Kevin Lee interviews Lee-Sean Huang, Senior Director of Learning & Programs at AIGA (the American Institute of Graphic Arts). The conversation covers how the design profession is evolving, how creative briefs are changing, and how the design community is adapting to new technologies, including AI, which are already having a significant impact on how designers work.

Big shifts have already happened in design – driven by the pandemic's transformation of the workplace and the arrival of a new generation of design and collaboration tools -- and these shifts are accelerating. As Lee-Sean notes, clients "are being more collaborative with their creative teams, whether it's with agencies or in-house." He also sees increased investment in in-house creative and design teams.

Lee-Sean acknowledges that while in-person dynamics can be beneficial for certain creative and strategic projects, there are trade-offs; including the need to manually memorialize in-person "analog" interactions via notebook or other analog devices and then transmute this material to the digital realm.

Regarding AI-enabled design tools, Lee-Sean mentions that designers, especially content-focused professionals like illustrators and photographers, are surfacing real concerns about AI tools replacing them. Lee-Sean clearly recognizes that AI tools can be beneficial in terms of the ideation and concept development phases of any project, saving time and providing more opportunity to focus on higher-level creative processes.

Kevin and Lee-Sean discuss best practices for creative briefs. As he notes, a brief that is too narrow may limit creativity and innovation, while an excessively open-ended brief may lead to "wheel spinning" and a lack of direction. Finding the right balance between open and closed briefs is essential.

Lee-Sean reflects on some common themes discussed at recent AIGA conferences, including the imperative that designers expand their scope of knowledge beyond traditional parameters of design to include fluency with AI tools, become more business-savvy, and become expert at aligning creative work with strategic business goals.

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