A foray into the unknown, all over again.

Starting at the beginning. This is the beginning of my work in developing images in Midjourney.

I started using ai in early July 2022. I had heard the buzz about ai (albeit it was a buzz and not the quiet roar it is today) and thought I should see what it was like. My gut was telling me that this was no passing fad—and that this new “thing” was going to change how we work, what we do, and how we as people and creatives will have more tools to “create content” or better, to create with.

Just to roll things back, when I got out of design school, pretty much all the “hands on” stuff we learned with the exception of the steady basics— the thinking/strategy/ ability to question/ability to learn was moot. The first 10 years were spent doing mechanical art using type from marked up galleys that a typesetter set and output. There were no fax machines. No Federal Express. No internet. God forbid, no Starbucks. Telephones were something on the wall or on your desk. We were dumbstruck by the fabulous type balls that IBM produced. And to think that a typewriter could “remember” a letter and output it with your just changing a name and address. Wonders never ceased. Here we are today—fully digital, able to work remotely, with phones and computers, and IPads , fabulous printers, printing on demand, printing on any surface, the ability to customize anything and everything without breaking the bank. It all is truly a miracle. And this, as with other things was a progression of learning both the designers and illustrators had to face, along with the shifting technology and roles as well. It wasnt, nor will it ever be “learn this and go forth and do this for the next 50 years”. If you want that, paint…or work in gold or do something with your hands…but even with that, technology can poke into that too.

So, when the drumbeat of my illustrator friends on Facebook started with how ai was going to ruin the world of illustration—my thinking was get on board or move aside. Illustration needs to change and migrate which it has…as editorial work is going to wane in the print world, but the digital magazines and publications still need the images. Illustration for story boarding, for packaging, for story telling, for promotional programs etc. all will be there but will be in a large part, living in a very fast world that needs to turn on a dime. All the creative jobs I have had have been transformed with the advent of the computer with roles and expectations of the designer/illustrator/creative person absorbing more and more tasks that were formerly jobbed out. My career has been a path of technology and job change. This new mountain is the most interesting and possibly the most expansive change I can imagine…and I only have a whisker of an understanding of the possibilities—as the ground is shifting daily, hourly on that front. And so I decided to jump in.

I started looking around. Where to start? Earlier it was Quark or Pagemaker? or Illustrator or Freehand. Photoshop never had a “this or that” in it’s segment. What I had learned from the Quark/Pagemaker, Illustrator/Freehand, VHS/Beta is that you pick one and be prepared to change. I watch where the big contracts are announced (like the huge agencies have decided on “X”) and follow where the money was being spent. So, which was the Quark or the Pagemaker of AI imagemaking?

I tried Nightcafe. It was super simple and gave pretty predictable images. I pushed it around and got things that looked like fancy blobs…not terribly refined but charming for the moment. Remember, this is July 2022. This ai world transforms itself daily/monthly—no kidding so what was valid then is dust today. Then I tried Dall-e. And figured out that i should bite the bullet and try the trickier one, MidJourney….and I was hooked.

MidJourney offers a lot of levers and pulleys to really begin to manipulate an idea, it is not a simple “write a sentence” and see what comes out of the Magic Machine…but more of a dance of variables with the team seriously changing the tool daily.I have learned to read their announcements closely, follow certain folks on YouTube and learn what they have to say. I listen in to their “office hours” which are mind-blowing insofar as you hear the digital creators of MidJourney talk about their goals and aspirations—and can then better understand their tools. They have live questions, and the lineup of people talking about how they use MidJourney is truly inspiring.

With Midjourney, I can create an image or prompt a thought and have it look more like traditional art. I like it that my background in art history and literature can be plumbed to get me something that has “tooth” and is relatable..much like the original whole cha cha around digital illustration I experienced in graduate school (2010 or so). There was a lot of pushback from traditional illustrators and the professors that creating illustration with a computer was “cheating” until finally they tried it—and discovered a valuable tool that they too, could use. The key lesson learned was/ is to create an image that the viewer says “wow” vs. “I wonder how this was done”. Same template for me today with ai generation. I am working for wow…and not doing something so out of the wheelhouse that the viewer is confounded by the technique that they forget why they are looking at the image. I am also intrigued by so many illustrators generating images of superheros, StarWars characters, Sci-Fi/Fantasy stuff—and the mundane of I need an image of a phlebotomist prepping a patient, or an image for a comp to show to a client, or an image of a birthday cake to greet someone online. I can draw these things, or use my camera (on my phone), or generate an image. That is my call—and each has it’s up sides and down.

The gallery below is some of the original work I did in early July 2022. You can see how rough and unrefined the images were. MidJourney v.3 Man, have we come a long way (now v.5 with much much more).