Every logo, book cover, thumbnail, website and social post I make for a client is my own original design, made by me from your brief. AI has a small place in how I run the studio, mostly in the admin around the work, and I'm happy to tell you exactly where.

Where I do use it

Like a lot of people running a small business on their own, I use AI tools for some of the jobs that sit around the design work, which leaves more of my time for the part you're paying for. That covers things like admin and keeping my week organised, scheduling social posts once they've been designed and approved, and bouncing ideas around in the early stages of a project when I'm brainstorming directions.

There's also a plan builder on this site, which uses AI to suggest which of my services might help a business, based on what they tell it. It can only choose from a fixed list of my services, the prices come from my own price list rather than the AI, and I go through every plan with the person before anything is agreed.

Anything that comes out of a brainstorm is only ever a starting point for my own sketches and decisions, and nothing goes into your work without me making it, checking it and being happy to put my name to it.

Why the design stays mine

When someone looks at your logo, your cover or your website, they're making a quick judgement about whether there's a real and careful business behind it, and the early research suggests people notice when visuals are machine-made. In a 2024 NielsenIQ study of more than 2,000 people, participants picked out most AI-generated ads without being told and described them as more annoying, boring and confusing than conventional ones. A peer-reviewed Washington State University study the same year found that simply mentioning artificial intelligence in a product description lowered people's trust and their intention to buy.

Neither study is the final word, and the first one was industry research rather than peer-reviewed, but they point the same way as what I see with clients: the work that gets remembered is the work that looks like it could only belong to that business, and image generators are built to produce the most likely picture for a prompt, which is why so much of it ends up looking alike.

If you want to know more

If you're ever curious about how something in your project was made, ask me and I'll tell you plainly. I've also written a newsletter letter on what AI design is costing small businesses and the Canva setup I'd suggest instead, which you'll get if you sign up.

Sources

Emma Winnard, founder of AEAN Studios

Designs websites and social media for small businesses, and book covers and YouTube thumbnails for creatives, from a small studio in Wigan.