Learn how to build a better sign and print shop from a few
crusty sign guys who've made more mistakes than they care to admit.
Conversations and advice on pricing, sales, marketing,
workflow, growth, and more.
Your listening to The Better Sign Shop podcast with your hosts, Peter Unis,
Michael O'Reilly, and Bryant Gillespie.
Alright guys, welcome back to the Better Sign Shop podcast.
Is it, this is still the podcast, I think it is.
Alright, is it I am your host, Brian Gillespie.
I've got the signed burrito, Michael Riley with me.
I was hoping that we'd forgotten about that by now, but
we haven't forgotten the nicknames.
No guacamole.
It's the elephant in the room and obviously it's been a minute since we've
laid down any tracks in the studio.
How the hell are you, Michael?
I'm hanging in there.
I've survived 2024 fairly well.
Okay.
I don't remember, what was it?
I guess it was 2023 the last time I, uh, had this microphone
shoved in my face here.
So it's been an interesting year for me.
I've kind of stepped away from the podcast and, uh, my business a
little bit slowed things down, um, trying to regroup some, but, uh,
it's been a, been a year for sure.
How about you?
It's been a year.
I think that's the, the theme.
Yeah.
Lots of, lots of stuff work-wise, family-wise, obviously.
Like we did, like, I, I don't know if it was out of necessity or each
one of us just kind of got busy.
Like we, we stepped away from the podcast for a bit and kudos
to the listeners out there.
Like if my inbox is full of people that are like, Hey, are you guys, is this done?
Or like, you guys gonna record some more episodes?
Or like, what are you doing?
I guess that's a good thing that people are like, you actually want more of our.
Incessant rambling.
Like that's, I'll take it as a compliment.
Thank you guys.
It's good to be back.
I'll call it a win.
Yeah, call it a win.
Yeah, for sure.
Well, today we're gonna discuss ai.
Uh, I've, like, internally, I've titled this the ominous AI episode,
but I, I think we've got some, some interesting remarks on it.
But like, tell me, like, are you still doing sign design?
Like what are, what's the, what, what do you, aside from still working
on your house, like what are you, what are you doing day to day?
Yeah.
No, I, I mean, I'm definitely still doing my sign design business.
I've just scaled it back quite a bit.
I've been dealing with, um, my, my parents live in Ohio and I live in Oregon.
So, uh, my, my father has been battling cancer for the last 10 years, and in
the last year he's really taken a, a dive and I've been traveling back
and forth quite a bit and just my brain has been occupied with that.
And, uh.
Have, uh, just had to slow the business down for my own, you know, mental health
and, and step away from the podcast here, a little bit, been spread too thin.
I think everybody can probably relate to that at some point in time or another.
Um, fortunately here in the last, uh, last month or so, we've finally
been able to convince my parents that, uh, it's time for them to
sell their house and move out here.
So you mentioned the house project that we've been, you know, remodeling
our money pit here for the last four years is the main project, is kind
of, sort of winding down a little bit.
And we're about to break ground on a, about a 500 square foot addition
to our house and remodel our garage and, you know, adding some living
space for my parents to move here.
So, you know, I'm, I'm entering that phase of adulthood where now I'm gonna
be the, the parent and I'm, I'm not sure how I, how I feel about it yet.
I'm, I.
It's, uh, it's, it's, it's terrifying, dude.
Like, I'm really frightened right now.
It's, uh, it's an interesting place to be and, and definitely this year is,
um, like I said, it's with everything going on, I, I just kind of, um, let
the business sort of, I don't wanna say set on the back burner, but just has,
it hasn't had my, my full attention,
which, well, the last time we talked you had like, more than more
work than what you needed anyway.
Yeah.
So, yeah, I was, I was drowning in work and, and it was, uh, and you
know, it was right around the time when, when, uh, my, my father's health
started to get, get bad again, and, and it just became so overwhelming.
I just kind had to say, you know, I'm gonna.
I need to scale this back by like 50% here or a little bit, or I'm gonna, um,
you know, end up in a, a ball in the corner in the fetal position shaking in
a padded room for the rest of my life.
So, you know, we're always harping on, uh, um, you know, mental health and,
and then taking care of yourself first.
And that's something that, you know, we still need to do that episode by the way.
Ah, yeah.
I'm down, man.
Yeah.
But this year's kind of been my mental health here and my year to sort of, uh,
uh, you know, take a step back, breathe, uh, focus on family and what's more
important than designing channel letters.
But, you know, aside from that, yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm still who, you
know, I've still got my, my little core handful of, of clients that
I'm, I'm taking care of and, and, uh, uh, stand pretty busy with them.
Um, and it's, you know, it's fun, you know, honestly stepping away from
it and not, um, being so consumed by the sign industry and, and design
and everything like that, and having a little bit of breathing space
from it has definitely helped too.
Like, I, I have more.
More room to be creative and my, my brain is a little bit clearer and, and
uh, I don't know what the word, right word there would be, but it's just when
you don't have it coming at you from every which direction and you're not so
overwhelmingly busy that you can actually, you know, focus on doing a good job and
putting out quality, you know, it's good.
So, you know, I'm taking this year as a rebuilding year.
Great.
Yeah.
Which has been, which has been nice.
So it's definitely nice to be back on the podcast for sure.
It's been been so long.
You know, I've kind of just wanted to stick my head in the sand and pretend
like the sign industry doesn't exist here for a little bit, like we all do.
Um, but it's, I'm excited to talk chop.
It's still maintain
it's a disease man.
Like it's, you get it in the blood, you can't get it out.
No, you can, you can take a break.
Like maybe you go into remission or something.
Exactly.
Yeah.
That's the right word for it.
It is, it's, it's totally remission.
So, yeah, for the last year I just kind of was in semi remission, but.
How about you?
Oh
yeah.
I mean, I, you know, so like, better sign shop, like the community's still rocking.
Um, we've got how many, like, looking at it now, there's like
close to 700 sign shop owners.
And of course, like we verify everybody is an owner or management
before we let them into the group.
But you know, like you, we kind of took a backseat to life, you know, working
at a tech startup full time as well.
