We recently came across a piece of design work that we absolutely loved.
A designer had been asked to create a set of icons for a coastal brand.
There were probably a hundred perfectly good ways they could have approached it. They could certainly have asked AI to create them. Instead, they went to the beach.
They collected seaweed, turned it into ink and used it to illustrate every icon by hand.
And we thought that was brilliant.
Not because making ink from seaweed is necessarily better than using a computer.
But because somebody had the idea.
That, for us, is where great design begins.
It’s never really been about knowing which software to use, which button to press or even which font looks lovely next to another one.
It’s about noticing something.
Making a connection.
Asking a slightly different question.
Finding the thought that makes everyone around the table say, “Oh, I love that.”
AI has made it incredibly easy to create things that look good. Posters, logos, illustrations and social graphics can appear in seconds and, quite often, they’re beautiful.
That’s exciting. We use these tools ourselves and they’ve opened up all sorts of new ways to experiment and explore.
But there’s now an awful lot of beautiful stuff in the world.
Which means beautiful on its own isn’t always enough.
The things we remember usually have something else.
A point of view.
A story.
A surprise.
A little imperfection.
An idea you wish you’d thought of yourself.
And perhaps that’s where designers become more important, not less.
Because when everyone has access to brilliant tools, knowing what to make in the first place becomes the valuable bit.
At Lolly, we often talk about finding the bigger story. It’s the thought hiding underneath the obvious answer, the thing that can turn a perfectly nice piece of work into something that belongs only to that brand.
AI can absolutely help us get there.
Sometimes it will even spark the thought that sends us in a completely unexpected direction.
But we still need people to be curious enough to spot it.
Or occasionally to put the laptop down, go for a walk on the beach and pick up some seaweed.
Pretty is easy.
Memorable starts with an idea.