Increasingly, more sign concepts coming from our clients to our designers’ desks are A.I. generated. Here is what our design team still has to work out once the picture arrives.
In our job, we are not a fan of surprises, and we know our clients are not either. So when something new starts showing up in our inbox on a regular basis, we would rather talk about it up front than let it become a surprise later.
Lately, that something is AI.
More and more of our clients are sending us a sign concept they generated themselves. They describe what they are after, a program creates it, and the picture lands in our email. That is simply where things are now, and we understand the appeal.
However, there is a consistent problem with many of these submissions, and it has very little to do with whether the image looks artificial.
The problem is that the sign in the picture does not have a size.
We asked one of our designers what he runs into when one of these comes across his desk. His answer was the same for every product we build.
“The biggest problem we run into with AI is the scale at which the computer wants to make things. People can prompt in a neon sign for their 2-inch-tall letters, and AI shows them the desired result when this is physically impossible.”
Some Things Cannot Be Made Small
Of course, this was an issue long before AI came along. Clients have occasionally asked for things that could not be built. However, in this new age of AI, it is simply far more common for us to encounter concepts that look perfectly reasonable on a screen but are not physically possible.
That means sign shops such as ours have to do even more of the work of setting expectations about what size a sign can actually be.
Neon, for instance, has a minimum size. So does an illuminated channel letter, because there has to be real room inside the letter for the lighting and wiring to live. Below a certain point, the product stops being something anyone can build.
An AI rendering has no way of knowing that because it is not building anything. It is producing a picture of a sign, and a picture does not have a minimum letter height. If your letters are two inches tall, there is nowhere for the neon to go, no matter how good the image looks on your screen.
Likewise, channel letters have limits based on how tightly the return can be bent, and those limits can change depending on whether the letter is hand-made or machine-made.
Size and scale are not details that get worked out later. They determine what can be built at all.
A Layout Drawn for One Size Rarely Works at Another
The second problem is less obvious, and it can cause even more disappointment because the sign in the rendering may be completely buildable. It simply may not be able to scale to fit the space the client has available.
“AI won’t have an accurate reference point to scale a sign. This is something that can result in the client seeing the rendering and thinking the 2’x3′ sign they requested can have a similar layout to a 3’x8′ when they allow for totally different amounts of white space and needed space for their logo/information.”
Often, AI layouts are designed for one particular rectangle, and they do not shrink neatly into a different one.
Your logo needs a certain amount of room before it stops reading as your logo. Your copy needs a minimum letter height to be legible from the road. The individual elements need enough space between them to remain clear and easy to read.
That empty space is important, too. When adapting an AI concept, it can quickly get squeezed out if we try to fit the same layout into a smaller sign.
On a long, horizontal sign, there may be plenty of room for all of the elements you need. On something smaller or more square, something may have to give.
That is why the layout our designers bring back to you will sometimes look different from the picture you started with. They are not overruling your taste. They are fitting your idea into the space you actually have on your building.
This Applies to Every Product We Build
This is not just a neon or channel letter problem. Channel letters, neon, cabinets, flat cut letters and other sign products are all subject to physical limitations. Each one is a physical object with real material thicknesses, real minimum sizes and real mounting requirements that a rendering never accounts for.
A computer can make a letter thinner, smaller or more detailed with no concern for how that object will eventually be fabricated.
Our designers do not have that luxury. They have to make sure the finished sign can actually be manufactured, installed and used for its intended purpose.
What Helps Us Most
None of this means you cannot use AI tools. It can be a useful way to explore ideas and figure out what styles, layouts or elements you like.
It just means an AI rendering is not always the most useful starting point for designing your actual sign.
If you are thinking about new signage, the most valuable thing you can bring us is information about the space where that sign will live.
How to Help Us Help You with Your Signage Needs
If you can give us answers to these four questions, it will help immensely:
- Where would you like the sign to go, and about how much room is there for it?
- What is that wall or surface made of, as best you can tell? Brick, stucco, wood or metal?”
- Will people mostly see it from the road as they drive past, or up close as they walk to your door?
- Do you want it lit at night?
With those four things in hand, our designers can help determine what is possible before you have committed to a design, and long before you have grown attached to something we cannot build.
It is the same reason we encourage clients to bring us in early to the process, which we covered in 5 Steps for Buying New Signs for Your Business and The Importance of Budgeting For Your Sign Early.
And if even those four questions seem like a lot, don’t worry. Our sales representatives will often come out for a site visit and help you sort through them. We will also conduct a full survey to get exact measurements and gather the details we need to design and fabricate your sign correctly.
Likewise, if you have already made a rendering, bring it along by all means. It tells us something valuable: what you are drawn to and what you have in mind. Just know that the rendering may need to be adapted to the realities of your available sign space and the physical limits of the sign type you choose. AI is very good at showing you a sign. However, it has no idea how big that sign is, what it is made of, or whether the thing it drew can actually be manufactured. Those are the questions that matter once it is time to put something on your building.
We would much rather have that conversation with you at the beginning than after you have fallen for a design we cannot build. At Ortwein Sign, we have years of combined experience helping clients turn ideas into signs that actually work in the real world.
If you are looking to get a new sign for your business, give us a call at (423) 867-9208 or get a quote online.