Response 8

For this week’s readings, we have the first article talking about automation coming to the design field and how that might effect the field as a whole. The is something that care about deeply but is not too worried about it. In my limited experience so far, I think there is some ways that automation have made things more accessible and easier for companies and businesses, but I think that a fully automated graphic design field is impossible. The first article talked about why automation will never full take over the field, because wicked problems prevent them from doing so. These problems are so large and systematic that it would take communication and collaboration to such a high degree to even solve them. I think this very true, but I also think about something less systemic. No matter what automated service or easy to make service is out there, it will start to look ‘samey’ when using those services. Think of WIX for example. On WIX, users are able to create website with the ease of editing a template and drag and drop the colors and picture. Yes, that is really innovative and is very user friendly, but the problem is that those website have a similar feel. Anyone who have seen a WIX website and has little knowledge about web, knows those site to be from the same place. The scrolling, the animations, most of the color choices, and etc. feel the same one every site. That’s why we, many of the design students, says,”Oh that looks like a WIX site.” We say this because they all have that same feel, and that is the problem. If you start taking out the people part of a designer, then your graphics are going to start feeling the same. Customers are not going to distinguish between your company and another company. I believe I saw a while back a service that offered people the chance to create logos from a selection of clipart like, pre-made graphics. I thought this was a ridiculous thought. When making a company, you want your graphics to feel unique. You want your brand to feel like it is a visual representation of what you stand for. Automating that and using remade graphics looks that individuality. It begins to feel like you are just a number in a system. Luckily, I don’t see many of those logos out there, but I just find is astonishing the amount of services that try to make things easier only looses the individuality of the company.