We don’t like Generative AI, I think that’s pretty clear. Not only is it theft, but more to the point – it’s ugly and imho will tarnish your brand. Nothing excites me more these days than scrolling through IG and unfollowing businesses who post AI slop.
Now, maybe you don’t enjoy that as much as I do, but wouldn’t the world be a much more beautiful place if everything didn’t look exactly the same and have that same swooshing paint font all over everything with weird textures on EVERY. SINGLE. THING.?!
I digress… so it’s clear we don’t like gen AI, we thought that instead of talking trash we could show you some alternative (and free! don’t forget FREE!) options you have to create graphics for social accounts and whatnot?
Now, after this year’s Adobe Max, I’ve got some qualms with Adobe. That being said, they’ve got two excellent and (mostly) free options for creating graphics. Adobe Express & Adobe Fresco.
Adobe Express
Adobe Express is a free tool that offers FREE (yes, free!) templates for social media, posters, really anything you could need. All you need is an email address to create your account. Now there are, of course, some paid options in there, but you can very easily create graphics for free with a huge variety of fonts, colors, styles, etc. You can even upload your own brand assets and have it apply those assets to everything you create. PRETTY NEAT HUH.
Adobe Fresco
Now Adobe Fresco is a little more complicated, think of it as a drawing pad instead of a templated platform. You can create whatever you can think of, as long as you’re comfortable using your finger (or an Apple Pencil) to draw it out. Adobe Fresco also has super cool and easy to use ways to make animations and create and format text. You name it, you can probably do it in Fresco.
So Canva has recently started adding AI to most everything in the platform, that being said – there are still lots of options for free and AI free templates. Canva and Adobe Express are very similar platforms, making it easy to pick and choose templates that you can replace the content on to be your own branded materials.
Similar to Adobe Fresco, Procreate is an app where you can draw, type, create shapes, etc. This one takes a bit more of a learning curve but it’s fun to play, isn’t it? The only caveat here is that the app is $10. But once you purchase it, you’ve got it for life and can create to your hearts content.
We’re big fans of analog here at recreative, so we love this last one, PEN + PAPER. Remember being a kid and whipping out that 24 pack of colored pencils, sitting at the dining room table, and just doodling for hours? You can still do that! Just because you’re an adult does not mean you have to stick to computer-y ways of designing. Creating posters by cutting things out, gluing them down, drawing over them, and above all, having fun!
It feels like people have forgotten that the simplest thing to do is to just share photographs on Instagram (and wherever) and simply put a caption below. I know I’d rather see a pic of a delicious meal and have to read the comments than take anther gander at some AI slop.
That’s it – thanks for coming to our TED talk. Because AI is being shoved in our faces everywhere we go, I’m certain this list will change RAPIDLY. But for now, please enjoy.
