What a weird time to be a designer 🤔

Hello Fun Gs,

I wanted to share a few thoughts about how I feel about the creative industry right now. Doesn’t it all feel confusing?

I’m slightly stuck in a space where I don’t know what I’m going to be doing or what tools I should focus on. If anything, everything on social media tells me I need to learn it ALL (if you have been on my twitch streams recently, you know I have been trying to learn Blender).

But here’s the thing about learning, it’s hard, it sucks and I am a beginner again. Whether it’s learning Blender or whether it’s learning how to use AI creatively. The results are ok for a long while before it becomes good and maybe I’ve forgotten how it feels to learn from scratch. I mean…I’ve been a 3D artist for 8 years now and it feels tiring to constantly stay updated with the new features, new tools, new ways of working and so on.

Let me just pause here and just shout out that I have new Youtube video out showcasing how I made Kim Possible inspired out. If you want to see the whole digital fashion process then go check it out.

And you know, it’s been an interesting time for me as a digital fashion artist because seeing the rise and fall of the metaverse (even Meta killed their own metaverse space ‘Meta Horizons’ recently) has been an odd feeling.

I was in the space when digital fashion was hot and NFTs were booming and everyone was going to head to the metaverse to play and connect with people online. But ever since people returned from lockdown and the AI boom accelerated especially from 2023 onwards, a lot of optimism in the digital fashion space decreased and you could even say the creative space has become so divided with AI.

Now I know this post sounds so pessimistic but I really wanted to share my honest thoughts with you because even though many people have left the digital fashion space in pursuit of AI, physical fashion or just left the industry completely - I chose to stay.

Maybe because I’m delusional but also because I can still see the immense potential digital fashion has towards the fashion industry and also how it can be merged with technology and gaming.

So no, digital fashion isn’t taking over physical fashion. And yes, AI can spit out beautiful photography and 3D renders within seconds. But one thing is that AI doesn’t have in 3D is the fundamentals or flexibility to change the 3D asset once it’s been generated.

I also recently went to San Francisco for an AI Summit with Adobe and chatted with a handful of creatives of how AI should be used within our workflow. My workflow is 2D > 3D and so I was curious to see how a big company like Adobe was choosing to support creatives from all disciplines. Some people there did not like AI and some were enthusiastic, so it was great to hear from everyone’s perspective.

Things we could all agree on in general was that people want more transparency from companies who are promoting AI on energy consumption, IP protection and producing less AI slop. A lot of creatives wanted AI to be shown in real world projects, projects that actually make a difference to the client or the artist in a way that still protects creative integrity. And to be real with you, some creatives felt put off with experimenting with AI since they know they will be subjected to criticism online and even I had a fair share of that.

Now I’m not going to tell you how to feel about AI. This post is not for that. But what I will say is that I’m open to using AI to help me concept or to help speed up parts of my workflow. I still find enjoyment in creating with 3D and would like to keep it that way and use AI minimally. Actually, I have been been playing around a lot with Flora AI but more to come on that later because I do think it’s a helpful tool for creatives and would love to share some thoughts with you.

But overall, it’s been hard for a lot of freelancers in the creative industry because budgets has been reduced, most projects are to promote AI tools and digital fashion has been pushed to the side (I call this the shiny object syndrome).

So for a lot of us, it’s about uncertainty in the space and survival. However, I’m always a learner and I’m always sharing what I learn online and I continue to do that as the industry constantly evolves.

I hope this post gives you some reality of what it’s like as a creative freelancer. I mean…freelancing has always came with uncertainty but the industry is definitely feeling a bit rocky right now and adds more uncertainty to it.

Let me know how you feel about the industry right now? All I can say is, stay learning, keep adapting and continue improving your craft.

I will be speaking at OFFF Festival on the 15th April at 5PM. This is my second time speaking but this time…I will be speaking on mainstage (cue the panic screaming). I can’t wait to talk about my creative journey as a digital fashion artist and sprinkle some honesty - actually a lot of what is written in this post is probably going to be re-said in my talk. If you are in Barcelona, feel free to reach out and say hi!

Lastly, if you want to join a digital fashion focused community and chat to other Fun Gs then join my discord server by clicking the image above.

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