Why We Refuse to Use AI in Our Design and Production Processes
We don't use AI in any of our design or production processes
I believe our letters are a millennia-old baton passed through countless human hands, shaped by physical friction and cultural evolution. Generative AI tools like Midjourney and ChatGPT cannot replicate this because they lack the human experience of discomfort and invention. By relying on them, we risk vitrifying our visual culture into a static remix of past data, leaving many languages and traditions behind. That is why our foundry strictly avoids AI to ensure typography remains a living, human craft.
AI might be a scenic path with no hills or hindrances, but it does not lead to the goal we're chasing. It leads to a fucking desert.
- mass-driver
Hey, I’m the author of this article. Just thought I’d share some context, since HN is a little outside the intended audience:
- We’re a tiny design studio specialising in fonts, so our website was (maybe predictably) not set up to handle a big traffic spike. It should be stable now.
- This article was written in response to some font industry discussions on the same topic. It’s a collection of thoughts rather than a manifesto, and there’s nuance which it doesn’t go into. I’m not a die-hard AI hater, just opposed to careless use of it within this narrow field.
Appreciate the more reasonable comments!
- tony_cannistra
I'm the op on this one (not the author). Gotta say, I had higher hopes for the community here.
Isn't it worthwhile to examine our patterns of thinking and work? Shouldn't alternative perspectives such as these spark conversation, rather than sly jibes?
HN grew from curiosity and good-faith. Y'all are not showing up.
- glouwbug
When you write without AI you cultivate your team’s understanding which cultivates communication and teamwork and immediate understanding during downtime and emergencies. Build your team, not the product
- wizzwizz4
<a>Info<span class="hide_on_mobile">rmation</span></a>
Clever. Not sure what the <a> is for, though.
- gumby
Pretty sure the alif/alif had upward prongs because it was the head of the ox (so the triangle is the snout or head with two prongs above. Phoenician alif has the upward prongs. It may have come from Egyptian which would have been a definite ox head.
The Greek/Latin A is the symbol inverted — those are not legs.
- TacticalCoder
Where are the voices of reason?
My wife got an email from a new hire (now even a new hire yet: she's still on a trial basis), a 23 years old, where she explains that she doesn't want to use AI. That she doesn't like what AI does. On a funny sidenote: the email is obviously 99% llmish, which is hilarious.
That's one extremity: crazy people who refuse to learn a new tool.
Then on the other extremity you have the even much crazier ones: those who believe they've got an intelligent machine that is going to solve all their work problems during the day and then, at night, that is going to enlighten them by revealing them who god really is.
Where the heck are the reasonable people who use AI for what it is: a tool that can be extremely helpful at times and extremely sucky at other times but that is still, on average, a time saver?
- metalman
No AI needed for the design and build of custom metal either, and with a similar long human effort that I am privilaged to be aware and part of that I am quite certain cant be handled useing any computational averaging.
Funnily enough, I have had and am right now involved in a project that the customer tried to have AI design, but that
the most basic calculations were wrong.
It's worse, as even humans working with highly developed design and estimating software, cant deliver accurate shop plans for real world projects that involve irregular surfaces or curves, and changing slopes that must be measured on site.
AI will help you enjoy your cubes and parallograms, and cover them with realistic textures.
- notenlish
The site was back up but now it's down again for some reason.