Um, so, you know, the, the sign industry kind of became, uh, a side project,
which, you know, without that pressure to like make this the whole thing again,
I think you gained that perspective.
Yeah.
So, you know, we like trying to really define what.
Better sign shop is beyond like a community or like how to turn this
into like a sustainable business that's not just, uh, supporting me, but also,
uh, everybody else who's part of the circle was a challenge, you know?
Yeah.
We tried a lot of things, uh, that didn't necessarily work out.
You know, we went very heavy, uh, into like this knowledge like process, SOP
thing because like through the consulting work we were doing that's like, Hey,
everybody needs these systems or they want to have all this stuff defined.
And, uh, like we over indexed on that.
And we also kind of got hit with what we're talking about today is the, the AI
wave where like half of the stuff that we.
You know, spent tons of time generating, uh, now can be generated in about half an
hour by somebody clacking into chat GPT.
So it was a learning year for you?
Well, a learning year,
yeah.
What did you, uh, what did you learn about, um, well, about yourself
and about the industry in the last year that you are surprised by?
What caught you off guard?
Uh, I, I, I think, ah, that's a great question.
You put me on the spot.
I wasn't prepared.
Missed my deep philosophical questions.
The best question, um, yeah, to throw in the, the Trump,
you went there.
I had to go there.
Uh, yeah.
I, I, again, like, I, I don't know how much I learned about the industry.
Um.
I, the what you learn about yourself is, uh, you know, I, I, I think
I've learned more of what I'm great at and what I'm not great at.
That's obviously like a, a thing that changes with age.
Yeah.
Where, where you're just kind of forced to face reality of, of what you know, like,
Hey, here's exactly what you're good at.
Here's what you're not, what do you, what do you do?
Like, you gotta, you gotta lean into what you're good at and just kind of like
fade away from, from what you're not.
So, yeah, for me that's, uh, you know, like solving specific problems,
I've always been pretty good at that.
Like, creating, creating problems to solve, like was not good at that.
So,
so hopefully we're, we're back on the right track.
Obviously, like, I, I've missed chatting with you and Pete and, uh,
Pete couldn't make it here today.
But yeah, just getting back, I, I think having fun with it as well.
I, I'm not sure if that's been a, like a thing for you as well, but like.
Yeah.
Um, yeah, yeah, for sure.
And yeah, and for me, the last year, and I, I mentioned to this the other day, we
were having a conversation, um, you know, in the last year I've, I've learned, you
know, by, by, by taking myself out of the, the whirlpool, I guess, and standing
over here on the side just kinda watching everything swirl, I've learned that, you
know, really what, what drives my passion in the industry, what, what I really enjoy
and, and what I, you know, what, what, what talent and skill I, I, I actually
bring to the table and, and what I don't.
And, you know, and more importantly, I think what I, what I don't enjoy, what
I don't like, what I don't bring to the table and what I should, you know,
like you said, as a, as a, as an adult, in theory, an adult, anyway, I don't
know, sometimes I still question that.
I
mean, I'm a
43-year-old man child in a lot of ways.
I, yeah.
You know, it, it,
men are stuck at 17, like humor wise, or maybe even like 13.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
We'll go on record.
Yeah.
Totally.
Yeah.
You should see, like my, my best friend from high school and I were
on Instagram all day every day.
Just constantly like sending each other fart memes back and forth.
Like, never grow up men.
Hold onto your youth as long as you can.
Yeah.
Um, but yeah, so, you know, I, I kind, kind of like trying to dip my
toe back into the, like I said, I didn't, I didn't stop or step away
entirely or anything like that.
I just kind of turned it, I had it cranked up to 11 and I turned
it down to like, there, you know, turned out at like four and, um.
Now I'm just, you know, maybe slowly turning it back up until I get to a
point, you know, I'm, I'm not just 'cause it goes up to 11, um, doesn't mean I
have to crank it up all the way to 11.
And that's the kinda the lesson I'm trying to learn here.
And, um, you know, I've, I've learned that I've always had a nagging suspicion
that I really hate business, which, you know, so admittedly sounds really
weird to say on a business podcast.
Um, but I don't, I don't know.
I don't, I just, I don't know.
It, it, uh, it's something that I just don't, I don't enjoy.
When I was younger, the hustle, I loved, you know, I loved the,
uh, the go get 'em, you know, and grind until you drop kind of.
You know that when you're 20 in your twenties and you got energy
and you don't have arthritis in your knees, like it's easy and it's fun.
Um, true story.
Indeed.
Yeah.
And when and when you live in Oregon where it rains half the year, you believe me.
It's fun when you have arthritis.
Um,
is it true what my grandmother says, like a hundred percent Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Feel like right before it rains.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I, um, I make the old man groaning noises when I stand up out of a chair a lot
more frequently when it's damp and humid out when, than when it's dry, for sure.
Um, yeah.
Yeah.
It's, that's a, that's a very real thing for sure.
But yeah, I've just, you know, I've learned that I, I'm a creative person.
I'm not a, I'm not a numbers person.
I'm not a, you know, I know the stuff, I understand the stuff.
I can do it if you put a gun in my head, but I just don't want to anymore.
I don't wanna, uh, the business stuff is just, it's like, I dunno,
I'm not a competitive person.
Something I've known about myself for a long time is I, I'm not
really a competitive person.
That's why I'm not a huge sports fan.
Like, it's just kind of, eh, cool, whatever.
And I think if you don't have that competitive drive, um, business is
just kind of like, you know, it's like trying to watch a, a baseball
game when you're not a baseball fan.
It's like, where's the hot dogs?
You know?
So I've learned that about myself and, you know, trying to now avoid the
business world as much as I possibly can.
Uh, you know, moving forward and, and focus on the creative side
of things and hopefully that, um.
That helps to sidestep some, some burnout that I was experiencing before.
If I'm, I'm not so mired in the, the business side of signs and I'm just only
focusing on the, the creative side of it, which is what I got into it in the first
place for, you know, I'm a, I'm a maker.
I like to make cool shit.
That's all I care about.
Philosophy Hour with Mike
and we're back.
