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Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

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211–220 of 322 posts

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you’re careless about one thing like that you’re probably careless about other things I'm not convinced. This rule holds only if the two "things" are related. But one can have a passion for serving the best quality coffee, and be a total wreck in graphic arts.

If you're really passionate about serving the best quality coffee, you'll be passionate about the experience around that, and you'll put effort in even if it doesn't pay off. AI-generated art signals that you didn't put effort in, and so aren't passionate about the experience, and so aren't really passionate about the central thing. "At least you tried" is not a high standard, but it's the one that AI art fails.

sure i guess, but some of the best food i've ever eaten was in some cheap chinese restaurant that didnt care at all about the "experience" or w/e ^^

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> So many people are anti-AI/anti-LLM just because it is AI/LLM, not because it's objectively worse than the alternative. It's tiring. no, it's because the SNR of AI slop is worse than human creations. hamburger: $4.99 S̵u̸p̸e̷r̷s̶l̵o̷p̵ ̸S̶i̴g̸n̷a̴t̸u̷r̵e̵b̷u̷r̶g̵e̸r̶:̶ ̷$̴4̸.̴9̸9̷(̵b̴a̵s̷e̸ ̵c̴o̸n̵f̷i̶g̶u̵r̶a̵t̴i̴o̸n̴)̴ The amount of data hasn't changed - it's presentation. The noise is real. Presenting just the pr…

Exactly. And it's not even only the LLM generated stuff. There was once a consultant who advertised the website of his (one-man) company when he applied -- pre-LLM. Ok, nice, some info upfront. But looking at the site I was put off: Just a couple of stock photos and generic marketing blurb. Nothing special, nothing personal - just noise.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#213
> The worst part is that I frequently work with small businesses in Austin and know that this is from a place of complete ignorance rather than feeling a sense of ownership in art/design they did not do.

> Yes I also understand many of them have slim margins, but TBH I would rather read a whole menu in Comic Sans, Papyrus, or Curlz MT than this garbage.

I don’t think it matters what principled vs ignorant people think but rather how many of each kind there are. Put differently, does the average person care?

Would they prefer a text only menu or an AI slop one, when the budget for making either is basically 0$?

Who the average customer is also might change based on generation (younger people might be more averse to AI, or maybe not really and the ones who are averse are louder), and probably also how used to AI slop people get.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#215
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…

People have posted prolific artists, called it AI, and had everyone hating them until the big reveal. So to be frank, it probably is in your head.

Who are these “everyone”? I suspect that you actually mean “many random social media users”, which only proves that getting negative reactions out of the average social media is trivial; not exactly a groundbreaking discovery.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#216

I think the Japanese laws requiring strict truth in food advertising would be a good transplant.

Japanese menus are increasingly full of AI pictures as well.

Now they only need an AI to detect those and start filing lawsuits automatically.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#217
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.…

Not just you. There's been a huge pushback in the local music community around this. Concerts listings now prominently feature the name of the poster designer! Humans FTW.

https://xkcd.com/993/

A friend also called this the “Party Cannon effect”, in reference to black metal festival posters. When lavish detail is available at the push of a button, simplicity stands out far more.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#218
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…

[dead]

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#219
Yeah... The "Authentic Indian" curry house in my town replaced everything with AI. So the food really doesn't look like whatever they are serving. This was an issue always with plastic / pro photographed food, but now it costs nothing and it immediately jumps out as definitely not authentic.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#220
post #187

Apart from the AI/Not AI, I dislike photos on menus. It can be deceptive once the dishes are on the table or it can completely spoil the surprise.

I need photos in menu. I don't want surprises, I want to choose what I will eat, which is often extremely difficult when you only see cryptic names of dishes, maybe a list of ingredients too, if you're especially lucky.

Ask the waiter and have an actual conversation with a human, or at least do an image search[0], either way you'll learn something and become a more experienced and cultured[1] human being. And you'll have a more truthful expectation than an AI image will give you.

[0] https://noai.duckduckgo.com/?q=pot+au+feu&iar=images&noai=1

[1] What's the English word for Bildung?

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