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Why AI isn’t replacing designers just yet

Why AI isn't replacing designers just yet

Every time I open LinkedIn, I see people panicking about AI taking every design job. Apparently, all you need to do is type a prompt into a generator and you get a finished design.

I thought it would be interesting to actually test this out with one of the brands we created. I wrote a brief for one of our clients, Blinds2go, asking different AI platforms to create a polished single static web banner for "Smart blackout blinds designed for better sleep". I attached the brand guidelines and entered the brand elements. Time to test how well each platform could manage a brand rollout.

I graded the outputs on four criteria: guideline adherence, design craft, protecting the system, and concept quality. For each criteria, they could score a maximum of 10. Here’s how they scored out of 40:

 

 

  • Gemini (13/40): Gemini got the highest score because it produced the most on-brand banner. It used the correct brand colours and the new Blinds2go logo. It even managed to include the brand's "Energy Saving" and "SureSize" stickers. But it ignored the Gelica typeface and used a faint gradient to blend its images together, which made the banner look amateur and cheap.

 

  • Claude (Artifacts) (9/40): Claude did okay too. It messed up the logo, but it tried to copy the brand's hand-drawn illustration style and it looked pretty decent. However, it added underlines to the text and failed to use the correct logo and attempted to customise the font. One thing to note is that Claude lets you directly edit the banner it creates by using its own built-in design software where you can edit fonts and colours.

 

  • ChatGPT (8/40): ChatGPT struggled to use the brand guidelines at all, but the structure of the layout and the hierarchy was clear and relatively on-brand. It proved that AI can build a clean layout. It just failed to make it look like Blinds2go.

 

  • Canva (1/40): Canva was the biggest disappointment. It got a 1/40 total because it failed the basic instructions. It spelled the logo "Blindsigo" and had zero design craft. It also failed to render any text properly.

 

  • The Clearing (40/40): After all the AI platforms, here is the benchmark from the agency I work at, The Clearing. We scored a perfect 10 for guideline adherence, 10 for design craft, 10 for protecting the system, and 10 for concept quality. The human-led output featured a strong, unique concept ("Sunrises are beautiful. So is sleeping in") and flawless execution that respects every tiny detail of the brand.

 

So when put to the test, the four platforms I tested clearly didn’t perform that well. I don't want to just hate on the tech – I think it has a lot of potential and it’s already a great tool for designers. The problem is, brand management is about the tiny details. At the moment, AI’s attention to detail just does not compare to a human eye. Every execution has guideline violations and none of them were even close to a production-ready asset.

Another element that was really poor was the general creativity and ideas behind the banners. The brief I gave was to create a banner to advertise blackout blinds, but the photos show people sleeping while being hit in the face by the morning sun. If a blackout blind is working, the room should be dark. There wasn’t a single unique idea in the art direction or copy to creatively advertise the product either.

 

And we’re still quicker

AI gets a lot of credit for making processes more efficient. But to get any of these files ready for production, you have to sit there babysitting the prompt. You find yourself typing things like "Fix the font. Stop using underlines. Keep the illustration but use the right logo. Why is the person sleeping in direct sunlight?"

By the time you’ve had an argument with the AI, spotted every guideline violation, and tried to force it to fix its own mistakes, you could have just opened Illustrator or Figma and built the whole thing yourself. Sure, I think AI is a fun tool for moodboarding and creating quick ideas. But taking over my job?
It has a long way to go.