This is a unique week. A frustrating phenomenon has taken place in Spoonflower over the last year or two. More and more artificial intelligence generated designs have been placing high in the challenge results. Sometimes they are so good that it’s hard to tell. Other times the main elements of the design are a little garbled, like lizards with super bizarre toes. See what I mean here. That design placed high in a recent challenge, and Spoonflower still hasn’t removed the design. A few challenges ago, an AI design won! It was only after members found the design on an AI art generation website and reported it to Spoonflower that the design was knocked from the top spot.
I imagine it’s a technological challenge for Spoonflower to catch these designs. My tech savviness isn’t high enough to know what’s involved. But I do believe they should make an effort. Maybe they could ban designers that are caught using AI from entering challenges?
In an effort to raise awareness, I’m joining other designers this week in using this challenge to make designs that call attention to the issue.
Process
The theme this week is to bring together different patterns in a maximalist “more is better” sort of way. I combined a damask, zigzag, and floral patterns, though it took me a while to decide on this. You may notice that indecision in the Timelapse below.
Voting
If you’d like to vote this week, keep an eye out for “ban AI” themed designs. The more votes they get, the more likely Spoonflower will take notice. Vote here, starting May 11th.
