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The Writings on the Wall

Words have always mattered. But now, writing has become a superpower.

In a world where AI can produce passable paragraphs in seconds, it is no surprise that many writers feel threatened. I do not blame them. Every time a new design tool comes along claiming that anyone can now be a designer, a little part of me dies as well. But any experienced designer knows it takes far more than arranging elements on a screen to create something that works. There are users to consider, best practices to apply, styles to refine, and context to respect. An AI-generated design might look neat in isolation, but it rarely holds up in the real world.

The same truth applies to writing.

AI has opened up writing to everyone. Almost anyone can improve clarity, spelling, and tone with the right prompt. But keeping writing on brand and developing a distinctive, consistent voice still relies on the taste makers and the most cunning of linguists. This is where skill and experience make all the difference.

More than your website’s design, your content is the thing to focus on. Design and build are simply the structure. What you say and how you say it will shape how people experience your brand. It will also determine how your words are surfaced and used by new technologies. As AI-powered tools become the default way people search and interact, old content strategies will no longer be enough.

Some of the sharpest writers I know work in advertising, which has always felt like the Formula One of writing. They can craft that perfect combination of words to drive a message home, punchy and perfectly timed, often clever or funny. This kind of writing hits harder than anything else, but it is only one part of a brand’s voice.

There are many other opportunities emerging.

Content is no longer limited to campaigns, websites, or social media. It is becoming the backbone of how customers discover, query, and engage with businesses. When interfaces start to disappear and people rely on voice commands and AI answers, the words themselves will be the brand experience.

Every touchpoint should feel like your brand.

This includes your ads, your product copy, your customer support responses, your frequently asked questions, your packaging, your legal disclaimers, and every other place language shows up. Even the voice and tone of your AI assistants can and should be unique.

If you are going to invest in this, it makes sense to build a writing system as thoughtfully as you would create a design system. You will need guidelines, examples, and tools that help teams stay consistent without losing creativity.

Imagine your AI sounding recognisably yours, in the same way you hear a voice in a film and know exactly who it is. Think about how a single sound can stamp a brand into memory, like the PlayStation or a OS startup chime. Your language should work the same way.

This is the time to find your voice and write words that resonate with people no matter where they meet you. Because in the end, when all the screens and buttons fade into the background, it is the words that will remain.

Beyond Design Systems

Design systems have become standard practice across most modern teams. Ask anyone what a design system is and you’ll hear the same few things: a centralised repository of components, visual styles, documentation, and usage rules. It’s a way to speed up production, drive consistency, and align teams working on digital products. Most of the time, that means some UI kits in Figma and a coded library of reusable front-end components. Useful, but often treated as a fixed asset library rather than a foundation for creative thinking.

Depending on who you speak to, design systems are either a lifesaver or a creative constraint. Designers might feel boxed in by too much rigidity. Engineers may appreciate the efficiency. Brand teams enjoy the consistency. All of these perspectives are valid. They come from different needs. The real value isn’t the assets themselves. It’s the system-level thinking that enables teams to work from the same foundation while still leaving space for interpretation and originality when it’s appropriate.

Systems Create Trust

When design systems are done well, they drive trust. Not just with the customer, but inside the organisation too. Everyone is working from the same visual and behavioural playbook. Patterns are predictable. Teams aren’t reinventing basic components every week. This makes everything smoother, particularly at scale. There’s no need for twelve versions of the same button, each with a different hover state. As long as the system leaves space to go beyond the default when needed, it works. The value comes from shared standards, not enforced uniformity.

Design systems should also carry the rationale behind every component. Why a card looks the way it does. What behaviour is expected from a modal. What principles guide these decisions. A strong system communicates this context clearly. It’s not just documentation, it’s design leadership at scale.

Extend the System Beyond the Interface

Visual components are only one layer of the system. There’s no reason to stop there. Voice and tone are just as critical to brand coherence as colour and typography. Yet they’re often treated as secondary, or worse, left undocumented entirely.

A robust system should provide clear guidance on language. Not just grammar and phrasing, but the intent behind it. What the brand sounds like. What words should be used. Which ones should be avoided. This is especially valuable for teams producing interface copy, marketing materials, and legal content. If a brand’s look is tightly governed but its language is all over the place, trust erodes. Customers notice the disconnect.

Even better is when the system supports the production process itself. Legal disclaimers, product descriptions, and error messages are often repeated, tweaked, and reviewed under pressure. Having templates, tone guidelines, and an approval system in place dramatically improves both quality and speed. A writing system is just as important as a visual one. Most brands don’t have one.

