Some experiments with AI

bionic hand and human hand finger pointing

Every time I turn around, there’s a new AI tool. Canva (something of a favorite of mine) recently launched its own AI tool, “Magic Design“. I thought it would be fun to experiment with a quip I thought up this morning.

Having a plan is the most effective way to avoid being swayed by the guile of marketing

So, let’s plug this in and see what comes of it, shall we? To be clear, the text above was the only thing I plugged into the prompt. (I’m using my personal version of Canva, which is the free one, so there are watermarks)

Item 1:

The first thing it came up with is a video, with a focus on planning. Kinda nice, methinks.

Item 2:

This one is a Facebook cover, with a similar motif to the first item. Again, nice.

Item 3:

Another image, this one oriented towards mobile/portrait mode.

One additional item:

Last week, I edited out the postlude from our Sunday service and created its own video on our YouTube channel (check it out here if you’re so inclined). I was feeling a bit pressed for time, so I opted for Magic Design and really liked what it zipped out. I just needed to make a few tweaks and I had something quite usable.

I like what I see so far. With more guidance, I’m confident it would give results better suited for specific needs. What do you think? Are designers going to be impacted by this technology? Or will it simply be incorporated to streamline work flow?

Some Photoshop Work

This week I needed to create a basic image based on a quote for a presentation. The team selected this one:

We can choose courage, or we can choose comfort, but we can’t have both. Not at the same time.

Brené Brown 

I like and admire Brene Brown, so I this made me happy. Now, I have tons of options (ie: Canva and Adobe Express). I opted, in the end, for Photoshop. I haven’t used it in a few weeks, so this was a good way to keep my skills…it not “sharp”, at least “unrusty”. It took only a few minutes to whip this one up:

Then I thought “you know, it would be cool to post this to Instagram”. Always a good thing to make sure people know what I can do, right? Anyway, an Instagram post is square. As you might have noticed, this above is not. A benefit of doing this kind of work in Canva is their “Resize” tool (it is a Premium feature). Though not perfect, it does a create job of guesstimating. Tweaking the image then is pretty easy. Photoshop doesn’t have a slick little tool like that. Changing the canvas size is pretty straightforward, though. Then one needs to do a bit more tweaking than what would be needed with Canva’s tool. Re-sizing the image and text, mostly. And making sure you remember all the elements that are hidden by the new canvas size.

This was clear cut, so it was pretty easy to readjust the elements and create an Instagram styled image.

Yeah, I enjoy these sorts of projects, so it was fun.

An Animated Haiku

Today’s haiku video was created with Canva, a powerful freemium design tool. If you’re not familiar with it, I highly recommend it. The free version has plenty of functionality, and the premium versions are amazing without the high costs of Adobe.

Some Design Work

I spent the day editing a video for distribution on social channels. I do love that kind of work. This image is one of the thumbnails I created on Canva. It boggles my mind how quickly I can create something like this. I have many memories of using Photoshop for such things. I love living in the future!

Another Project Complete!

apple laptop notebook office

I just finished, and uploaded, the “Theme Clock” project, part of my 50 Projects in 50 Days course. With this project, first we created an analog clock with ticking hands! That was pretty awesome. Also, we are able to switch from Light to Dark mode. A pretty popular feature right now. Everyone seems to love dark mode.

I had a few challenges with this one. First, getting the hands centered took me a few minutes. This was an issue with CSS. It also was challenging to get the date information to load correctly. That was due to some mis-typing in the JavaScript code.

I’m enjoying these projects. However, I’m still working on understanding code enough to be creative. Currently, I still need a LOT of coaching to get these complete. I realize that I need to grant myself some grace. Yes, my degree had a “lot” of coding, but it was pretty high level. My main focus was on design. For programming, over the past two years of my degree, we spent a quarter each on:

  • HTML
  • CSS
  • JavaScript
  • JQuery (a JavaScript library)
  • PHP
  • Visual Basic

Edmonds college had another web developer program with a more solid focus on coding. In that one, you covered a year a Java programming, but wouldn’t get to take any design courses. I’m sure there were other differences, but that was the main one. I was very deliberate in my choice: I wanted the design classes. It’s a long-standing interest and a passion of mine.

So, I’m left to wonder. How badly do I want to master coding? It’s really cool, and quite fun, but it seems like I have a lot of work to do in order to be able to think in code. And I’m not entirely sure how much more I want to learn. Currently, I’m working as a communications coordinator, where I’m spending time creating things like thumbnails, editing videos, creating posters, editing email newsletters, and updating websites (there are examples of my work in my portfolio). I have done that kind of work for years, and I find it fun and satisfying. I see web technologies to be a massively central part of communications type work going forward.

When I started on this journey of web development, I mainly pictured myself “building websites”. I mostly pictured static sites, blogs, things like the real estate sites I built. The past two years have opened my eyes to a lot of possibilities, though. Sifting through them all is challenging. But, really, it’s great to have a huge array of options.

A desktop setup to consider

I enjoy looking at desk setups. This one, though, really stands out to me. Now, I’ve been wanting an adjustable standing desk for a number of years, which is a key part of this layout. But the wood desktop and matching bookshelves? *chef’s kiss* I think this desk may be the same one. MAY be….I guess.

And then there are the three monitors. THREE! My son has three and the notion is growing on me.

I plan to upgrade my computer early next year. I may need to think about my office furniture, too.