Uh, it wouldn't be a podcast episode without any technical issues.
Uh, yeah.
For whatever reason my mic messed up and now I'm back, but totally missed some of
what you were saying there, but Philosophy Hour with Mike, is that what it was or,
yeah.
Philosophy Hour with Mike.
I, yeah, just was on my,
yeah.
Love it.
Did it, did it record anything I just said or
just It did, yeah.
Yeah, we're good.
Like, it'll, it recorded that it just didn't hear me.
So like on the video track you'll see me like, yeah.
Like Wayne's World going through the drive-through.
Amazing.
I like to bring this back to business.
I think that's an important lesson to learn, right?
Like, hey, if you're not the manager type and you find yourself as the
owner and de facto manager in the sign shop, hey, what do you do?
Maybe you should not, uh, double down and, you know, necessarily believe that you
have to develop those management skills,
right?
We, I mean, we all know, we both know quite a few people in the industry
that shouldn't be running the business.
Like, you know, and that's not an insult to those people.
It's just they need to recognize that and, and get outta their own way and,
and let people do what they're good at.
And, and that includes yourself too.
You should do what you're good at, not what you feel like you have to do.
You know, I mean, you could make an argument that if you don't
like business, you probably shouldn't be a business owner.
Um.
But
hey, hey.
Not to judge.
Not here to judge.
That's true.
Mm-hmm.
Well,
well, let's dive into the ominous tone.
Uh, I, I guess I called it ominous because like, I, like on Netflix now, like once
you go like subtitle, you don't go back.
I'm not sure if you guys do that at home.
Like Ashley, like my wife and I, like anything that we watch on
Netflix or whatever, it always has subtitles, even if it's in English.
And like after a while you, like, you can't watch anything
without the subtitles.
I don't know why
I, you know, I, I can't do like YouTube videos without subtitles on, like, I have
to have the subtitles on YouTube videos or, or Instagram videos if there're,
if there's like people talking, I, I have to have that, but I, I haven't.
I haven't gotten to that with AR or with, um, with Netflix yet.
So,
well, like my favorite part is like the ominous music comes on and
it just like parentheses ominous.
Ominous music.
Yeah.
There, there's a couple of Netflix shows actually, that I watch that
are, are in foreign languages.
Um, and so I have the, you know, the English subtitles on and some, some
of the, the translations and, and just, just like the, the narration
like that are, it's just hilarious.
I, I love it when they do that.
Oh, I love it, man.
Yeah.
It's, it's comedy gold.
Yeah.
All right.
So ai,
yeah.
Let's talk about what scares us.
Yeah.
I, I think we, we gotta kick this off.
He's like personal, spicy take on ai.
Yes.
You go.
I, um, how do I word this?
I, I'm, I'm, I'm, I.
Horrifically terrified of it, and also like really excited about it.
At the same time, it's very like, conflicting and confusing.
Uh, I feel very weird inside.
It's, I, I, I, I see it as potentially like one of the greatest tools
that has ever, you know, been given to humanity on one hand, or been
created by humanity on one hand.
But it also, you know, obviously there's massive potential risks involved in it
that I think are very real, that aren't, you know, that aren't alarmist when
you, when you really look at the speed at which it's, you know, progressing.
Um, so spicy take, I, I think it's, I think it's here to stay and I
think if we don't embrace it and learn it and learn to love it, it
will, um, probably ruin our lives.
I don't know.
I don't, I don't know.
I don't, is that even spicy or is it,
I I, I, I feel like that is the.
Middle of the road.
Yeah.
Like take, I dunno what else to say about it, you know?
Well, it's your take though.
I, I honestly like, the take that I had is excited but scared as a so same take.
Um, get your own material,
man.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean it to me, like, I, I'm using AI every day now and it, like, I've
made it a point to, I don't know why I feel like I need to keep up with it
all, but, well, it probably be 'cause I'm in the tech industry full time.
Right, right.
But, but it's just trying to keep up with like the, the changes that are happening
like week over week with it Right.
Is like mind blowing.
So like for comparison, spring of 2023, uh, this is like April May-ish,
we ran a survey at Better Sign Shop.
Yeah, we had like 122 responses.
I'm looking at it right now.
The first question was like, Hey, have you tried AI tools like Chat, GPT
Dali, which is the image generation or mid journey, like 30% had tried them.
Only 11% would say I use them often.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, that's what like a year and a half ago, it like fast forwarded Now, you
know, like I, I see on like all the sign industry forums or groups, like,
somebody's like, Hey, do you have a, a, a template for like, I'm hiring somebody.
And everybody's like, just chat.
GPT, it.
Right.
Um,
like un unfortunately for the product that we were building, uh, we were like
most of the way through that and then, uh, chat, GPT caught up with about everything.
But I, how many now
I wonder how many other people were in that same boat as you?
Sorry, just that popped into my head.
Oh, yeah.
I, I can't imagine how many other people were in the middle of developing
something, some product or service or something like that, that just were just
like, well, shit, like now what do I do?
You know, like, what do
you do with this?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I think you have to like lean into it, but mm-hmm.
Like, for me, on, on a spicy level, like I, I think this is the thing
is gonna get outrageous a lot faster than what we think it is.
Oh fuck.
It already is.
Yeah, absolutely.
Like a year and a half ago when you did that poll, I don't think.
Anybody would've ever thought that a year and a half later, a, it would
have advanced as far as it has, as quickly as it has, or b, it would be as
ubiquitous in our lives as it already is.
I, I mean, that's crazy in such a short amount of time, and that's why
I'm so afraid of it is, is because it's, it's advancing so quickly.
I mean, it, it, it is, you know, it's one of those things that,
like the, the Terminator isn't really that far fetched anymore.
Like it could become a really, you know, not, not to go down the
political rabbit hole, but I mean, you know, we, it's so good now that
you can't tell fact from fiction, you know, a real photo from a fake photo.
And that's happened in the span of six months ago.
You could tell that's AI generated, or AI wrote that, and now you can't.
Right.
So how do we, you know, how do we control that?
Do we wanna save the doom and gloom for the end?
