About — modernsignals.ai

Artefacts Communications ~~Commerce~~ About

After decades of crafting visual work through traditional design and advertising channels – initially in print and later digital – I've witnessed technology constantly reshape the creative landscape. In fact, one of my early design roles happened during the dot-com boom (and subsequent bust) of the late 90’s/early 00’s*.

AI is now changing everything. Again.

Not just another trend, AI is a fundamental shift in how we conceive, create and communicate.

As a visual creative, this new technology gives unfettered creativity with seemingly limitless possibilities. The amount of generative AI ‘art’ being created and shared online is staggering with creators openly sharing SRefs to copy and recreate.

But even following just a few Midjourney super users on X for less than a year, it’s easy to become tired of everything starting to look the same. As good as the initial visual hit may be.

When I first starting using generative AI to create visuals I was struck by how much it reminded me of my time at art college, and that excitement of doing something new creatively. I studied fine art and graphic design, but the thing this new technology has reminded me most of is photography.

At art school I experimented with photographic techniques like rayographs and photograms – where objects are placed on the paper itself and negatives were deliberately damaged or altered which would give unexpected results once developed. I loved not knowing exactly what I was going to get and it’s this part of the generative AI process which I am enjoying now – all those years later.

I don’t use Midjourney (although I have used it and will again). I’m creating images using Adobe’s Firefly application. It’s not perfect and that’s what I’m enjoying – at least for now. It allows me to explore and play in a way which I did all those years ago at Camberwell Art College. I’m never quite sure what I’m going to get back once I hit the ‘Generate’ button. It’s like I’m developing prints in the darkroom all over again.

For what I’m doing here I don’t want my images to look perfect, overly smoothed or ‘hyper-real’ – in fact, I’m going in the other direction. I’m embracing the mistakes, the imperfections and the odd finger or two extra here and there.

I’m trying to create a digital analog feel to what I produce. From the prompts I input through to the reference material I feed it I and communicate. Modern Signals is my exploration of this emerging terrain, a documentation of the complex dialogue between human intuition and machine intelligence.

It's part personal journal, part professional investigation, tracking how our understanding of visual communication is being reimagined in real time. I think.

*Agency.com (Formerly Online Magic) Senior Digital Art Director 1997—2004