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Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

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Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#271

Post by dosinga »

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 don't know. This reply is AI generated and I really care

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#272

Post by dfxm12 »

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…

To me, it feels somewhat anti-social. Going from working with the community on the flyer (assuming, like you said, it was hand drawn by a janitor or teacher or maybe even a student) to working with no one. Why can't we invite the community to work on things like this? If we don't have time, we should make time for it, like a little bit of class time for the students to draw a flyer. Children, schools and community 3rd places like pools are worth it!

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#273

Post by frereubu »

My daughter's primary teacher last year was leading an English language lesson where the main task was to write a poem about a hot air balloon. Instead of finding existing poems about hot air balloons, of which there must be a lot even if they're not great quality, she pulled up ChatGPT on the digital whiteboard, wrote "Write me a poem about a hot air balloon" and said "do that". Sometimes people just don't care. (The teacher was "let go" soon after that, thankfully).

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#274

Post by dfxm12 »

couchand wrote: post #36
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.…

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.

Going back over a decade (ETA, actually, wow, over two decades), I used to go to shows, not only to see the bands, but also to make sure I got the poster. This one, made by Tim Gough, escaped me: http://www.oldskull.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/timgough-...

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#275

Post by ewhanley »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #241
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…

Back in the days, you made the title with WordArt and then add clipart images below

Exactly. In a few short years no one will feel the slop content is unusual - just in time for thr next jarring iteration to come along. It's not good or bad. It just is. Time marches on.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#276

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#277

Post by smelendez »

dekleinewolf wrote: post #229
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, wit…

Right, and any musicians taking that kind of gig will have professional photos they would happily share that you could just put some text on top of!

With the OP and restaurant menus in general, and to some extent here, it also feels like false advertising: You’re showing an illustration that’s not even based on the real product or people.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#278

Post by icambron »

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 generally the opposite is true. A place with bad coffee but great decor can charge the same as a place with good coffee but crappy everything else. And so to maximize profitability, it does just that, meaning that at any price level, the place with the worst non-coffee has the best coffee. If you judge them by their posters, then what you’re paying for is the posters.

I think people complaining about AI art at businesses are making an aesthetic argument and then laundering it into ones with more heft. I mostly agree with the aesthetic argument, but it’s only that, not some wider indictment.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#279

Post by llm_nerd »

benrutter wrote: post #224

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 gen…

The AI overreaction is people extrapolating change forward in a linear fashion, not unlike the nightly news scarily reporting about some "trend" sweeping the nation (rainbow parties, polygamy, whatever), playing on people's fear that inevitably it is going to consume society.

This restaurant probably has the "tech nephew" who played around with ChatGPT and they thought it looks fresh and new or something, and they probably said "ha and we didn't have to pay anyone!". And while it looks bad to us, for a while it will look "good" and "professional" to a lot of people.

But eventually so many will have this same look that the whiplash will occur, everyone will reject it, and like you said then the differentiation will be the least AI looking.

Re: Businesses with ugly AI menu redesigns

#280

Post by bccdee »

buellerbueller wrote: post #267
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 ah the inverse of the "i'm good at coding, therefore i am good at everything." I want my restaurants to have delicious food; I don't expect them to have (or hire) graphic designers. Every dollar spent on design is a dollar that is not going to the quality of my food. The hate on AI menus is irrational, unless eating at a specifi…

No, it's entirely rational to judge a service based on external signals.

If you need medical treatment, will you go to a doctor operating out of an office, or a doctor operating out of their own garage? Theoretically, either one could be good or bad at medicine, but in practice, professionalism is a useful signal.

An ugly AI-generated menu shows a naive disregard for the actual experience of your customers. This attitude will bleed into the food quality.

> Every dollar spent on design is a dollar that is not going to the quality of my food.

Then throw something together in MS Word. That's free. It's not bad for something to be low-effort; it just needs to be commensurately simple.

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