I don't,
prob
I don't, I don't know how to like structure this one other than just to
like dive into it, but I know right?
Like go into the deep end maybe.
Yeah.
Maybe let's like, okay, I'll table that.
Are you using any of the Yeah, yeah, we'll save that for the end.
Like are you, are, what are you using on a daily basis now?
Like, are you using Chad, DPT, like any of these tools?
So in my, in my work, I use chat DPT occasionally, um, being, you know, being
a sign designer, it, it's not gonna generate for the most part much that
I can use outside of idea generation.
And, um, I, I, I definitely used it quite a bit, um, for certain things,
like I need a really specific, you know, watercolor style painting of,
you know, a good example, I, I had to do a, um, a, a sandblasted sign, like
a fancy sandblasted gold leaf sign for somebody's like fancy, you know,
vacation house out in the mountains.
And, um, they wanted a, a, a, a painting of a moose and a.
Mountain stream with the mountains behind and you can't
find something that specific.
You can't find that on any stock site and.
The, like most cases, the budget isn't there to hire a, a, you know, an
actual painter or an artist to paint.
That is what, and I, you know, and that sucks.
And you hate to say that out loud, like, you know, we can't
actually pay an artist to do this.
But that's the reality, is you, you can't pay an artist to do that.
In this particular case.
That's, that's, you know, we've all
dealt with that on like, personal projects, so like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Budgets
are very real.
Like, you know, to pretend like we all don't have budgets, whether we're
in business or personal, is stupid.
Like, everybody's got a budget and you gotta find a way to work within it.
So, you know, like, uh, chat, GPT created a absolutely stunning,
unbelievable painting that I was able to drop right into the sign.
Customer loved it.
They got a sign that looks phenomenal, that, that met their needs, and then
some that was well within their budget.
And, you know, without chat GPT, we would've had to cut some sort of corner.
We would've had to use clip art or some image that wasn't quite right, or we
would've had to go without the, you know, that graphic on it all together.
So it created a solution for a customer that gave them a beautiful sign without.
An unaffordable budget, you know?
But the flip side of that is, is to manage the value of an actual
painter's work when, you know, especially at a commercial level.
Um, like why would you hire a painter to paint that scene when I can have chat GPT
do it for me in five minutes for free?
Right.
That's the existential threat going back down the dark rabbit hole.
I'm sorry.
No, I mean, no.
You know, maybe we just say like, address it head on.
Right.
I, I don't know how not
to like it.
Like it's,
this is like a, this is the, the crux, right?
Because like I, I've shared with you some of the experiments I've done.
Mm-hmm.
And like to me, like where it's gone and, and I don't know, maybe I'll
share my screen and just like to show like those of you who are actually
watching the video on YouTube can actually see some of this stuff and,
and what's possible right now today.
And if it doesn't like somewhat scare you, I would be surprised.
But, you know, as a creative industry like.
You know, especially for somebody like you and, you know, we've had Dan
Antonelli and like, there's the sign industry is, is nothing but creativity.
Like, like put into like a commercial setting.
Right?
Right.
Like that's, that's what it is.
Um, more than any other medium, I think.
Because, you know, if you look at like printing, like commercial printing
on paper, like you got a format like, Hey, I've gotta print a design.
It's gotta go on this piece of paper.
Okay, yes, I've got X, Y, and z, you know, I can do whatever I want within the box.
Or like a t-shirt, you're, you're putting a graphic on a t-shirt or piece
of clothing or, or bag or whatever.
The sign industry.
And I guess what always drew me to it initially was like
you got unlimited options.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, you know, somebody, you know, if, if the budget's $150, you probably
stuck with like a banner or something.
But, you know, given, given a problem of, you know, hey, I need to let
people know that this business exists.
There's an infinite number of solutions that you could create.
Right?
It's the same thing I love about it too, is it's, it's, it's using your creative
talents to solve a real world problem.
And that's, I mean, that's like the most rewarding thing you can
do as a creative person, right?
Yeah, totally.
But like he, all these AI LLMs or, you know, even if we take like the, the image
generation models, like it's all trained on stuff that has been put out into the
world by folks like you or other designers and photographers and everything, and
it's like sucked all this stuff up and now it spits out, you know, I, I won't
say variations of that, but you know, like I, it filled to some extent, like
it sucked up that creative juice and is now like using that and, you know,
I don't think anybody got paid for it.
So.
Yeah.
And I mean, if you.
Follow.
I mean, you, the, the Adobe scandal here of late where Adobe announced
that they're using anything that people use in their, you know, generative
AI tools, um, you know, on the backend train their generative ai.
I mean, you know, they're basically using what you create in their products
to train their own ai, you know, and that's, there's so many, you know,
ethical gray areas there with it too.
But, so yeah, I mean, I, I think that it's a, um, phenomenal tool in the right
hands if you look at it the right way.
But I, I mean, it definitely has the potential to, I don't know if it has the
potential to totally destroy creativity, but it definitely has the potential to do
serious value or to serious damage to the value of creativity, I think, you know, or
like to the value of what you do, like design, right?
Like
to some degree or another.
I mean, you know, like you said, I, I understanding the way it functions,
the way it works and creates those images, which it's not creating it.
Out of thin air from scratch.
Like, I think the name implies kind of where like, you know, this is a computer
that's just painting this for you.
You know, it's, it's not, it's, it's in a way, it's kind of building a
composite of millions and millions of images, not, not creating from scratch,
if you wanna look at it that way.
So it's, it's, I don't think it's ever gonna be able to fully replace
designers because it, it will never have the human eye, right?
Like, it can't look at something subjectively like a designer can.
And I think that's really the, the, the key thing there that,
that everybody needs to be aware of and, and, and keep in the front of
their mind is it isn't subjective.
It's totally objective.
It's gonna do what you tell it to do and what it's trained on and,
and what source imagery it finds.
But it can't look at that.
And step back and say, that looks awesome, or that looks like shit.
Right?
Like it doesn't, that's what it, that's what it'll never be able to do.
And that's where the human factor theoretically has to remain, is the taste.
Yeah.
I guess, if you wanna put it that way.
Right.