Production Environments Need Structure Too

In high-pressure production environments such as internal creative teams, in-house agencies, or large-scale marketing teams, efficiency is non-negotiable. Yet these teams are often operating with scattered resources. Brand guides are handed out in PDF format. Visual assets are dumped into folders. Nobody knows what’s approved, what’s current, or what’s been deprecated.

These brand environments need their own system. Not just asset storage, but proper organisation. Marketing asset creation often lacks the same level of care applied to digital product design. A system for social templates, video formats, typography rules, and usage dos and don’ts is not hard to set up, but it’s rarely done with intention. Instead, teams scramble under deadline pressure, redoing work that should have been templated.

When I worked in an in-house agency, I kept thinking how much smoother things would be if we’d defined our formats in advance. Not just the look, but the production specs. That way we wouldn’t lose hours figuring it out every time. It’s basic design ops. Yet many brands haven’t taken ownership of this foundational layer.

Design Systems as Internal Products

When working in agency environments, the default suggestion was often to adopt an off-the-shelf design framework. While helpful for some, they often came with a steep learning curve and felt too abstract or generic. Instead, we built our own design systems tailored to the work we actually did. Not as a replacement for creativity, but as a baseline to launch from.

These weren’t complex design systems. They were smart templates for components we used frequently. They helped us move faster, produce more consistently, and freed up time to focus on the more complex or unique aspects of a brief. That’s the point. Systems aren’t just about constraints. They serve as multipliers. They let people spend less time re-solving solved problems and more time doing the work that adds real value.

It’s not about sameness. It’s about structure. And that structure can be a huge enabler for creativity, especially when it’s flexible enough to evolve.

Systems Beyond the Screen

Interfaces are no longer limited to screens. Design systems must evolve accordingly. As interaction moves beyond desktop, tablet, and mobile into voice, wearables, and emerging input formats, the system has to do more than standardise pixels. It has to define sound, behaviour, intent, and tone across multiple modalities.

Auditory and conversational interfaces are already part of the experience. AI assistants, voice UIs, and LLM-powered tools are becoming more common in product and service delivery. This demands a new kind of system thinking. The golden thread is no longer just the visual language. It’s the consistent application of a brand’s voice, structure, and intent across every touchpoint, in every format.

To make this work, brands will need systems that train AI models in how to speak, what to prioritise, and how to uphold the values and tone of the company. GPT-style tools will need structure, not just input. A prompt library, content hierarchy, tone calibration, and dialogue frameworks all become part of the system. These help maintain clarity, intent, and identity at scale.

An AI agent operating on behalf of a brand must know when to offer help, when to stay silent, how to escalate, and what not to say. If these models are to become extensions of a brand, then the system must give them a framework to act within. That turns the design system into something closer to an operating system. One that powers intelligent branded experiences instead of static UIs.

Ownership of this work will vary. Some companies may form new roles and teams to manage it. Others will rely on cross-functional collaboration between design, content, brand, product, and legal. Agencies may build the foundation. AI tools may help evolve it. Regardless of who maintains it, these systems must move beyond visuals to remain useful in the years ahead.

Keep the System Flexible

The challenge going forward is balance. A good system creates consistency, but not at the cost of creativity. A loose system invites interpretation, but can lead to chaos. Somewhere in between is a system that scales with the organisation, evolves with the work, and supports its use across both human and machine-driven interactions.

The best systems are not rigid rulebooks or chaotic archives. They are structured foundations that support better thinking, clearer communication, and more meaningful experiences, wherever and however they are delivered.

A designer who likes to write

I like to write.

But I’m not a writer.

That might not make sense to most, but I know the limits of my talents. Writing isn’t just about the perfect payoff line or a well-crafted book. For me, it’s a way to get ideas out of my head. A tool to document and structure information. A method of processing thought.

There’s so much power in words, but even more in the act of putting them down, no matter how simple. Spoken words can vanish as quickly as they’re heard. Written ones tend to stick, at least for me. Writing cements things in my mind. If I were a student again, I’d likely write down everything I wanted to learn. Not to make notes, but to make sense of things.

Yes, I write a lot. On paper, in phone notes, in articles and posts. I’m always playing with words, trying to find clever turns of phrase or draw something unexpected from an everyday idea. Sometimes they come out as dad jokes or as others have said, Craig-isms.

But writing for me isn’t about producing polished, publishable work. It’s part of how I think. How I solve. How I observe. It’s why creatives like Leonardo da Vinci kept journals, not for output, but for input. I’ve tried journaling, by the way. But the formality of it distracts me. I get too caught up in how it looks or reads, and I lose the flow. So I don’t journal. I just write when it feels right.

That’s why I say: I’m a designer who likes to write.

But I’m not a writer.

