It might be smart, but AI won’t give you goosebumps
From hand-crafted design to the desktop publishing revolution, Hulsbosch creative director, Mikey Hart, reflects on his journey of creative transformation and writes while AI may be the latest challenge to the industry, human creativity has always thrived at the edge of change.
Everyone is busy debating the ‘what ifs’ of AI, where it’s heading, and whether the revolution’s already arrived. The conversation either paints AI as a creative miracle, or the start of the apocalypse, with not much nuance in between. But this isn’t our first reckoning with change. Creativity has always lived on the edge of disruption, and through every new wave, we do what we have always done: adapt, reimagine, and keep making work that moves people.
As a lover of art and design at school, I knew exactly what career path I wanted to pursue. Aged 16, I enrolled in a graphic design course just outside London. It was one caught at the edge of a huge shift, balancing traditional skills with emerging technology with the desktop publishing revolution smack bang in the middle of it.
In my first year, everything was done by hand. Lettering, typesetting, layouts, all drawn out, physically pieced together. It felt like craft because it was craft. And more importantly, we were being taught how to think, not just how to make things. We learnt to be intentional and consider how an idea could connect emotionally with an audience.
It wasn’t until the second year that we were let loose on Apple Mac G3s, those jellybean-coloured machines that looked like spaceships compared to the dull grey boxes that came before. I can still remember how radical it felt. But that shift didn’t kill creativity, it simply moved the goalposts. Suddenly, what once took a team of specialists could be done by one person at a screen.
Fast forward a few years and I found myself at Saatchi & Saatchi in London, doing my first internship. It was 1999 and emails were just becoming a thing. We still sent mock-ups and creative proofs by courier. Design work didn’t touch a screen until the thinking was ironclad. Every detail mattered. Every layout, logo, and line had been argued over. It taught me that creativity is rarely just about what you make, it’s about the layers of intention, collaboration and meaning behind it.
Now, here we are again. This time it’s not desktop publishing or the rise of digital. It’s AI, the disruptor of our time. We’re witnessing the largest transformation of skills and workforce since the Industrial Revolution. The tools are coming thick and fast – AI-powered this, machine-learned that – but so much of it feels either half-baked, overwhelming, or just plain gimmicky. It doesn’t quite fit yet, or maybe we haven’t figured out exactly how it should fit.
Mikey Hart
The anxiety is palpable, I understand that. Will AI replace our roles? Will clients use Canva to design everything themselves? Where will agencies fit? I think back to the early 2000s and the rise of digital, the birth of interactive, the slow death of print, and the same questions were being asked. Many feared obsolescence, but others adapted. A generation of hybrid creatives emerged, part motion, part UX and part visual strategy.
Creatives have never had such empowering tech at their fingertips, we have the power to create so much with so little, with no limits to our imagination and AI can absolutely streamline certain tasks, help draft, help brainstorm. It can maybe even suggest a few concepts, but it still can’t feel. It can’t dig into what makes a brand truly resonate with real people and it doesn’t get goosebumps from a big idea.
That’s where we come in. I’ve always believed that the core of brand design is connection. Emotional, intuitive, real connection. You can’t fake that, or shortcut it. The challenge now is finding ways to integrate AI into the process without letting it dull the edge. It should support creative ambition, not flatten it.
Some creatives are diving in, blending AI into their workflows, while others are holding back, afraid it’ll replace the magic. I think it’s simpler than that. It’s about staying curious and holding tight to what makes us human, intuition, empathy, and the thrill of the unknown.
The truth is, we’ll adapt, because that’s what we do. We’re not built to fade and are wired to find meaning. And the best creatives I know don’t just keep up, they shape what’s next.
As Blur and Gorillaz singer/songwriter Damon Albarn once said: “Creativity is this strange collaboration between the world, your experiences, and some unseen spark – you can’t really control it, just follow where it leads.” Just as I had to balance traditional skills with emerging technology, today’s creatives and marketers for that matter, must learn to pair human inspiration with the efficiency AI brings. So let’s follow it, but do so on our terms.
We still need those goosebump and ‘aha’ moments that only human creativity can deliver.
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