So I, I think it'll be, I, I won't say a cold day in hell because I'll
probably have to eat those words, but I think it'll be, I think it'll be a,
a long, I, I don't think it'll ever fully replace designers or artists,
at least at a, um, elite level.
Oh God, I don't, that sounds really conceited to see at a.
At a, at a, at a, at a high professional level right now, it's
already way better at design than a entry level amateur designer.
And it's way better at design, frankly, than a lot of, you know,
designs that sign shops and print shops and, you know, are, are putting
out there on the, on the street.
So I think, you know, it has the potential to actually improve the
visual landscape if it's used right.
Um, but I don't think it's ever going to replace a seasoned professional, you
know, true creative designer, right?
Like I, I I, I feel like the Dan Antonelli's and, and you know, of,
of the world, um, are never gonna be really, feel really threatened by it.
But those, you know, those are the same people that aren't threatened by,
you know, a competitor opening up shop next door either because they know the
value they bring is the, is is their taste, not the tools that they use.
It's the, you know, it's their subjective taste that they bring
to the table for people that.
Have to write for a living and create code and things like that where subjectivity
is, you know, I guess writing isn't really the case, but you know, the more
you remove subjectivity from the, the end product, I feel like the, the riskier
your job probably is, if that makes sense.
Does that make sense?
Oh yeah, a hundred percent.
And I'll tell you, like, I'm like, you know, from a, like a developer
perspective, you know, I still struggle with calling myself a developer sometimes
because I, you know, it's not my background and I only picked up like
JavaScript development to build the stuff I wanted to build because I couldn't do
it with the tools that were out there.
I just wanna be, basically, I wanna clarify for everybody listening right
now, that Brian's being extraordinarily humble and this dude is, is like,
he's like developer, Rainman.
No, no, it's important.
I, I really think that it's, it's important that people
understand that about you, that like, you're, you're phenomenal.
And I'm not saying that you're like a world class programmer.
You, you've got a long way to go for that, but you're really
excellent at what you do, right?
So it's important that this, you're not, you're not making this statement from
like, Hey, I am an amateur, you know?
Yeah.
I'm, I'm not an amateur.
We, we'll say that a hundred percent.
Right.
And, and like the, the thing, like the, I I think for us as like an
industry is like em embracing that intersection, like, you know, like
right.
For me personally, like being able to blend like the, the different
experiences I've had together and, and like being able to create something.
So like graphic design, you know, sign and print design is not web design,
but like good design principles.
Good design is good design.
Even like as cross discipline, right?
Right.
So like if I'm developing something or I'm coding something, I.
Yeah.
Like, I'm just gonna infuse that into, to that work.
But I will tell you that like I, I've used like some of the AI tools, like
one of the ones that I'm using a lot is like, Claude is the name of it.
I pretty much, I canceled my chat, GPT subscription.
I'm using Claude.
I pay, it's like 29 bucks a month for it, use it for all sorts of things.
But like, if, if it's, it, like, it is especially great for like
the coding perspective because you've got somebody that has this
large repository of knowledge that you can get instant feedback from.
Mm-hmm.
Basically, um, if there's a lot of great developers out there, but having
one that's pretty good with you at all times is like a huge level up
where you could just, you know, yeah.
Like these things still hallucinate.
They still like create shit out of thin air.
Um, but the nice thing about code is, is like you can just.
Pop it in there, see if it runs.
Like you can look at it and see like what's going on.
But as a developer, like for me, I'm fully aware that I am like
training a replacement when I use these tools and that, you know?
Right.
Because I'm, I'm, I'm never gonna go deep enough into programming to
be like, you know, the mythical, like Silicon Valley hacker.
Right.
Like for me, it's, that's not why I like it.
It it, I like it because I can build the stuff that I wanna build.
Right.
For, for you, the, the payoff is the end result, not the, not, not
the, you know, 10,000 lines of code.
Right?
I, I,
yeah.
I, I don't, yeah, for me, I, I don't think I'll.
It, don't get me wrong, like it, it is an art form for like the guys who are
expert programmers and they, you know,
right, absolutely.
Like, could
pick up any language, like watching those guys work is a, is an art form and
mm-hmm.
You know, and for right, and for them, writing the code is what
they, what they geek out about.
That's what they're there for or for you.
Like, you wanna see that functional app or website or whatever, right?
Yeah.
Because you're, you're at the end of the day, you're a creator.
Like, you're like me.
But I mean, that, that's, that's a, that's I think the most important
thing for everybody to, to take away from AI is exactly what you just said,
is that it's a, it's a tool to make you better at what you already do.
And, and I think if, if humanity embraces it in that way, like, it, it,
it will, I, I mean, in the next couple decades, like, you know, humanity
is gonna advance at like an, an astounding rate if we use it that way.
Um.
You know, research and, and like you said, writing code and, and, um, I
just got a new, uh, Google phone and it has Google's Gemini AI built into it
instead of their old, kind of like Google version of Siri, which kind of sucked.
And the new ai, I mean, I can just sit here and have a
conversation with it all day long.
And it, it explains things to me as I'm working.
And, um, you know, our, our daughter has some questionably skilled teachers
in her high school, I guess we'll say.
And she comes home with a lot of questions that they're just not doing a good job
of explaining to her, or they're since not, you know, it's not soaking in.
And we spend a lot of time on, on chat, GPT, or she does really, they're not us.
I mean, she spends a lot of time on Jets, GPT and I, I read through some of the
threads that she has on there and it's amazing at explaining to her how to do
certain math things or, or whatever.
I mean, so yeah, if we use it right, it can make us better people, it can make
us smarter and more efficient at what we do and, and more productive and, and.
Yeah.
But is that a good thing?
Like is it taking the effort outta that?
Yeah,
you could, you could argue that it's making us lazier too, or, you
know, I, I think it, like, there's a difference in using it and depending
on it, I guess, you know what I mean?
Like it, right.
If you, I think that's where it like, starts to delineate.
Like, it if you take like, design, just because, you know, that's kind of like
the big point that we're riffing on.
Like if you're relying on this thing to create, to help you in the design
process, but you don't have that foundation, it's, you know, I, I,
that's where I get hung up on it.
