By Paula Pyzik Scott
[email protected] / 567-400-4266

The Ada Icon and Bluffton Icon are now receiving AI-generated ads and promotional materials. If you are using these tools or considering starting, here are some of the issues you'll need to watch out for.

MISSING OR INCORRECT INFORMATION
I've received AI-generated flyers with wrong dates and missing dates. My options are to not use the flyer, crop out the errors or to create a replacement design.

WEIRD AND WRONG
When I asked an AI platform to create a BlufftonIcon.com flyer, it gave me palm trees. When I asked for a flyer for Bluffton, Ohio, it still gave me palm trees plus a clock tower town hall and a water tower that are all distinctly not from Bluffton, Ohio. 

MISSING BRANDING
The AI flyer used none of the Icon's branding. No logo, no taglines. The resulting flyer was polished but contained generalizations that don't really help sell the Icon.

BUSY
AI-generated flyers are easy to spot. They are very, very busy. My brief exercise in creating and editing a flyer with AI was frustrating.

Removing and replacing elements was painstaking. I wanted to click on items to drag or delete them. Nope. That's not how it works.

SCALE
Flyers typically have three contexts: 1) A handout to be read at arm's length. These can include more details and smaller fonts. 2) Window and countertop signs. These should have larger text and images to draw readers from across the room. 3) Display on websites like Icon and social media. These designs should be scaled to allow reading on desktop and mobile devices.

CONTACT THE ICON
When we're not away on assignment, Icon office hours are 9:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m., Monday-Friday. Email [email protected] or leave a message at 567-400-4266.