A proper writer has something different. A unique skill set. A kind of clarity and discipline I don’t have. Real writers, those who do it for a living, carry a sense of structure, an understanding of grammar, pause, and punctuation. They have taste. They know when to cut and when to linger. They can do it every day. That’s not me.

Sure, I know what good writing looks like. As a creative director, I can direct the copy. I know how it should feel. I can edit, shape, and sense what works. But that doesn’t make me a writer any more than knowing what makes a good building makes me an architect.

So I don’t offer writing as a service. I leave it to those who can do it on repeat, like they’re breathing. The best of them? Like they’re doing breath work.

It’s the same with code. I can code. Probably better than I can write. Definitely better than most. But I couldn’t do it every day. It doesn’t fill me up in the same way. I don’t have the confidence. Maybe that’s imposter syndrome. Or maybe it’s just knowing who I am.

I’m not a writer. I’m not a coder.

I’m a designer.

A designer who likes to write.

Why I Write on LinkedIn

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been writing more than usual. If you’ve noticed and wondered why, there’s no single reason. It’s a mix of intent, curiosity, and practicality.

I’ve been creating content online for years across different formats and platforms. Some worked, some didn’t. But lately, LinkedIn has become the place I keep coming back to. And writing articles here, specifically, feels like the best fit for what I want to say and how I want to say it.

Sharing More Than My Portfolio
There’s so much depth to the work I’ve done over the years that doesn’t show up in a case study or portfolio. The kind of thinking that happens in real time, inside conversations, decisions, leadership moments, and the messy parts of building creative work. That’s what I want to share more of.

But it’s not just about the work itself. It’s also about the context around the work, the way I lead, how I think through challenges, the values I bring into creative environments, and how I navigate being part of this industry. The relationships, the influences, the impact of the world around us. That rarely gets captured, yet it shapes everything.

LinkedIn feels like the right place for that. It’s where the industry talks. It’s where recruiters are. It’s where creative leaders, designers, strategists, product heads, and founders are sharing their views, and where it actually feels normal to join in with your own.

I’ve Tried Other Channels
My blog

It makes sense to start here, since writing has always been a core part of how I share ideas, and it’s the one platform I actually own. I’ve written a lot over the years, and while personal blogs don’t get much organic reach these days, I still value it as a space. But it’s not where people are, and it’s not where conversations happen. That’s why my energy has shifted elsewhere.

Instagram

It’s always been more of a personal space for sharing life moments with friends and family. Given that I have other channels for specific interests, adding another stream of content just for work felt like more effort than it was worth. This format makes more sense for client work or personal projects that might gain a better audience.

TikTok

I experimented with some short-form video content, but I think people enjoy watching women dance more than they want to hear me blabbing on about creativity and design. Building out the visuals, performing, and being on camera doesn’t interest me, and it never really felt like a natural fit.

YouTube

I’ve tried it more than once. Long-form videos, shorts, design rants, personal projects. The effort it takes to create even a simple video – setup, delivery, editing, uploading, thumbnails, metadata – is more than most people realise. And while I don’t mind being on camera for work-related calls or meetings, performing on camera to create content just isn’t something I want to spend time or energy on.

My Attempts on LinkedIn
I’ve played around with different post formats, short updates, opinionated takes, image-based posts, even a few carousels. But they’ve never really gained much traction or felt quite right for how I think and work.

Carousels are the hot format right now, but I’ll be honest, I just don’t have the energy to design and format my ideas in that way. I’m not saying they don’t work. I’m saying it doesn’t work for me. I don’t want to turn every thought into a carefully crafted visual sequence. I want to write things down, explore ideas, and move on.

I also tried video content here. It felt unnatural. Writing feels like I can breathe. Video feels like I have to perform.

Why Articles Make Sense
Articles let me go a bit deeper. They don’t require a design layout or a polished hook or a five-second attention grab. They don’t need music, subtitles, or motion graphics. I can just write.

And because someone has to click in to read an article, I know they’re at least a little curious. That changes the kind of conversation I’m having with the reader. It’s not competing for attention in a feed. It’s sitting down and saying: here’s where I’m at, here’s what I’m thinking, and maybe there’s something in here that’s useful to you too.

That’s what I want from this. Not perfection. Not virality. Just the chance to share thoughts that might help someone else figure something out, or feel seen in their own creative path.

So yes, I’ve been writing a lot lately. Not to become a better writer. Not to go viral. But because it’s one of the few ways I can still show up honestly without overcomplicating things.

If you’re still reading, thanks. And if you’re writing too, I’d love to hear how you’re approaching it, and why you’re choosing the platforms you’re on.

Designers, Let’s Talk

The most important skill in design today isn’t visual. It’s communication.