Or, you know, if I'm using it to develop an app and I don't, I don't
really know what I'm doing mm-hmm.
Or what the end result, like something's gonna be, it's gonna go wrong.
Right.
A hundred percent
Right, right.
Back to what I, I just said about it, you know, without
the human subjectivity factor.
Yeah.
And, and you're right.
If the human involved in it doesn't have the skill or knowledge.
That's where it's gonna go off.
That's a really good point.
That's where it's gonna go off the rails.
Yeah.
If, if as a good designer, if I have it, create an image or something
for me, and I, I'm able to look at that and say, yeah, that's good.
I can use that.
Or, no, that's garbage.
I can't, you know, that.
And that's, you know, this is true about any, any professional, anything in life.
Like, you know, being able to make that decision is what separates the,
the professionals from the amateurs.
But, you know, as, as we all know, and this isn't necessarily
meant to be a knock on anybody, everybody has to start somewhere.
But there are a lot of amateurs in the design industry, in the web
design, web development industry.
I mean, every industry, there's a lot of amateurs.
And if you put a powerful tool like this in the wrong hands, and those amateurs
don't have the experience and skill and knowledge to look at what is created and
say that isn't good, that isn't up to a professional standard, that won't work.
And they put it out there anyway just because they lack
the knowledge to know better.
Um, you know, that's, that's another black hole that we
could, or, you know, dark place.
We could go into
so many dark spots.
I, you know, I, I think the, just devaluing it, it, like, I don't, I
don't know if it's where we're like, I'm getting older and like, I, you
know, it's like, it's more work for me to just stay up to date on, on things.
But like, you know, I, it feels like it devalues your experience,
like on a personal level.
It's like, okay, like this thing in a year and a half, it's figured out how to
do shit that took us years to, to learn.
Right, right.
And, and at a certain level you're like, well, shit.
Like, okay, like where do we go from here?
Because you know, you can already see the trajectory where it's like, right,
right.
Uh, yeah, I was thinking about this the other day when
I was in school junior high.
Say I was in junior high and I needed to learn about something for
a test or a report I had to write.
My options were basically to go to the library and get out the
encyclopedia or hope they might have had a book specifically about that
subject that I had to learn about.
And if they didn't, I had to go to another library or another one until I found one
that had something that I could learn.
And now, you know, and that took a lot of effort.
Like there was a lot of effort involved in that.
And when you actually found what you were looking for and you got
that report done, like you, there was a sense of accomplishment.
You know, like you, you, you've built something almost right, like
you didn't, but you, you really went through a lot of hassle to, to learn
that, and you were dedicated to it.
And there's, there's a real sense of pride and accomplishment when you do that.
And now, like literally the, the, the entirety of human knowledge,
the entire span of humanity is now available to anybody.
Instantly like every, you know, like is it, if people don't have the work for it,
the knowledge is it, does it inherently valuable anymore, or, I mean, not just
the end result, but the knowledge itself is, you know, knowledge has always been
power, you know, history of humanity.
Knowledge is power.
Knowledge is what everything is built on.
And if, if, if knowledge is, now, you know, this, this is
like a slippery slope, you know?
'cause on one hand, like we want all of humanity to be empowered with knowledge.
We want everybody to be smarts, right?
We want everybody to know everything.
But at the same time, when everybody actually does know everything, like,
well, I can argue now on social media, everybody does know everything.
That's true.
I, that's actually, yeah, that's a really good point.
I, again, humanity will probably never be able to.
Fully, you know, sniff out the difference between, you know, real and bullshit.
But I think that's a topic for another conversation.
I mean, probably specifically if you're trying to research something, we'll
keep it in that, you know, leveling the playing field to that extreme
extent on the surface, obviously.
Yeah, that's great.
That puts everybody in the same, but, but if you remove the effort, if you
remove the knowhow and the, the work to obtain that skill or that knowledge,
or whatever it is, with programming or designing a logo or something like that.
Yeah.
I mean, does it devalue the, the end result?
Does it devalue the knowledge involved in it?
Does it devalue the person that created it?
Does it devalue humanity as a whole?
Does it.
Is that a resounding yes, it does.
Or, I don't
know.
I mean, I just short circuited my own brain.
I don't know.
Yeah, I, I, I, I think there is like, bringing it back down, like obviously
there's a lot of implications, right?
Because if a client can slap a, you know, it used to be like, Hey, my
cousin has Photoshop, but now it's like a chat g PT designed this.
Can you print it?
Right?
It's like, well, yeah, same kind of thing.
But obviously like now when it is like design, uh, you know, to somebody outside
the industry can be touch of a button or, you know, talking to Siri or, you know,
I think Apple's gonna add generative AI in like the, the next version of iOS,
which I, I think is already launched.
But you know, like when design is now like, Hey, I need a poster that
says this and this style, like.
As, as designers or we like sign people, you know, obviously people will still need
physical signs, so until robots figure that out, we're probably protected there.
But, you know, as a designer, like, you know, you're aside from your
own personal stuff, like you're not banging out signs anymore.
Like are you, are you scared?
No.
At all.
I'm not.
I'm, I'm really not because, and maybe that's really naive of me and maybe
I should be, uh, um, but I, I'm, I'm not, I, I, again, because I don't
think it'll ever fully replace the, the human factor, the human taste factor.
Um, I, I think that, I, I think in, in a way it will, I.
Help separate the good designers from the bad designers and hopefully
make the bad designers go away.
I mean, I, I, you know, like, I, I hope it either makes the bad
designers become good designers or find another line of work, right?
Like, I, I just, I don't like, again, everybody has a start somewhere,
but I don't like seeing bad design.
No, but no designer likes to see bad design, so it, I guess it has
the potential of maybe pushing the entire spectrum of design in a, in
a better direction by weeding out the bad stuff in a way, I mean.
Because what it, what it creates, I mean, a lot of the stuff it
creates isn't necessarily bad.
I mean, it's, it's definitely workable and usable.
And if you're a, a tiny little small mom and pop business with literally
no marketing budget, and you're trying to just keep your doors open another
month and you need a poster, you can't afford to hire a graphic designer.
