Digi Society
For me digitalization has had an huge impact.
As a designer and illustrator my main working tools are digital. Over the past years I have mainly illustrated with my iPad, with a software called Procreate. Also Adobe’s digital tools like Photoshop and Illustrator are nowadays designer’s everyday life. To be able to save files in cloud services like iCloud, has made it so much easier to organize projects and keep everything accessible across different devices. It also helps a lot when sharing files with others.
In recent years I have expanded my knowledge to UI/UX design, that almost entirely relies on digital services. There is an increasing need for accessible (and also inclusive) digital services and products, and the user interface (UI) plays a significant role in that. Even though I am a huge fan of drawing quick wireframes with paper and pen, digital drawing tools like Figma has allowed to share ideas more smoothly with others, especially when working with remote teams. Digitalization has also allowed more quicker prototyping, user testing and other collaboration across teams making the design process more iterative.
As being a visual artist at heart, I have noticed that I need more often time to work with traditional art toools, as digital tools have become such a big part of my profession. I have found myself gone back to painting with acrylic paints on canvas, to kind of balance out the digital blur going on in my head.
But since I have also learned myself a little bit of coding, I am very curious to see what kinds of art can be made digitally, for example with creative coding. I’ve tried to learn it a bit, and I believe that is an increasing field of art nowadays. It also allows people to experience art no matter where they are (if the internet works) and that interests me veery much, as some people are for example, of various reasons, unable to visit places.
So, digitalization has transformed the way designers and artist work nowadays. And it will definitely continue to do so, and I am very curious to see and experiment the new ways it might bring us, in the future,, to create things in a way that hasn’t been possible before.
The risks
As the world keeps on continuing to become more and more digitalised, the are of course risks in that too. People share a lot of personal information in digital platforms. That information is collected, shared and also stored online and that is a threat for different kind of cyber crimes and data exploitations. GdPR, which is valid in Europe, helps to prevent that, but we all still have responsibility to take action to improve our security in digitalised environment. I also need to improve my security, as even though I am aware of the risks, there is still room for improvement because it’s an continuous process to stay updated to secure your own data, both professional and personal world. Fortunately, the security practises evolve always making it much harder to unauthorized users to gain access.
Chat GPT and AI
In my work Chat GPT has become a very handy tool among other tools I use. It is very easy to ask any question from it and also use it to ideate on different kinds of things. I use Chat GPT daily as it helps me to structure my thoughts effectively and helps in content creation processes. But it needs to be remembered that everything you give to it, can have severe implications, and for those reasons users need to make sure never to give any sensitive data of both professional and personal information.
Microsoft hosts a course called “practical AI”, which is open to everyone. I have completed that course to gain a bit more deeper understanding of how the generative AI works and how to use it in etchical and safe way. I recommend everyone to take a look on that.
I have been following a lot of discussion among illustrators of the topic regarding the risks AI brings to our profession. For example the question of copyright comes complex when AI creates art and illustrations based on already existing work, who owns the copyrights, and how can we protect our work in this changing landscape we are working on. Many people also worry the AI’s ability to replicate artist’s styles, which might devalue the original artist’s work.
Those are of course inportant things to consider and be aware of. Still, I see AI as a tool myself, and we just need to understand how to use it, how to make it work the most efficient way, and to realize that we still need the professional image-creators and designers to understand the results AI might generate us. Professionals know the principles of design process, compositions, the emotional impact of designs, etc. The AI generated images are hugely lacking the human touch and creative vision, and that’s why I see AI only as a tool, not as a replacement for designers. Creativity and design is much more than just an image creation!
I asked Chat GPT to tell me a bit of my working environment. It surely knows how to describe the main tasks that designers and illustrators usually have, and it also knows how these support each other. I didn’t notice anything wrong in its answers when I prompted a few questions for it of my profession. But as I use Chat GPT very often, I have noticed that it sometimes isn’t a very reliable tool and you neeed to be very critical of it and check the claims it makes as facts. Sometimes I have asked its help in some math calcultaions, and noticed that its answers are completely wrong. When you tell that to it, it might tey to correct it, but usually doesn’t know how to. So always make sure to check on everything it claims.