Not just how you visualise your work, but how you shape ideas, ask questions, guide discussions, and speak the language of the people you work with. It’s how you articulate design, understand problems, and adapt your language to others. If you can’t clearly express what you’re doing, why it matters, or how it contributes to the broader goal, it doesn’t matter how strong your design is. It won’t land.

Design is now deeply collaborative. You need to be able to communicate with stakeholders, engineers, researchers, strategists, and leadership. That means adjusting your language to suit the room. Speaking in terms of outcomes, not outputs. Explaining trade-offs without jargon. Framing your thinking so others can see what you see.

One of the most effective ways to improve this is to read. A lot. Read beyond design. Study how business leaders think. Learn how engineers document ideas. Read about psychology, negotiation, and decision-making. It helps you expand your vocabulary, understand different perspectives, and communicate your work in a way that resonates across disciplines. Books give you the mental models and the words to operate at a higher level.

This applies equally to facilitation. It’s not about sticky notes or frameworks. It’s about how you guide people through complexity. How you keep momentum without dominating the room. How you listen, interpret, and reframe ideas so others feel heard and the right problems are surfaced. Running a workshop is an act of design in itself, and communication is the material you’re working with.

Great designers don’t rush to have all the answers. They know how to ask better questions. Questions that open up thinking, challenge assumptions, and reveal what’s really at stake. Whether in a workshop, a design critique, or a stakeholder review, the quality of your questions often matters more than the quality of your solutions. It’s not just about curiosity. It’s about intent. Knowing what to ask, when to ask it, and how to ask it in a way that invites honesty and clarity is one of the most underrated forms of communication in design.

The shift toward strategic design makes communication even more essential. Designers need to move beyond artefacts and start speaking in terms of priorities, risks, opportunities, and results. That means being fluent in product and business language, not just design. You have to understand what matters to the organisation, and communicate your work in a way that supports those goals.

AI has changed the pace and shape of creative work, but not the core of it. Prompting isn’t a trick; it’s another form of expression. The quality of what you get back depends on the clarity of what you put in. If you can write well, you’ll prompt well. If you know how to frame a request, direct an idea, or structure a brief, you’ll get more out of the tools around you. This isn’t separate from design. It’s part of it.

Design systems are also a communication challenge. A good one doesn’t just look consistent. It expresses shared intent. It reduces friction by making expectations clear. It documents patterns so they can be understood and reused. Creating a design system that actually gets adopted is less about how it looks and more about how well it communicates across the product and engineering teams using it.

Critique, when done properly, is one of the most valuable communication skills a designer can develop. It’s not about offering opinions. It’s about asking the right questions, giving clear and respectful feedback, and receiving critique with professionalism. Good designers know how to separate themselves from their work. They listen, reflect, and use feedback to improve the outcome, not protect their ego.

Strong communication isn’t just about what you say. It’s knowing when to say it, how to say it, and when to hold back. It’s the ability to read the room, to sense when to speak up and when to listen. It’s understanding how to navigate tension without adding to it. Great designers know how to behave under pressure. They don’t throw others under the bus, shift blame, or deflect when things go wrong. They take responsibility, learn quickly, and move forward without making it personal. They focus on the work, not the politics. And they know that how you carry yourself, especially in difficult moments, often says more than any deck ever could.

Understanding how products are built is also part of this. You don’t need to write code, but you should understand the language of how things work. Know what’s easy and what’s expensive. Learn the basics of how interfaces are structured in code. This helps you speak more effectively with engineers and avoid unnecessary friction. The more you understand how your designs are implemented, the better you’ll communicate their intent.

Being able to communicate publicly is part of the job now. Whether it’s sharing work-in-progress on internal Slack channels, posting insights on LinkedIn, or writing longer-form thinking for a wider audience, designers need to know how to show up with clarity and intent. That means learning to write sharp one-liners that spark curiosity, structuring posts that make people want to keep reading, and crafting comments that add value to the conversation. Long-form writing builds depth, short-form builds reach, and both build credibility. The designers who know how to share well don’t just get noticed. They help shape the narrative around the work.

Designers who can communicate clearly, consistently, and with confidence are the ones who get heard. They move projects forward. They build trust. They shape outcomes. It’s not a soft skill. It’s the foundation of everything else.

If you want to grow as a designer, sharpen how you speak, write, listen, and present. Learn to communicate ideas in the language of those around you. That’s the skill that will set you apart. And the one that makes all your other skills count.

AI writing tools

As a designer who recognises the power of the written word, I’ve always believed that writing is an essential skill for crafting thoughts and communicating effectively. In recent years, the emergence of AI writing assistants has caught my attention, promising to enhance our ability to express ideas and streamline the writing process. Intrigued by these developments, I decided to explore how these tools might benefit someone like me – a design professional who enjoys writing but isn’t a full-time writer.

