Where in the world to begin? The beginning is a good place. It all started nearly 14 billion years ago and, wait, not that far back. Ok, let’s start around mid February. Job prospects aren’t looking so hot as the industry I’m in is saturated and competitive. Most positions I apply for has me as one of hundreds of applications. I’ve sat in the hiring seat before and just a couple dozen resumes can be daunting. I won’t get started on how technology has FUBAR’d the hiring process but what I will do is talk about how technology is changing faster than most of us can comprehend.
I don’t like TikTok. I do, however, understand why so many people do like it. From a design aesthetic it’s basically the MySpace of today. It’s filled with endless amounts of hideously crafted content. People get down with it apparently and the people that drive that ship understand that. That said, I use TikTok because go where there’s people to see your product, right?
Ok, where were we? I touched on that in the prior post and between then and now Chat-GPT has gone up to Version 4 (from 3.5) and Midjourney went live with Version 5 (up from 4) while I was typing this. Why is this important? Well, everything else in the creator world is creeping along but the AI tools are leveling up seemingly exponentially. Good? Bad? Don’t know. What I do know is that if you ignore it, it’ll come back to haunt you. I also mentioned that in the previous post. I’m reiterating it now. Don’t blink. You might miss it.
What does this mean for me? I’ve decided to use the tools available to me (for free or cheap) to enhance my skills as a creator. That means merchandise, baby! Specifically, AI-assisted designs. This is not a free lunch though. It still requires plenty of input from the designer but it does around 50% of the work, I’d say. The old saying of “don’t reinvent the wheel” applies here. Someone invented this tool, so, I’m not going to reinvent it.
All that said, I’ve created my own Etsy shop. I could have just said that at the top but where’s the fun in that? Also, it’s linked on my menu anyway if you didn’t read this far. You can’t miss it. Ok, so, I created a shop. What does that mean? It means that I’ve decided to use my free time to keep my technical design skills sharp while also making a few extra dollars. The first part of that sentence is the most important part. Extra income is a bonus. By undertaking a project like this, I hope to keep growing my skills as a designer, and creator and also keep up with the tools that are rapidly changing before our eyes.
I’ll say one last thing. I am a graphic designer and I love it. Also, graphic design is dead. At least, it’s dead in the sense that we used to know it. On top of that, it died again when AI rolled up in here. The whole point is that the game is changing and it will behoove anyone in the industry to recognize that.
Another post is coming where I talk about my YouTube channel and how I am keeping my video and audio editing skills sharp (or in some cases improving them). Also, with the assist of AI. For now, here are a tiny handful of images that I randomly generated using Midjourney. I just grabbed the first few I saw so this is the tip of the digital iceberg.