There are also many ethical problems when working with AI, and those are things that we need to be aware of. But anyways, as a reminder for us all: always remember not to give any sensitive information to Chat GPT or any other tools.
There are a lot of things to consider when working in digitalised world, especially as I mostly work with designing digital products, usin all sorts of (AI-) tools daily. I have gained quite a lot of understanding of the possibilities how to improve my working with the tools that digitalised environment has to offer. It will also bring new kind of jobs, and change the working styles we now have. The tools are always increasing and developing, so one needs to be aware of the changes. For me, this course has already given more information of the risks that we are facing, and the cyber security threats that we need to be aware of. Looking forward to what this course has to offer!
My comments at:
March 1, 2025 at 14:53
Hi,
It’s interesting to read and reflect on bringing coding into art as someone who isn’t familiar with the field, as well as thoughts on how to make art accessible to everyone. It makes me think of my own field, which doesn’t necessarily restrict physical access, but the schedules are tight.
March 3, 2025 at 10:38
Hello,
Thanks for the interesting article! It was refreshing to read about something completely different. I’m working in the hospital as a radiographer. We are doing so different kinds of work!
In your text, you said that although you consider digitization to be convenient and a good thing, you have also returned to traditional ways of creating art. That’s nice!
Keep up the good work!
– Siiri
March 20, 2025 at 17:32
Hi!
It was very interesting to read your thoughts about how digitalisation has changed a profession that has originally been very “hands on”, with physical tools to a more digital environments. I also found your thoughts on AI very interesting since you work in a creative field, which I feel has been affected a lot because by AI.
June 3, 2025 at 12:24
Hi Heta-Linnea! How interesting it was to read about digitalisation in a completely different sector to my own! Especially creating illustrations digitally is something very special for me, as I am used to drawing only on paper with a pencil! You also talked about software and tools that I have never used or even heard before. As in my healthcare sector, digitalisation in your sector has certainly taken great leaps forward I believe. What used to be written down and drawn with a pencil is now done digitally on a computer. I’m glad to hear that you use AI daily. To me using AI is not that easy yet. Thanks for the tip about the Microsoft AI course!
July 16, 2025 at 11:13
Hello !
I became interested in your blog as soon as I saw the logo on your page. It was interesting to read specifically your thoughts as you work in the field of art. Next time when I watch any kind of art, I try to assess that which “digital tools” artist has been used and utilized. I already know that I do not understand. I just enjoy art.
November 13, 2025 at 15:07
Hi Heta-Linnea!
Thank you for such an interesting insight on digital solutions and AI from a designer and illustrator’s perspective, which is completely different to my own area of expertise. Here are some thoughts that came to mind while reading your post.
It is quite interesting to think how the work of an artist has changed throughout history, from using a pen or a paint brush to using an iPad, and now even AI. I found interesting when you wrote that you paint with acrylics to balance out the digital blur. It seems that whereas the work itself might be more effective thought digital platforms, it’s almost like we crave to have the concrete tool on our hand even despite of that. As you said, to balance everything out. Digital solutions are not everything.
Sometimes I feel like the whole internet is full of AI generated pictures nowadays. If I go to Pinterest I see AI generated picture after AI generated picture. Where are the original, authentic pictures? Are they becoming a minority? I feel like where AI can truly help us gain inspiration, whether it’s about ideas for a company logo, color scheme of a painting, or interior design options, in the end a lot of people do not appreciate it as much as authentic work. At least right at this moment, a lot of AI’s also make a lot of mistakes (not knowing how to do fingers with creating pictures with humans, candles floting in the air where they are supposed to be on the table in the picture etc.), and the pictures can be created in minutes, maybe seconds. the pictures are created and forgotton immediately after in a lot of cases. But knowing that someone has poured their whole heart in a painting, making one brush stroke at a time. That is something valuable. Of course there are always people going after what is easy and cheap. Think of buying an IKEA furniture. But there are also people who value the effort, the detail, the soul of what has been created. E.g. antique thrifted furniture or something created by a local carpenter.
I find it very interesting for you trying to combine the two. Finding ways to use digital solutions the most effective ways – whether it’s about learning on how to merge coding and art, learning how to use AI in an ethical way. But also balancing it with what is truly valuable: the effort and YOUR perspective.
As one of the commenters mentioned earlier: Keep up the good work!