My journey through the AI writing landscape led me to experiment with various tools, primarily ChatGPT and Claude, with brief encounters with Grok and Perplexity AI. In this post, I’ll share my experiences and insights as a designer venturing into the world of AI-assisted writing.

Whether you’re a fellow designer looking to improve your writing skills, a professional in any field aiming to communicate more effectively, or simply someone curious about the intersection of AI and writing, join me as we explore the potential and limitations of these fascinating tools.

The AI Writing Landscape

As a designer venturing into the world of AI-assisted writing, I encountered a variety of tools, each with its own strengths and peculiarities:

ChatGPT: The Jack-of-All-Trades

ChatGPT quickly became my go-to tool for a wide range of tasks. Its versatility impressed me, handling everything from writing assistance to search queries and even coding help. While not specialised for any particular task, its broad capabilities made it a useful all-rounder in my toolkit.

Claude: The Focused Writing Companion

Claude stood out as a more focused writing assistant. From the moment I started using it, I found its responses to be well-structured and tailored to writing tasks. While I haven’t explored its full capabilities, such as coding, its prowess in writing assistance was immediately apparent.

Grok: The Social Media Specialist

My brief encounter with Grok revealed its specialisation in social media content, particularly for crafting tweets. While its cheeky personality was amusing, its narrow focus made it less suitable for my broader writing needs.

Perplexity AI: More Search Engine Than Writing Assistant

Perplexity AI left me somewhat underwhelmed. It seemed to function more as an enhanced search engine rather than a true writing assistant. While potentially useful for research, it didn’t quite fit into my writing workflow as I had hoped.

This landscape of AI writing tools, each with its unique features and focus areas, set the stage for my exploration into how artificial intelligence could augment my writing process as a design professional.

My Experience with ChatGPT

As a designer who values clear communication, I found ChatGPT to be an intriguing tool that quickly became an integral part of my workflow. Here’s a breakdown of my experience:

Versatility in Tasks

ChatGPT’s ability to handle a wide range of tasks impressed me. I used it for:

  • Writing: From brainstorming ideas to refining drafts, ChatGPT proved to be a capable writing assistant.
  • Search: While not a replacement for traditional search engines, it often provided quick, summarised information on various topics.
  • Coding: Although not my primary use, I experimented with getting coding help, which was surprisingly effective for basic queries.

Strengths

  • Adaptability: ChatGPT easily switched between different types of tasks and writing styles.
  • Contextual Understanding: It often grasped the nuances of my queries, providing relevant responses.
  • Idea Generation: When facing writer’s block, ChatGPT offered fresh perspectives and ideas.

Weaknesses

  • Occasional Inaccuracies: While generally reliable, I learned to fact-check important information.
  • Lack of Specialisation: For design-specific writing tasks, I sometimes found its knowledge limited.
  • Potential for Overreliance: I had to remind myself to maintain my own voice and critical thinking.

Notable Experiences

One particularly impactful experience with ChatGPT involved using it to navigate a challenging workplace communication scenario. After receiving a 360-degree review, I found myself struggling to formulate a response that was both professional and genuine, without coming across as defensive.

In this situation, I turned to ChatGPT for assistance. The AI helped me structure my thoughts and craft a response that was clear, professional, and focused on constructive engagement. While the initial output was somewhat impersonal, it provided an excellent foundation for my response.

I then personalised the message, infusing it with my own voice and specific contextual details. This process allowed me to:

  1. Address the feedback objectively
  2. Communicate my thoughts effectively
  3. Maintain a professional tone in a potentially emotional situation

The final step involved sharing this refined response with my team via our company’s communication platform. This experience highlighted how AI can be a valuable tool in navigating complex workplace interactions, especially when dealing with feedback systems or communication practices that one might find challenging.

Ultimately, this use of ChatGPT demonstrated its potential as a communication aid, helping to bridge the gap between our internal thoughts and professional expression. It underscored the importance of using AI as a starting point, while still relying on our own judgment to ensure the final communication authentically represents our voice and perspective.

Discovering Claude

After my experience with ChatGPT, I was curious to explore other AI writing assistants. This led me to Claude, an AI that quickly impressed me with its focused approach to writing tasks.

First Impressions

From the moment I began interacting with Claude, I noticed a distinct difference in its approach:

  • Clarity: Claude’s responses were consistently well-structured and easy to follow.
  • Focus: Unlike the jack-of-all-trades nature of ChatGPT, Claude seemed more specialised in writing assistance.
  • Professionalism: The tone and style of Claude’s outputs felt more formal and polished.

