Gerda Lombaard, Graphic Designer at Genesis Analytics: “Art is a product of the human condition and no machine will be able to replace it”

Speaking to Gerda Lombaard, Graphic Designer at Genesis Analytics, provides a superb insight into the challenges and opportunities facing modern designers. How do you balance the use of modern tools, from Figma to Midjourney, with more traditional methods to produce the best results in the least time?

The answer is far more nuanced than one sentence can encapsulate, so we won’t try. But here’s a guiding principle from Gerda: use the right tool for the right job. That means ChatGPT has its place, but only at the right time. And that sometimes, believe it or not, PowerPoint remains the best option!

We’ll leave you to read the rest of the article to see exactly what we – or Gerda – means.

A final word about Gerda and Genesis. Gerda describes herself as “a Graphic Designer and Graphic Artist with over 15 years of experience in the world of graphic design. My expertise spans various facets of design, including experiential design, advertising, training, lecturing as well as a wide array of print and digital applications.”

Genesis Analytics, an impact consultancy based in South Africa, describes its job as “to help societies, governments and businesses across the Young World succeed at three fundamental historic transitions”, namely reconfiguring economies, a human transition and a just climate transition. Read its “Our purpose” page for more.

Huge thanks to Gerda for her time. We hope you enjoy reading her insights from the cutting edge of design.

When thinking of your creative process, at what point does technology come in? What role does it play in different stages, from concept to final design?

For me, the use of technology comes in after the conceptual and often the planning phase, which I prefer to do with pen to paper and then take across to my Adobe design programs.

Sometimes I will use ChatGPT to formulate design concepts into words or even just copy and paste my thought process into ChatGPT and ask it to make it better. The use of AI at the design stage is limited to the final stage when images need to be generated (Midjourney) or if images need to be enhanced (Freepik Upscaler or Nightmare.ai).

I very often use the generative fill function in Photoshop although this often takes trial and error as the prompt often comes out in completely different ways I envisioned. As most of the work I do for Genesis needs to use real-life people in real-life scenarios I still make a lot of use of stock photography.

In conclusion, I am not able to do any of my projects without the use of technology. Graphic design is technology-based, especially when going to UI and UX where a lot more technology on a digital level comes into play with collaboration programs like InVision.

How has technology changed the way you collaborate at work? And in your view, has it improved or worsened navigating creative differences with clients or team members?

Reneé and I at Genesis do a lot of print-related work like reports and PowerPoint design layouts. It makes feedback quicker but often if used incorrectly it makes changes made to online documents (like Google Sheets or Google Docs) difficult to track.

I find Google Slides difficult to navigate so will almost always download a PowerPoint version and just refer back to the shared file to create whatever I need to create.

We often still ask clients to make notes on a PDF of the design especially when adding small things like commas and typos. In my opinion, it is also sometimes dangerous to be able to give clients the ability to make changes after they have already signed off a document because of the ease of making changes which can significantly influence design time and often the layout too. It’s good and bad.

I do feel that when it comes to digital designs like wireframes and website layouts it is very helpful to get feedback directly on the file (if you for instance collaborate in Figma). It’s also good not to have a billion version-controlled documents that need to live somewhere while the project is running.

Related reading: Halina Santiago, Chief Creative Officer & Co-Founder of Prompt: “Please, can we just stop being software snobs?”

Generative AI art has taken the graphic design space by storm – what are your views on the use of tools like Stable Diffusion, Leonardo, Midjourney and others?

I enjoy them! I find it exhilarating how something can just be generated. We used to have this joke that when clients give feedback on logos that change the entire design and they want it in an hour there is a button called “Generate logo” in Photoshop. Now they actually have the tools to do that. It’s not necessarily good design but it’s also surprising how many clients are happy with mediocre design.

I do feel like I need to start investing time in learning and understanding the prompts as I am not using them to their full capability at the moment.

With the rise of AI and automation in design, how do you see the role of a graphic designer evolving in the next few years?

There is a lot of debate among designers and even artists if AI will be able to completely take over the realm of design and art. I think it makes design more accessible to the everyday person who just needs a quick logo and is not willing to pay a designer to do it. This is not to say that the logo has the quality and communication that a designer has to offer (at this stage) and often the designs are not great and are generated through AI.

I think there will always be space for Graphic Designers but it will evolve a lot into knowing which the correct prompts are to use and selecting which of the designs are good. Corporations will probably still use designers because they run big campaigns, but small companies will most likely move over to AI as I am sure it will be much more affordable. You already find it where a lot of people use Canva to bring their own creative visions to life.

AI will never be able to replace art though. Art is a product of the human condition and no machine will be able to replace it in my humble opinion.

Related reading: What is Sora? Even the AI experts aren’t sure

What tools or software do you find indispensable in your daily work, and why?

In the work I do I mostly use Adobe InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop. InDesign is perfect for multiple-page layouts, Illustrator for illustrations and Photoshop for photo editing and the generative fill function. I know InDesign and Illustrator have AI functions, but I have not tried to use them yet. I am planning to because I know if I don’t I will be left behind as technology is only going to develop more and develop faster.

Whenever I needed to design anything web-based I use Figma. I hate to admit this but I use PowerPoint a lot. There is a big need for presentations to be elevated in my line of work and consultants and bankers and corporates don’t have time to figure out how to do it. I know beautiful.ai sells itself as a presentation designer and I am sure for the novice it will be very helpful but as a professional, I found it hard to navigate and it slowed me down. Collaboration also seemed difficult as it was not a program that anyone used.

Canva features prominently here but I have never tried using Canva as my design tool is more powerful than what Canva has to offer. I do feel that this is a skill I will need to learn as more and more companies are moving over to Canva for in-house design.

Over the course of your career, what is one technological shift you’ve witnessed in graphic design that really stuck with you? 

AI has been the biggest significant change that I can think of – to the point where I feel it threatens graphic design professionals to an extent. Lots of clients are generating their own logos and designs and don’t have the professional eye to know whether it’s good or not. I think Graphic Designers should embrace AI and focus on learning prompts so that when everything can be AI-generated they will have the capability to generate better logos/layouts/videos etc than what the clients are able to achieve. Kind of like staying one foot ahead.

Related reading: Navigating the virtual shift

What advice would you give to aspiring graphic designers looking to break into the industry today?

Learn how to incorporate AI now in the design process. I believe that it will never be able to take over the human element of design but unfortunately, most designs do not need the human touch (like laying out a recipe book for Maggie Mash). It’s definitely going to reach a point where it’s completely collaborative.

How do you stay updated on the latest design technologies and software advancements, and how do you decide when to integrate new tools into your workflow?

I am surrounded by a community of Graphic Designers who share all the info and tech that they come into touch with. Also, social media plays a big role in seeing what is out there and then google searching how to use it. I normally experiment with it before I decide to invest and still prefer searching out the freebie options. I have still not embraced Canva, although I feel I will need to as so many companies are investing in it and if collaboration is needed I will have to work on those Canva files.