Why Product Sketching Still Wins in the Age of AI
"Why pay a designer for three sketch boards when this AI can whip up hundreds in a flash?"
At first glance our frail hands seem to put us at a disadvantage next to a tireless machine. With artificial intelligence making waves in every type of image from amazon product pages and banner ads to pack art, it's natural to wonder if the good old-fashioned sketch has become a little old-fashioned as well.
Imagine generating countless design iterations, mood boards, or even complete product concepts at lightning speed. We don't yet know all the limits of this tech, so it comes with great expectations of ROI . Now imagine a designer promised you a presentation deck with 3-5 concepts for a fixed price. Even a seasoned human designer with a great portfolio just doesn't seem that exciting in comparison to unlimited creative imagery.
But are all images created equal in terms of business impact?
It's easy to forget in an information age where images are cheap and abundant that we don’t sketch because we want our sketches to look cool. We sketch to capture an idea. It's ideas that are the true drivers of innovation. Flashy images certainly draw the eye – they're great for marketing and initial engagement to some degree. But without genuine product innovation behind them, those dazzling visuals won't capture customer loyalty or solve real-world problems. They're just… pretty pictures that look increasingly like everyone else's pretty pictures.
This is where the enduring power of the human sketch shines through. When a designer puts pen to paper, they aren't just drawing a flat image for digital viewing. They're thinking, problem-solving, and considering real-world context and constraints. Can it be manufactured? Is it user-friendly? Does it fit within the budget? These are the crucial questions that turn an image with a cool vibe into a tangible, viable product.
And AI, for all its apparent capability, is still a tool limited by the input of its users. To get truly valuable visuals from AI, you need a clear vision, specific parameters, and a deep understanding of what you're trying to achieve. No matter how sophisticated an AI system we build, prompting "new product please" is never going to produce a saleable thing that consumers want.
But here's where things get interesting: these two approaches are not mutually exclusive.
Instead of choosing between designer and AI, we can give the AI to designers. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the human-made sketch with all its associated ideas and constraints becomes the most powerful kind of input we can feed into an AI system. AI tools can allow for rapid visualization of colors, materials, and finishes, or rendering moods, shoot locations, or softer or harder edged variations on the images already produced. And with a trained hand driving them, these developments can stay on-track, ensuring ideas stay anchored to reality and never veer off into pure fantasy.
So, while AI offers an incredible toolkit for visual exploration and iteration, it complements, rather than replaces, the spark of human creativity and problem-solving. The humble sketch, with its immediate connection between brain and paper, remains the birthplace of truly innovative ideas – ideas that can actually translate into real products and happy customers.
In the age of AI, the sketch isn't just surviving; it's thriving as the ultimate testament to human ingenuity.
Looking for a partner to do sketch exploration with? Send us an email LetsTalk@mertzdesignstudio.com
Nathan Duderstadt
Senior Industrial Designer