Strengths in Writing Tasks

As I used Claude more extensively for writing, several strengths became apparent:

  1. Coherent Long-form Content: Claude excelled at maintaining consistency and logical flow in longer pieces of writing.
  2. Adaptability to Writing Styles: It showed a remarkable ability to adjust its tone and style based on the context I provided.
  3. Detailed Explanations: When asked, Claude provided thorough explanations of complex topics, which was particularly useful for technical writing related to design concepts.

Comparison with ChatGPT for Writing

While both tools proved valuable, I noticed some key differences:

  • Specificity: Claude tended to provide more focused and detailed responses to writing prompts.
  • Tone Control: I found it easier to guide Claude towards the exact tone and style I was aiming for in my writing.
  • Consistency: In longer writing tasks, Claude seemed to maintain context and consistency more reliably.

However, ChatGPT still held an edge in versatility, especially for quick, varied tasks beyond pure writing.

Integration into My Writing Process

As a designer who often needs to articulate complex ideas, I found Claude to be an excellent tool for:

  • Drafting project proposals
  • Crafting detailed design rationales
  • Refining and polishing my blog posts

Claude’s assistance allowed me to focus more on the core ideas and creative aspects of my writing, while it helped refine the language and structure.

Overall, discovering Claude expanded my understanding of how different AI writing assistants can serve various needs in my professional writing tasks. It reinforced the idea that choosing the right tool for the specific writing task at hand can significantly enhance productivity and output quality.

Other AI Writing Tools

While ChatGPT and Claude became my primary AI writing assistants, I also briefly explored two other tools: Grok and Perplexity AI. These experiences, though limited, provided additional perspective on the diverse landscape of AI writing assistance.

Grok: Specialised for Social Media Content

Grok stood out for its unique approach:

  • Focus: Primarily designed for crafting social media content, especially tweets.
  • Personality: Notable for its cheeky and informal tone.
  • Limited Utility: While entertaining, its specialised nature made it less suitable for my broader writing needs as a designer.

My experience with Grok highlighted the existence of niche AI tools tailored for specific types of writing. While not particularly useful for my professional writing tasks, it demonstrated the potential for AI to assist in crafting engaging social media content.

Perplexity AI: More Search Engine Than Writing Assistant

My brief encounter with Perplexity AI left me with mixed impressions:

  • Functionality: It functioned more as an enhanced search engine rather than a traditional writing assistant.
  • Information Retrieval: Potentially useful for research and gathering information quickly.
  • Writing Limitations: Less effective for direct writing assistance compared to ChatGPT or Claude.

While Perplexity AI didn’t fit seamlessly into my writing workflow, it showcased the potential for AI to bridge the gap between information gathering and content creation. For writers who frequently need to incorporate research into their work, tools like this could prove valuable.

Reflection on Tool Diversity

Experimenting with these additional tools reinforced the importance of choosing the right AI assistant for specific tasks. It also highlighted the rapid evolution and diversification of AI writing tools, suggesting that the future may bring even more specialised and refined options for writers and content creators.

Choosing the Right AI Writing Assistant

After exploring various AI writing tools, I’ve gained insights into selecting the most appropriate assistant for different writing tasks. Here are some factors to consider and recommendations based on my experience as a designer who writes:

Factors to Consider

  1. Task Type:
  • General writing and ideation: ChatGPT excels here due to its versatility.
  • Focused, long-form content: Claude’s consistency makes it ideal for this.
  • Social media content: Specialised tools like Grok might be worth exploring.
  • Research-heavy writing: Consider tools like Perplexity AI for information gathering.
  1. Writing Style:
  • Formal business writing: Claude’s professional tone is well-suited for this.
  • Conversational or varied styles: ChatGPT’s adaptability shines in these scenarios.
  1. Complexity of Task:
  • Simple, quick tasks: ChatGPT’s broad capabilities work well here.
  • Complex, nuanced writing: Claude’s focus and consistency can be beneficial.
  1. Integration with Workflow:
  • Consider how easily the tool fits into your existing writing process.
  • Look for features like document editing, collaboration, or export options.
  1. Learning Curve:
  • Some tools may require more time to master than others.
  • Consider your willingness to invest time in learning a new system.

When to Use Each Tool

Based on my experience, here’s a quick guide on when to use each tool:

  • ChatGPT:
  • Brainstorming sessions
  • Varied writing tasks in a single session
  • Quick drafts or outlines
  • Claude:
  • Crafting polished, professional documents
  • Long-form content requiring consistent tone and structure
  • Detailed technical or design-related writing
  • Grok (or similar tools):
  • Creating engaging social media content
  • When a more casual or playful tone is appropriate
  • Perplexity AI (or similar tools):
  • Initial research phases of writing projects
  • Fact-checking or gathering quick information

Final Thoughts

Remember, AI writing assistants are tools to enhance your writing process, not replace your unique voice and expertise. The best choice often depends on your specific needs, writing style, and the nature of your project.

