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Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

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Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#201

Post by quietbritishjim »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #4
gegtik wrote: post #3

I do think that AI signage/advertising is the new signifier of low-effort, low-skill output and that is how it will be perceived by clientele. Similar to someone just scrawling a sandwich board sign in chalk (which at this point I would prefer). Businesses will stand out from a taste perspective by continuing to hire human effort to make recognisable human output.

Writing in signs and menus in chalk has been a signal for a high quality restaurant for as long as I can remember. With photos of the food, and/or ring bound menus being the worst.

Indeed. It seems the parent comment has accidentally made exactly the opposite point than they intended.

The difference between scrawl on a chalk board and a glossy menu with photos is not really the visual effect, it's the amount of effort and the virtue signalling - "my food is so amazing I don't need to make more effort than this".

But that applies to AI menus too. "Why are these horrible AI slop photos on your menu?" "Because I'm too focused on food to hand create a perfect American Psycho minimalist menu"

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#202

Post by ben_w »

Ironic that this would be physical spam and the complaint is AI.

Sure, it is is an environmental disaster, churned out in industrial quantities, low-effort, an emulsified layer of mediocrity, slop everywhere, fouls the air for miles around; but that's true of AI, too.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#203

Post by ben_w »

simonw wrote: post #30

I'm fascinated by how AI poster designs have taken over local advertising in seemingly just the last six months - presumably because ChatGPT Images and Gemini Nano Banana finally got good enough at outputting text without obvious defects in the typography. The posters all look good - much better than their desktop publishing predecessors. And yet they also eat away at the credibility of the event or business for me.…

For me it depends on the details. The baseline is as you say, negative, but there's a plumber not too far from me whose logo is AI generated, and I can't say I'd hold it against them because I wouldn't be hiring them for an eye to artistic credibility in the first place.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#204

Post by Keyframe »

simonw wrote: post #30

I'm fascinated by how AI poster designs have taken over local advertising in seemingly just the last six months - presumably because ChatGPT Images and Gemini Nano Banana finally got good enough at outputting text without obvious defects in the typography. The posters all look good - much better than their desktop publishing predecessors. And yet they also eat away at the credibility of the event or business for me.…

distopian nature of AI generic soulless songs as background music in supermarkets is what got me. This has to stop.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#205

Post by oeitho »

joshstrange wrote: post #75
simonw wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's a corner cutting thing though. These businesses weren't paying someone to make a flier. The business owner was sweating for an hour in Microsoft Word and producing something that looked terrible. I expect they are now investing approximately the same about of time iterating in ChatGPT and producing something that genuinely looks like a huge improvement to them.

This. I said it elsewhere in this thread differently but people want to pretend the options are: 1. Paying a local designer to make a bespoke beautiful poster OR 2. Use AI It's not, the money is often just not there to pay someone. So you get whatever the intern or the owner can slap together in whatever tool they know best (which is rarely the best tool for the job). It's completely understandable that they would re…

> I said it elsewhere in this thread differently but people want to pretend the options are:

> 1. Paying a local designer to make a bespoke beautiful poster

> OR

> 2. Use AI

You are wrong and trying to make people you disagree with sound stupid. Stop it.

I’ll tell you then that the options I believe in are:

1. Paying a local designer to make a bespoke beautiful poster

2. don’t

3. Use AI

And I accept both option 1 and 2.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#206

Post by cadamsdotcom »

dev0p wrote: post #48

The loss of personality is real. The most heartbreaking ones I've seen are in schools, or anywhere that children are involved. For example, at my local preschool there was a wall flyer with information about what to bring the swimming pool. It had the most crudely drawn fishes and crabs and seahorses that I had ever seen. It was clear that whoever drew that had no prior experience with anything even remotely resembli…

If you dislike it you could speak to whoever did it and tell them "it's ok to use AI for this, just don't settle for your first draft!"

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#207

Post by roysting »

rsynnott wrote: post #200

I don’t understand why people use this for _illustrated menus_, of all things. The uncanny valley is particularly offputting in the context of _food_, and ai-generated food images often look very wrong.

Because it’s cheaper, whether they got it through fiverr, did it themselves, or might even think it looks good? I don’t think a place that signs off on plating its dishes that way is thinking deeply about these kinds of things.

The irony is that you could very well get AI to make a menu that looks far better, but whoever did this is clearly putting about as much care into it as the restaurant puts into plate presentation.

It doesn’t really matter, a Philippine Hawaiian restaurant is probably not long for this world anyways. Most restaurants aren’t.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#208

Post by gblargg »

diabllicseagull wrote: post #37

I get the consumers' ick when I see an AI-generated menu, logo, or sign as much as the next person. Beyond that, there is an argument to be made about the discrepancy between the pictorial depictions of a food item and what you are actually served in real life. I wish something akin to Japan's strict food packaging laws existed for restaurants.

My first thought was that the simplified illustrations of the dishes actually make for quickly finding something, or familiarizing yourself with new foods.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#209

Post by juggle-anyhow »

diabllicseagull wrote: post #37

I get the consumers' ick when I see an AI-generated menu, logo, or sign as much as the next person. Beyond that, there is an argument to be made about the discrepancy between the pictorial depictions of a food item and what you are actually served in real life. I wish something akin to Japan's strict food packaging laws existed for restaurants.

They could have taken pictures of each of the food items and used that as the basis of the images, they would have gotten a much more accurate and less generic result. But then you wouldn't be seeing it on HN.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#210

Post by adamddev1 »

bastscho wrote: post #193

I always feel my hunger disappearing when I see ai generated images of food. I lose all appetite. The pictures never look appetizing. Sometimes I even feel like it is illegal to look at them, as if I look at something so unnatural my body warns me to look away.

I've seen some extremely unnatural ones, like börek that looks overstuffed or Afghan Kabuli Palau with what looked like chocolate squares instead of meat chunks! It feels like looking at sci-fi horror.

The craziest offense I have ever seen was (in Germany) an add for a Turkish Kokoreç sandwich where they had a picture of the entire spit of the kokereç being cooked, unchopped, sitting in a bun!!

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