Like, that's just not the reality of the world that we live in.
So you need something, and if you, options are either something that looks
like crap that you threw together in Microsoft Paint or something that,
you know, that AI did for you, like, yeah, like that's, that's a no brainer.
And that, and I would much rather see that AI generated banner hanging a
window, even if a pro didn't get paid to design it, because that, that propagates
better quality design work all around.
And,
and I think a, like, there was a epi like the episode with Dan.
Like, I, I love the way that like, he positioned it, it
is like, yeah, y yes there.
Designers, and, you know, they create ama amazing brands, but they
see themselves as stewards of their clients and not like, Hey, I'm not
here to create a, an amazing design.
I'm here to help them achieve business results.
Right, exactly.
And,
and I, and I freaking love seeing like, like they've totally switched over the
last year into like, Hey, these are the results that we deliver as far as a brand.
But I, you know, I, I think that is a hundred percent, like
for me it was, it was results.
Right,
right, right.
There will always be if AI didn't exist right now, and it was like
Exactly, it was three years ago.
Right.
There will always be designers that are just designing by the pound.
They're just cranking shit out to get it out the door.
They don't, they're not putting that thought into it.
They're, they're thinking about, you know, just, I.
This customer has a budget of $25 for a poster design, I'm gonna
give 'em a poster design for $25.
Right?
There's always gonna be those people and there's always going to be clients
that only want that, that can only afford that, and they're, they're, you
know, those clients are never gonna use the Dan Antonelli's of the world.
That's just not how it works.
No matter, no matter what, they just never, ever will.
So it's, I think it's great that they have an option available to them that,
like I said, does put out better work than what you would get from the $25.
Designer.
And I know that's kind of like, in a way, shitting on my own people, but I, I mean,
it's a, it's a merit based industry.
Like if you're not good, you shouldn't be in the industry.
Like it's, I know that sounds harsh, but it is what it is.
And if you're not trying to get better at it, and you're not trying to
constantly improve, you're, this industry will eat you alive and spit you out.
So, I don't know.
I, I see it in a way as being able to do that, you know, you know,
and potentially move the needle in a positive direction in some way.
I mean, I, I, I mean that's, I feel like that's a really, like trying to
really grasp at a, a glass is half full perspective on it, but, well, I, you
know, I, I like, like is it a, it becoming an assistive tool, right?
Because, you know, if you go back like a generation and, and like you see like
stuff like gold leaf and hand littering and stuff making a comeback now, but it,
it, like, it's never gonna be what it was.
But like the, the same folks when like CAD cut vinyl, you know, like
plotters came out was, you know, like there was a group that's like, okay.
Hey, I'm, I'm gonna embrace this, or, or didn't know enough to like,
Hey, you know, this is the way this is gonna be done from now on.
Uh, did that, that took a lot of the craft out of it in my mind, for sure.
And, and things are, you know, I won't say slowly writing themselves because
there's still a, a design and like signed by the pound mentality out there.
Mm-hmm.
Um, but at least like a lot of the guests that we have, you know, very creative
projects, very, very craft oriented.
But you know, like, does it become a tool to help in the process or like
you do, you stay away from it entirely.
And I,
I, you know, I think it'll be like when the, the Gerber four B hit the market and
you had like four fonts to choose from and they were all variation of Helvetica.
Um, and all of a sudden every sign on the planet in the country
was red Hellvetica on white.
Like that's, I I think that will, there'll definitely be a period
of time where, um, the market will be flooded with AI generated
graphics and marketing and stuff.
Yeah, for sure.
That's inevitable.
I think that happens in any industry when any, any new technology or tool comes out.
But I dunno, like I said, I don't see it as an existential threat.
I really, I don't, I think Okay, if, if
I'm gonna share my screen now.
For those of you who are, who are listening to this thing, I'm
gonna try to narrate as best as I can to, to narrate this even
though like it's an audio podcast.
So you just have to bounce on YouTube and watch the video version.
Alright, Mike, you see my screen?
I see your serene.
Okay.
All right.
So two things here.
I've got on the right, I have this Claude application.
It says, good afternoon, Bryant.
I'm gonna bang something in here in just a moment.
On the left, I have a website called Replicate, which is a way,
um, to basically run these open source, uh, like image generation
models and other like, AI models.
Now, essentially, this is kind of like a,
it's like a midjourney, like a dolly about kind, it's kind of
an interface for right about
right, right?
Yeah.
Basically like it, it's extracting all the code for me.
So now I have Mike's website up here.
I'm going to find a nice piece of work.
I, I really like the Central Valley image, a, the Central Valley
Monument sign that you've created.
I'm gonna paste this thing into Claude, and I'm gonna say, write a prompt
that would generate a similar sign.
Okay.
So most of these AI models now, especially like chat, GPT and Claude,
um, they have the ability to examine an image and see what's going on.
So this one, it is a, uh, a barn red monument sign with, uh, a vertical
slats on it with, uh, what is that?
Just, uh, dimensional letters attached to it?
Yeah, just some dimensional letters and some gooseneck lamps shining down on it.
Kind of a concrete base.
Yeah.
So create a modern store sign design for Central Valley Hardware
and Agricultural supply store.
The sign should be mounted on a raised concrete base with decorative landscaping,
including pink flowers, blah, blah, blah.
Just to like summarize this, would you say this is a pretty
accurate description of the sign?
I couldn't write it better myself.
Okay, so I'm gonna ask it to transform this prompt into something that would work
with Mid Journey or something like that.
Just because, like, the other thing that I've discovered with AI and just like my
own testing is like how you prompt these things are a, a little more, I, I like
you have to massage it a bit, I guess.
Um, and this is not, I, I don't know what this is gonna do specifically,
but I'm just gonna paste this into the replicate application over here.
And I could even, like, I, I could throw this like a, a sample image
in here as well if I wanted to.
But what I've done in the background.
Before this, and, and this is like some testing I've done on my own.
I have trained using this software, a custom image generation model based on
like five or 10 pictures of, of signage that I've just grabbed from Google.
And I'm just gonna sit here and now we're going to run this.