As AI technology rapidly evolves, it’s worth periodically reassessing the available tools and how they fit into your workflow. Stay open to experimenting with new AI assistants, but always maintain a critical eye and ensure the final output aligns with your professional standards and personal style.

Conclusion

My journey through the world of AI writing assistants has been both enlightening and transformative. As a designer who values effective communication, I’ve found these tools to be invaluable allies in articulating complex ideas, streamlining my writing process, and even navigating challenging professional communications.

ChatGPT’s versatility, Claude’s focused approach, and even the specialised nature of tools like Grok have all contributed to a more nuanced understanding of how AI can augment our writing capabilities. However, it’s crucial to remember that these are tools to enhance our skills, not replace our unique perspectives and creativity.

For fellow designers and professionals looking to improve their writing, I encourage you to explore these AI assistants. Experiment with different tools, find what works best for your specific needs, and don’t be afraid to integrate them into your workflow. But always maintain your critical thinking and ensure that your final output truly reflects your voice and expertise.

As AI continues to evolve, I’m excited to see how these tools will further develop and what new possibilities they might unlock for writers across all fields. The future of writing is undoubtedly being shaped by AI, but it’s up to us to harness these tools responsibly and creatively.

In the end, the goal is not just to write more efficiently, but to communicate more effectively. With AI as our assistant, we can focus more on the ideas we want to convey and the impact we want to make, pushing the boundaries of our creative and professional expression.

I’ve started vlogging

I’ve started a YouTube channel and have been making these little videos. I guess they’re vlogs. I’m learning as I go. I’ve really made a lot of mistakes, but it’s a lot of fun and challenging me. I needed a new project, something out of my comfort zone and creating content in this way seemed right. I have built enough portfolio sites, my first portfolio was done back in 2000 and I’d written my first blog post by 2004, which I’m also tired of doing. Social networks mostly bore me, so becoming a YouTuber seems like a thing to do, well I guess try.

The hardest part for me is capturing footage to tell my story. I’m not one for sticking to a script, so I’d likely not do very well thought out posts and have the level of storytelling like Casey Neistat, the cinematography of Peter McKinnon and I certainly don’t have the adventures of Fun for Louis. Still, I’m much more of a creative thinker, a design leader and I’m me, which if I look back on my time on this planet, I’ve always managed to attract an interesting bunch of people around me. So let us see where this goes.

I’ll likely not blog often, if at all, but I have no intention of pulling this site down anytime soon. However your support is most welcome and I’d appreciate it if you would subscribe, like, share and leave a comment.

My YouTube Channel

Stay cool!

2017 Site Maintenance

It’s been ages since I blogged properly, but I have every intention of sharing loads more with you all. I have started doing some site maintenance. Currently, I’m playing with adding some gradients to all the pages and posts and also putting my blog at the forefront rather than my work, as I’ve just not got much content to show there, as well as how I share my posts across social channels. I have had a super 2017 and look forward to doing a recap over the next few days and sharing everything I have been doing. So thanks for understanding, and please check back soon for some updates to the site and a recap of the past year.

Freelancing Creative Director Failure

My career has never been the norm, not by any standards. I did not get a matric, I dropped out of college, I was self-educated in design, computers, development etc and instead of joining an agency, I started freelancing from day one. But eventually I joined an agency and was quickly hired as a Creative Director and did a descent job of leading the digital charge within the Ad industry. But it was never smooth sailing and I have had to resort to freelancing again, with very little success. Now if I had the answers, I would at least have a fighting chance of understanding why after 10 years of successfully freelancing, I was suddenly unable to. So I have a whole lot of assumptions as to why, freelancing as a Creative Director is doomed to fail.

Before I start explaining, I want to apologies for the mixed use of CD and Creative Director, I simply felt it made sense to use one or the other as I typed it. It’s how I roll … deal with it.

Networking

Any good freelancer will tell you that one of the must have things you need to go it alone, is a pretty strong network. Well I have been a CD is some of the most respected agencies in the country, if not the world. I have successfully worked on many campaigns for multiple brands and formed relationships not only with my colleagues, but the clients too. I don;t mind saying I contacted everyone I felt comfortable enough to reach out to, but with very few people able to offer much more than encouragement. Which leads me to wonder, why that is.

