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Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

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Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#221

Post by overflow897 »

matthewowen wrote: post #148
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.…

I was talking to my daughter a few weeks ago about a coffee shop that was opening soon and I said that based on the posters in the window it probably wouldn’t be very good. She didn’t really understand how I could draw that conclusion and I explained that you could tell that they had been stretched to fit the available dimensions in a way that clearly distorted the images and text. And that like… if you’re careless a…

This is so definitely not true in many many cases. The best pizza shops in NYC for decades have been quaint, basic and often messy spaces. The ones with the nice menus and overdone decor were often subpar and would fail. This also applies to the best chinese food. Opening a business is hard, you might be incredibly passionate about pizza or coffee but not have budget for a designer. When traveling I usually have way better food at the unpretentious local street food spots rather than the michelin star ones that are all about presentation.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#222

Post by orphea »

internet_points wrote: post #220
orphea wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Please refrain from giving unsolicited, patronizing advice. Thank you. I merely shared an opinion - to balance the OP's point - that some people [0] appreciate photos [1] on menus because they do help with choosing the dishes.

[0] I'm sure I'm not alone here.

[1] I didn't say anything about AI images, did I?

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#223

Post by thuuuomas »

Planktonne wrote: post #186
bobthebob wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks I’ll use this in my prompt to make a better advertisements

This is a genuine comment, rather than snark, though I appreciate it might initially look that way. Your comment is an example of something that seems to accrue around AI users: casual, even gleeful, spite. You don't get this with every technology; there is no significant strand of the pro-3D printing community, for example, that goes around taunting people who don't use printers themselves. It's significant, I think…

> a characteristic that leads to a propensity for AI

A smoldering sense of inadequacy compels use of the adequacy machine

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#224

Post by benrutter »

I think 5 years ago, we'd just have thought this was a "badly designed menu" and moved on, but now AI has taught us to feel a deep sense of disappointment with it's particular blend of poor personality-less design.

I was looking at the documentation for cruft the other day and it's mascot is absolutely glorious. Not because it displays any semblance of "good taste", but just because it is the polar opposite of AI generated blandness[0].

Who knows - maybe in the future we'll start embracing signals of human amateurishness and ms-paint created menus filled with comic sans will take off.

[0] https://cruft.github.io/cruft/

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#225

Post by tobr »

YurgenJurgensen wrote: post #217
couchand wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That XKCD idea is basically the Swedish Blåvitt product line that existed during the 80s and early 90s.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#226

Post by zwischenzug »

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…

It felt much the same when posters went from hand-drawn to created by computers. Personality went from handwriting or eccentric, dynamically-created fonts to Comic Sans. To me this feels like the next level.

TBH, most of those menus just looked like pre-AI menus to me...

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#227

Post by Planktonne »

zeratax wrote: post #211
Planktonne wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ^^

I think there's a difference between passively and actively putting no thought into something; generating a menu with AI involves deciding that it's worth having but that you don't care about the quality.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#228

Post by dosisking »

teo_zero wrote: post #174
matthewowen wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was talking to my daughter a few weeks ago about a coffee shop that was opening soon and I said that based on the posters in the window it probably wouldn’t be very good. She didn’t really understand how I could draw that conclusion and I explained that you could tell that they had been stretched to fit the available dimensions in a way that clearly distorted the images and text. And that like… if you’re careless a…

> 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.

Generally for restaurants, the better the menu looks, the better the decor, the worse the food is. The 'hole in the wall' places are always the hidden gems. The slick-looking places are always a disappointment.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#229

Post by dekleinewolf »

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.…

My job did a 'lunch concert'. A violinist and pianist were invited to play during our lunch hour. Great initiative.

And then they notified us by means of an ai-generated poster involving a photorealistic image of a violinist and pianist playing in an office setting. But not the actual artists, no, fake real artists.

And I feel like that is such an insult to the actual artists? Like, these are real, actual people, with real skills, that are doing real work, and apparently that's the same as these two fake non-existant people?

So yeah, I share your sentiment. But I may just be old woman shouting at clouds with the old man.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#230

Post by dosisking »

Planktonne wrote: post #185
teo_zero wrote: post #174

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.

I think you're making a lot of assumptions that don't really hold up in reality.
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