Why I hate that I love AI generated briefing packs as a childrenswear designer.

Love is a strong word, and in reality it's more ‘why I wish they weren’t a thing but also how I find AI generated briefing packs more useful than I'd like to admit’, but that doesn't make for such a catchy blog post title.

Increasingly, kidswear brand founders are coming to me with design briefs created using AI.

Personally I prefer to jump on a call with a new client and explore their ideas with maybe a few image tears or a Pinterest board, leaving me as the image generator - in a much more human way than that sounds! I’m well versed at reading between the lines of a design brief (however scrappy and unpolished it may be) and digging in with specific questions to understand the range direction, market positioning and product specifics.

Understanding what’s inside a founder’s brain and how they want their kid’s product to look and feel is a skill I’ve honed as a baby and childrenswear designer, part market research, part telepathy, ensuring my visuals match a client’s ideas seamlessly.

A lot of that interpretation is built on human connection and understanding as well as bringing in problem solving experienced in previous product development.

But, I do understand how AI platforms have opened a new avenue for kidswear start-ups, particularly time poor new parents who’ve discovered a pain point in childrenswear they want to solve for others.

So I’ll allow it.*

*with a few caveats.

Explore and iterate

Iterating has been my bread and butter my entire career, creating versions of best-sellers ‘oh a same-same-different’ we would quip. When you have sales reads to fall back on or a well grounded market research proposal an experienced kidswear designer can knock up a show stopper quick smart.

Plus we’ve likely already encountered and overcome many of the pitfalls of product design AI can’t even see.

BUT

If your brand is just starting out, you don’t have sales reads, maybe haven’t nailed down your market positioning or core colours*. I get it , this is your baby - you want to make sure it’s strong enough to stand on its own before you hand it over.

*Side note looking for advice on building your brand’s core colour palette head over to my post Pantones how do you choose yours? Building and on brand colour palette for your kidswear range.

Sometimes there are questions holding childrenswear founders back without a visual to lean on.

So, when a platform helps a non-designer create artwork downloading their idea in a sketch they can share, that builds confidence to move forward.

Fantastic, as long as an experienced human with kidswear knowledge then helps head off any costly errors before production is actioned.

More than a Pinterest board

While I love a Pinterest board and  call with a new client to chat through a product or range’s purpose, I feel how daunting it can be explaining the brilliant product they’ve come up with sans the right supporting imagery.

Especially when some of the industry lingo can leave you scrabbling.

MOQ. SKU. ROI. *

What are these and do you need to understand them all before creating your product?

Not really no - google is your bestie when it comes to acronyms. You can create a line and find support to produce it without getting completely swamped with this retail language.

*MOQ - Minimum Order Quantity, the lowest order a factory or supplier will accept. SKU - Stock Keeping Unit, a specific code you apply to a line so you can track it through any product development systems. ROI - Return On Investment, what is your profit expected to be.

It’s never a great feeling going into a meeting feeling un-prepared.

So, when used sparingly, I think AI can offer a little crutch.

AI pitfalls

Downloading what’s in your brain and distilling a product image from it you can share with others is addictive.

It’s why I do what I do.

But, when AI generation gets involved there are some areas we need to be cautious with.

For one, AI loves to waffle on these briefing packs adding lots of bumpf and not much substance.

If you don’t understand what the software has generated for you and this product is your baby, how will the designer you are briefing? I tend to skim read these packs finding a human to human conversation conveys far more of the necessary product information than Claude* - a scribbled pencil and paper list from a genuine chat is infinitely more useful on the whole.

*Yes, yes other platforms do exist I’m not vilifying, or promoting for that matter, this one but the name makes it feel more human.

We have some unpicking to do on the visuals too, IP (Intellectual Property) for one. Yes, the concept the program has built is based on your ideas and (as far as you are aware) those are wholly unique to you, but have you doubled down on the market research post visualisation?

Generative AI programmes feed on the wider internet, whereas the problem your product is solving is likely based on your favoured brands and locations. Meaning the images created could, unintentionally, step on another brands toes and cause issues down the line if you don’t widen your research net before heading to production.

Alongside this Chat, Claude et al. not being real humans wearing and dressing small humans in clothes daily means they can’t spot a seam that won’t allow arms to be raised or would limit garment comfort.

A very well drawn scribble on a napkin, but without valuable childrenswear specific insight, still just a scribble.

Keeping the product’s soul

Watching the original Peter Pan with my son recently and realising it was made in 1953 made me pause and give new admiration for the film, yes there are some very un PC elements, hangovers of its time, but visually it's still a beautiful film with lots of heart.

It keeps you engaged both visually and with the character development and story arcs, something that’s less apparent in Disney’s later offerings.

Speed of production increased, computer aided design meant film production went from 1 every 2 or 3 years to 1 or even 2 a year.

With that level of turn-around something had to give, and sadly they lost some of the heart and unique qualities of the classics.

The same can be seen across the kidswear industry. If the focus moves off the core customer and brand alignment and onto speed of iteration, products start to look samey and customers move on.

Ensuring your product keeps its ‘you-ness’ and the elements that make it unique to your brand, the parts your customers fall in love with means they see your products in store or in the wild and just know it’s yours.

Free marketing.

So, use AI to generate your briefing packs if it brings you the confidence to move forward and connect with the design and sourcing support you need, but always have the human buying your products front of mind.

Don’t let the machines take the soul out of your product.

AI may be selling you on the ‘time saving’ it brings with its generative support but if you’re not bringing in genuine market specific knowledge and problem solving from a friendly human right at the start, it will likely cost you more that just time down the line.

Like I said, I’m not really ‘in love’ but I know we can find a way to co-exist.