Expensive

My first thought is that people may think I’m an asshole, it’s possible, but I can’t control what people think of me and I try not let that get me down, besides that would make a lot of people pretty two-faced, cause I generally feel pretty liked. So my next thought has to be that people assume I am too expensive. Truth is, I probably am too expensive. While I would not dare charge the rates an agency does, I do believe given my experience, I am worth a descent wage. Even if I wanted to work for less, I’d also have to be responsible and charge the type of money, I am used to earning, or what am I doing this for. I can;t exactly be a homeless CD, it just doesn’t work like that. Any CD would understand what I’m saying, firstly we don’t earn as much money as people think, we gave up getting rich a long time ago when we chose creativity as the main focus of our career, by joining the creative leadership team at an agency. It was a very conscious decision. The hope being that maybe one day we might be promoted into a higher earning position, get profit share or some day get our name on the door. The industry is pretty good at coming up with reasons not to give you the annual 5 – 8% increase agency folk might get, there is no pay for overtime and a world cup period where festive bonus cheques comes once in a lifetime, at least it did for me. But still, I believe I charge a fair rate, so much so that the number I had in my head is actually less than I earned, before I joined an agency.

Skills

You’re the big cheese, you direct creative, so your skills are probably a little rusty. Now I’ll explain this in detail next, but to be clear, you cannot freelance as a creative director, you are a creative director freelancing in digital. So it means you have to do the work, the teams you used to manage did. You have to design, develop, art direct, write and so on. And truth be told, there’s a lot of CD’s I know who were never very good at doing any of those things before taking on the CD role, they were good at brown-nosing the man who hired them over Friday drinks. But that’s not me, as I said, I successfully freelanced for a decade prior to becoming a CD, and given that I was self-taught, I made it a habit to constantly keep learning, so despite being a CD by day, I used to study at night. I admit my confidence in this area, was not as high as I would like, but that’s only due to the high standards I aspire to for myself. I was always a believer, that I need to know as much as anyone I manage, so I can make informed decisions. I am also quite a geek, and wanted to stay up to date and engage with colleagues in my industry who were doing big things, away from managing talent within agencies.

Director

The creative part of what I do, combined with the skills I have, means I’m pretty much covered. It’s the director part that I debate, even if it’s only with myself. Good CD’s lead by doing, they have the respect of their teams cause they lead from the front, but another important thing is relationships of mutual respect. If you think it’s easy to walk into an agency and actually freelance as a CD, let me tell you, it’s tough work. Creatives in agencies have mis-guided egos, so trust me, being told to lead a team is challenging. A CD is supposed to direct creatives, and depending on the agency, be responsible for not just the teams, but the direction creativity goes within the agency, but if you’re only a temporary resource, it’s not likely you will factor into the operational or drive the vision. It has been my experience that other than being a contractor, you are rarely ever asked the CD at an agency. Often I have been asked to help with campaigns etc, but I tend to fill the role of an art director or designer. Positions on a freelance level that are not a whole lot of fun for someone who has been leading creative teams for the better part of 7 years.

Conclusion

Freelancing is supposed to be about working for yourself, choosing when, how and what you work on. Waking up late, going to bed later. Sure there’s a bunch of challenges associated with that, but for a long time I did it, producing some amazing work, that spans a client base and a network across the globe. But then things were simpler, I had no education, so I earned enough money to pay the few bills I had, but it provided me the opportunity to free up my time to learn more, usually by playing. However now, as I furiously head towards my 40’s and I’m responsible for more than just myself, but now a 6-year-old kid and some poor financial decisions, I can no longer earn what I need to be a freelancer, yet alone a freelance Creative Director. I don’t know that I have explored this in it’s entirety, so perhaps there will be a follow up post and it might only be a play on words or my own understanding of responsibility, but you might be an art director, a designer or even a contracting creative director, but you will never be a freelancing Creative Director, it simply makes no sense and you are setting yourself up to fail.

10 Years Ago

It’s funny to think that 10 years ago, I was actively blogging on this domain for over a year, writing badly, covering things I discovered online and of course some random thoughts. I was going through captured pages of my site on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

I’m on the verge of significantly changing the course of my career and oddly I predict I’ll be blogging a lot more than I will be updating the work in my portfolio. It seems the learnings I have will be more meaningful than the creative opportunities I have had. I do look forward to sharing, and hope that I will improve my writing as it becomes my new outlet for creative expression. I’m not sure yet whether it means a re-design of this site, but I am thinking a focus on my posts should take preference to my portfolio, so lets make that more easily accessible to visitors.

A big thanks to everyone who has visited the site over the past 10+ years, I know I have a very little voice in the grander scheme of things, but hopefully I have had something to contribute to you all out there. Heres to another 10 years!