Designing with AI: Garbage or Gold
- John Gibson
- Oct 21
- 4 min read
I hear this too often when it comes to AI and the design process... "I could do that" ... "That's AI garbage" ... "YOU didn't make that, AI made that" ... "AI design is lazy"
1. The Misconception
There’s a common misconception that AI creates bad work—that anything made with it is somehow inauthentic or lacking substance. But that view misses the essence of what AI truly is. AI isn’t a complete process; it’s a tool.
Yes, some people use it passively—type a prompt, take the first output, and call it finished. But that reflects the user’s process, not the tool’s potential.
Take the example above - the physics and spinning does not translate to what would happen in reality. If you were expecting that - this maybe a frustrating outcome. However, these artifacts and what some may consider to be AI garbage may actually spark an idea about a new direction forward for the design. So - sometimes what is initially seen as garbage becomes gold through a transformative process. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder - one mans trash is another mans treasure. An AI mistake like that could have led to MSCHF's BWD (Backward) Shoe.
There have been countless times when AI will generate initially unwanted and unexpected artifacts - but these artifacts introduce a new and more creative path forward.
2. The Depth of AI Tools
When you actually explore the depth of what AI systems can do—and how various tools and models can be connected—you start to see that it’s far more than a shortcut. It’s an expansive creative ecosystem capable of accelerating iteration, amplifying ideas, and revealing unexpected directions you might never have reached on your own.
3. It’s No Different Than Any Other Tool
This isn’t the first time a new tool has redefined what’s possible.
When the camera was invented, it instantly captured what painters had spent lifetimes mastering. Yet painting didn’t disappear—it evolved. Artists began using photography as a reference, as a companion to their craft.
AI is the same way. It doesn’t diminish creativity—it expands it. It’s simply another instrument in the creative toolkit, one that can enhance your process if you know how to wield it.
When photography first appeared, many believed it would end painting. After all, why spend weeks creating a portrait when a camera could capture perfect realism in seconds?
But instead of killing painting, the camera expanded its possibilities. Once photography took over the role of documentation, painters were no longer bound to reproduce reality — they could interpret it.
This shift sparked some of the most important artistic movements in history:
Impressionism: Artists like Monet and Degas began exploring the feeling of light and color rather than exact form.
Post-Impressionism: Van Gogh and Cézanne pushed color and texture to express emotion and energy.
Cubism: Picasso and Braque fragmented reality into multiple viewpoints, exploring how the mind perceives rather than how the eye sees.
Surrealism: Dalí and Magritte used the camera’s precision as contrast, blending realism with dream logic.
The camera didn’t replace painting. It expanded painting from simple replication into expression, proving that new tools don’t erase creativity; they evolve it.
4. The Real Variable: The Human Using It
The quality of the outcome always reflects the person behind the process.
AI can be used to generate uninspired work or to explore new frontiers of design thinking. The difference lies in intention, understanding, and craftsmanship.
If your output feels shallow or disconnected, it’s not the fault of the software - it’s a reflection of how the tool was applied. AI doesn’t inherently produce great or poor work; it mirrors the discipline and creativity of its user.
5. The Magician, Not the Wand
A magician doesn’t blame the wand when the spell fails, just as an archer doesn’t blame the bow for missing the mark. The effectiveness of the tool depends entirely on the mastery of the person using it.
AI doesn’t replace the designer, the artist, or the thinker. It amplifies them.
It reveals the strengths, weaknesses, and vision of whoever holds it.
In that sense, AI is not the creator - it’s an accelerator.
Exploring Circular Design Workflows with AI
I’ve attached a few snapshots of my AI-based design workflows — primarily using tools like FLORA and Vizcom.
In these systems, each block represents an image: it could be a generated output, a reference, or something I sketched myself. What makes these tools powerful is how every block can connect to others — allowing for refinement through variation in form, color, or style.
Each new variation can then be fed back into the process, creating an infinitely circular design cycle. You can pick up exactly where you left off.
You can start with a sketch, a 3D model, or a photo — and you can end with any of them as well.
What’s produced can always feed back into the loop, to be sketched over, reimagined, or evolved.
It becomes a living, adaptive workflow — like the design version of the old question:
“What came first — the chicken or the egg?”
Layered Exploration
While the images shown here are displayed in a workbench-style grid, each block often contains multiple layers underneath — sometimes two, sometimes a hundred — all representing iterations, refinements, and side explorations.
Designing this way can be overwhelming at first. AI tools enable you to see and process vast amounts of visual information simultaneously, which can be difficult if you struggle to focus or compartmentalize ideas.
But for those who can hold multiple threads in their mind at once and act on it — this becomes transformative.
You start seeing patterns, connections, and opportunities at incredible speed that leaves traditional workflows and tool sets in the dust.
The more you can perceive and adsorb, the more you can synthesize and pull together in order to drive faster innovation.
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