts images to a colour scheme of your choice. It just makes the process of creating a cohesive design way easier and faster. It also works seamlessly and you don’t need a degree to work with it.
Let’s Enhance (5 out of 5)
This is an image upscale and fixer tool that actually does a good job of fixing your issues. If you have ever received an artwork problem report for low resolution, this is the tool for you. A great solution if you want to use an image on large banners or chromadek signs. Ideal to improve the end print result.
Remove.bg (4.5 out of 5)
What a lovely tool to use. The only thing is to ensure that the original image is clean enough. A plain background with the product or item will work very well. As soon as you use an image where the elements aren’t easily distinguishable, then some elements will be cut out and unfortunately, you can’t edit it. The images might be a bit small when you download it thus you can use Let’s Enhance to fix that. The problem is easily resolved.
Alternative Background Removal Tool: Online Background Remover (5.5)
All designers & anybody that sells products needs to remove a background from an image, I’ve recently come across a new tool that seems to be very accurate and super quick: Background Remover. This tool actually yielded a better end result that the tested AI tools – Try it out!
Overall, AI can be used in a variety of creative ways to enhance the design process for printing products, making it faster, more efficient, and more customisable. By leveraging artificial intelligence tools, you can create high-quality designs in less time, resulting in more satisfied customers and higher profits for printing companies.
