Abstract
Design is inherently multidisciplinary and personal, shaped by a designer’s unique lens and lived experiences. At its core lies sense-making—the ability to scan, interpret, and respond to context—which has always guided design decisions. Today, as technology rapidly evolves, designers must not only adapt but reimagine their processes. The rise of AI tools such as DALL·E, Midjourney, and ChatGPT introduces a transformative shift in creative workflows. These platforms enable designers to translate abstract prompts into visual and textual outputs, accelerating ideation and expanding the boundaries of imagination. In this emerging prompt-generate-iterate workflow, designers become curators and conductors of machine-assisted creativity. Iteration becomes more fluid, with rapid cycles of experimentation and refinement fostering unexpected discoveries. Rather than replacing intuition, AI augments it—bringing new dimensions to narrative building, emotional resonance, and meaning-making in design. This evolving relationship between human creativity and AI-driven generation is reshaping the craft. It challenges traditional notions of authorship and originality while offering new pathways for storytelling, personalization, and innovation. As designers learn to harness these tools, they redefine the future of design—one that is agile, exploratory, and deeply human.
Presenters
Suresh SethiProfessor, Industrial Design, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Illinois, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Creative Co-Creation, Sense-Making In Design, Future Of Design Practice, Design
