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Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

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Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#251

Post by moron4hire »

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've thought about the specific example of distorted menu photos before as well and to me it also signals intelligence level in the proprietor. I can't imagine myself in that position, looking at that and saying, "yup, that's good." And I also have a hard time imagining not understanding why it looks bad, what one could have done to not make it bad. It feels like a distinct decision to be lazy.

And like you said, if they are that careless and unadept at one thing, how are they going to work the intricacies of an espresso machine and food safety standards? Not that an espresso machine is that hard to operate, but surely it's more difficult than maintaining the aspect ratio of a photo. You don't even need to know the term "aspect ratio" to get it right.

But I also have to admit that my expectations seem to be very off on this specific issue. My wife is quite intelligent (actual, literal genius) and even quite artsy, and yet I had to teach her how to not resize photos incorrectly, both for aspect ratio and quality by resizing too large. It's seems like such an easy thing to see and figure out to me. This must be how my 10 year old sees my chess play.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#252

Post by rldjbpin »

i have seen all kinds of menu in my limited time. seeing the example, i would not critique on the choice of tool to "commission" the task for the menu. it would rather comment on the amount of f*cks the restaurant owner gave to getting one done.

seemingly just like the OP i don't hail from japan, where you need to be careful with how you represent the food in your menu. in the DTP days, i have seen random stock images to represent dishes that never makes my table. to me it gives a similar energy.

while everyone has their own technical capabilities, but you still have the final say on what to print. rest is a matter of taste.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#253

Post by dfxm12 »

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.…

It's generally bad vibes because honestly, they're ugly. If you're flat broke, are too many non ugly templates out there. Hiring a local person to do a job like this isn't that expensive, either. All else fails, there's a certain charm in an honest diy poster that AI lacks.

If taste is involved, it's even worse vibes. I mean, an AI poster for a cell phone repair shop is whatever. An AI poster for a clothing store? I don't trust their fashion. This could be the deciding factor on if I get Filipino or Chinese (especially cause the food on the menu in the article looks terrible)...

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#254

Post by ben_w »

ourmandave wrote: post #244
ben_w wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is he just down the street from Carl's Draperies? https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/terminator/images/e/e9/Tdf...

I live in Berlin, so no.

With my mere B1 German, I'm not entirely sure if the pun would even work in German, despite "Vorhangen": translated puns sometimes work fine, other times just make no sense at all.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#255

Post by inigyou »

ben_w wrote: post #198
unleaded wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Art has never been about the objective quality of the work

Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. If it was never about objective quality, Plan 9 from Outer Space and The Eye of Argon would be highly regarded, not the butt of jokes and drinking games. And those are the examples so infamous that they get to have the honour of being laughed at, there are many more which simply fade into obscurity from their ineptness.

William McGonagall produced some brilliant art - just not in the way he thought.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#256

Post by DocTomoe »

simonw wrote: post #69
OtherShrezzing wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But is that a widespread feeling, are the vibes bad for regular people, or is this effectively just old man shouting at clouds? A cursory glance at YouGov strongly suggests that people have bad vibes about AI in basically every territory where they're asked about it, and for basically every use-case

How many of the people who answer polls like that also have the ability to look at a poster and instantly clock that it was AI-generated?

Most people I encounter who complain about AI use it as a shorthand for 'anything I don't like or disagree with'. When asked why they think something was created using genAI, they cannot point out reasons.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#257

Post by dfxm12 »

overflow897 wrote: post #221
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…

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…

"Quaint and basic" does not equate to "careless". Also, I wouldn't describe any of the good pizza places I've been to in the city as "messy". If you have some place or some piece of advertising in mind, do please share it.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#258

Post by Mountain_Skies »

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…

Felt the same way back in the Broderbund 'The Print Shop' days. Once my school purchased a copy, all the signs around the school looked nearly identical, just with variations in symbols and fonts. I was a huge computer nerd and that was one of my first times thinking that maybe computers weren't always the best solution.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#259

Post by moregrist »

cadamsdotcom wrote: post #206
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!"

Preferring badly handled-drawn art to AI slop does not mean “use better AI slop.”
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