How are visual language and visual trends changing? Is AI a risk for creatives or can it also be an opportunity? These are fundamental questions that everyone who works in visual communication in any way has to deal with. Only those who recognize new trends in good time and react to them will remain competitive. After all, first impressions not only count, they can also be decisive when it comes to winning the favor of customers.
So let's talk to Hassan Mülhaupt, whose Munich-based design agency "Lichtung " helps its clients achieve the perfect look. The graphic designer knows from decades of experience what is important when addressing customers efficiently and how visual perception habits are changing.
The prerequisite for this is a sound knowledge of developments in the advertising industry. Hassan Mülhaupt has observed: "In general, the trend is increasingly moving towards authenticity. Because only photos that come across as natural and credible are noticed in the flood of images." Hassan also sees this as a reaction to the sometimes exaggerated image of people in the microstock industry.
So it's no longer so much glossy models with garda measurements and movie star looks that are in demand, but rather people like you and me. Because the viewer can identify with them. Hassan also sees a change that corresponds to this in the visual language: "In the past, many motifs seemed posed. Nowadays, the focus is more on small scenes. They are more like short snapshots that look as if the photographer was there by chance."
So it's these special "eye looks" that make you stand out and arouse interest. The aim is to give the viewer the feeling of being right there when the famous spark is ignited. "With such emotional pictures - rather with two or three people or at most a smaller group of authentic models - you clearly attract more attention than with a posed 08/15 photo," says Hassan Mülhaupt.
But that by no means means means that they are extinct, the permanently grinning guys with side partings and Blendax smiles who demonstratively shake hands - to name just one of the many classic motifs with which large companies, for example in the insurance industry, still vie for the trust of their customers. "The problem is that many customers don't value a really good picture," says Hassan Mülhaupt.
But saving money here and buying second-rate image material means saving at the wrong end, namely on the credibility of your own image. Because even mediocre images have a right to exist - primarily as a contrast to good ones: "In comparison, you realize that authentic-looking quality images by professionals are truly 'unique'," says Hassan Mülhaupt.
When you talk about the difference between authentic and artificial-looking images, you also have to talk about AI. Hassan is realistic enough to see the undeniable risks of AI for the photography and stock photography industry. But he also sees opportunities for image design; less in the completely AI-based creation of image content than in the supporting functions that AI can offer designers: "When adding motifs or retouching an image, AI can be a useful tool that makes your work easier."
AI tools also make it easier to respond to special customer requests that cannot be met, or only partially met, from the pool of real images alone. And Hassan Mülhaupt even sees the steadily increasing number of completely AI-based images as an opportunity for photographers and providers of quality stock photos: "As long as people continue to look so 'electronic' in AI images, good, authentic stock photos with lively models will always find their buyers," Hassan is certain.
Images created with AI often look good at first glance, but appear electronic
AI will not disappear, that is clear. However, it is to be hoped that the initial hype will eventually die down, not least because of copyright issues relating to the use of AI-based images, which will almost certainly lead to legal restrictions at some point. So, like Hassan, it will be about taking a pragmatic view of things and deciding when and where AI can be helpful - and where it cannot.
Ultimately, AI is just one facet of the rapid development of digital possibilities in the creative industry. In over 25 years of professional experience, Hassan has witnessed all these upheavals in the wake of digitalization at first hand. His conclusion: "Overall, I'm glad that technology has developed so much, because it makes our work so much easier."
