HUMAN-AI CO-CREATION AS A NEW AESTHETIC PHENOMENON IN CONTEMPORARY GRAPHIC DESIGN

Abstract

      The development of artificial intelligence has become one of the most influential technological and cultural processes affecting contemporary visual culture. Generative artificial intelligence systems have moved beyond the automation of technical operations and entered areas traditionally associated with human creativity, including illustration, photography, advertising, visual communication, digital art, and graphic design.

Contemporary generative systems allow designers to produce visual interpretations from textual descriptions, transform existing images, explore alternative styles, combine heterogeneous visual references, and rapidly generate multiple variations of a single concept. Consequently, the creative process is increasingly characterised by continuous interaction between human intention and algorithmic generation.

This development raises an important question for contemporary art and design theory: should artificial intelligence be understood merely as another technological instrument in the historical development of graphic design, or does human interaction with generative systems constitute a qualitatively new form of creative practice?

The question is particularly relevant because graphic design has always developed in close connection with technological transformation. Printing technologies, photography, photomontage, offset printing, desktop publishing, digital imaging, and professional graphic software each changed the possibilities of visual communication. Nevertheless, generative artificial intelligence introduces a different type of transformation. Instead of merely extending the designer's technical capacity to manipulate visual elements, generative systems can participate in the production of visual alternatives themselves.