Do we have a, uh, I don't have any actual text in here, so
let me add that, that piece.
Are you sweating, Mike?
No, I know what it's, I, I know what it's gonna do more or less.
I, I mean,
I, I mean, I'm curious because this is the first time I've like actually done it
live to see what it, what it spits out.
And I may have to like lean on like some of the previous generations for this.
But like this thing is going through, we've started the process, um, 93%.
And this is what we get.
We get Centar Valley.
So it's, the text is a little bit off, but as far as like an actual
sign, I, I mean is, you know, like a rendering, like it's, it's pretty close.
We could, we could jam this again and see what it comes up with,
but compared to where it was like this, this is what scares me.
Mm-hmm.
Because it abso absolutely, like you could clearly see like
even down to like, the shadows.
The shadows, you know, like the level of detail is like mind blowing to me.
It is.
It really is.
Um.
Freaky.
Now obviously this is, this is not, you know, the text is goofed up on
this one, but like I, I could show some of the, the past examples that
I've ran from this where the text was like a hundred percent spot on and
yeah, you've sent me a few that I'm, I was pretty impressed with.
I mean, that's pretty wild that it's getting that good a text.
I mean, it was a matter of time before It did.
I knew it would eventually, but it's, it's here faster than I thought.
Yeah, I mean, and, and I, I guess I'll share some of those with
the episode, but you know, like, I, what do you do with this?
Like, you know, has this become a tool for like somebody to,
I, you know, obviously like I'm not gonna do anything with it.
'cause I like seeing you in business, but you know, like theoretically
I could start my own like, signed concept design service or something
with, with this sort of thing.
I.
R
Right, right.
Like it for what?
For what I do.
Right.
For, for a sign designer, what you just created there is a great looking sign.
Like there's, there's no denying it.
It's actually a good looking sign.
Like that's a sign that a sign company could definitely
propose and sell for sure.
But it's cool.
I mean, it created a great image of a sign, but what are you gonna do with that?
Right?
Like, it's not a, you know, that's where the human element comes in.
Like, you can't just generate that and put it in front of a
customer and say, buy this from me.
And, you know, you can't even put a number on it.
And that's where something like chat, GPT or, or any of these AI
tools is never going to be able, at least I don't think, again, I hope I
don't have to eat my words on this.
It's never gonna be able to come up with that design as an actual
buildable, quotable drawing that has dimensions and is actually designed and
you know, in a way that can be built.
I mean, this is something that, you know, anybody who's ever had
a conversation with me about.
Sign design knows that I, I am like, one of my biggest pet peeves is
people who design signs that look really pretty but then can't be built.
Right.
That sucks.
That's like one of the worst things.
I mean, it's, it's awful for a salesperson in this industry to show
a customer this beautiful design, get them all excited about it, and
then have to go back and say, ah,
ah, yeah,
yeah.
Like, you know, turns out like, we gotta change this to make it buildable
and now it's gonna lose the impact.
It's not, doesn't look the same.
Now it, there's so much that goes into how that sign is built and then
designing to that, that some, a tool like that will never be able to take
to that level now as an ideation tool.
Like what you just did there, like, that's awesome.
Like, I could take that the creative work is done, now all I gotta do is
turn that into a set of drawings.
Right, right.
That just made me more efficient.
It didn't necessarily steal my job.
It made my job easier and more efficient and.
You know, if that, if that design brief was in front of me for that
particular type of sign for that client, more than likely I would've
never come up with that design.
What it did.
I wouldn't have gone in that direction, but it gave me an idea or a direction that
is different than what I would've done.
And it's, and it's a good idea.
It's a great design.
And that allows me to, you know, maybe I can run with that.
Maybe I can do another variation of that over here.
And it, you know, just like you said, like it's, it's great to have this, um,
you know, almost like a, a a, a coder sitting right next to you all the time.
You can bounce ideas off of as a designer, like it, it works that way as well.
It'll never be able to generate a, you know, a perfect fully functional
website or app with, you know, the, the way that a human could, but
can definitely help you get there.
Um, and, and I, I feel like that's, I feel like that's to one degree or
another where it'll always be for a.
For professional designers.
Right.
Something like that.
Now, if you're talking about like a, a printed poster or a
banner, that's a different story.
It's literally just ink on a flat substrate.
There, there's not, there's nothing.
Yeah.
It's, it's, yeah.
Designers that are doing that kind of design work, I feel like should be more
concerned about their job than, um,
if you are a straight print designer, if you weren't
already cooked, you are cooked.
That's basically what Mike is saying.
Well, I mean, I mean, well, let's be, let's be honest here though.
I mean, like apps like Canva though that have been around for quite a
while, that, you know, they, they, they're already taking those jobs.
That app is already taking that job.
'cause now anybody with no design experience can open up Canva and, you
know, frankly put together a pretty nice poster design or banner design.
I mean, the Canva templates aren't bad.
It's an easy program to learn and it kind of forces you to do a decent job.
So, I don't know, AI is just another Canva maybe.
Yeah, I mean, I mean something like this, obviously, like you mentioned, like
this is one of the past ones that I did, where you give it a reference photo and
ask it to create a channel letter sign.
Um, and it, you know, as far as like a concept, it, it's not bad.
It's not great.
Um, but it's phenomenal rendering
though.
I mean, they look beautiful.
Yeah,
yeah.
Yeah.
And it, like upon first inspection, like unless you like zoomed into the
text on this door, like you would never, you'd never really know.
I, I guess it's not spicy, but like I don't, I don't
see this, it's a tool to use.
Right.
That's a different one.
That is a, that's a flyer that I was working with outdoors.
But yeah.
Know, that's a great example of one though, that flyer, because you would've
never found that, that Iron Maiden, you know, Google in the background, if there's
no way you could come up with that, I mean
Right.
Thousands
of dollars to hire artists to do that
ex Exactly.
Exactly.
NCA likes, again, by no means, I'm not saying this is like an elegant
process or like it even gets it right.
I, I would say like the hit rate in, in my own testing now for something is probably
like 15, 20%, like one out of five.
It, it comes up with something that's usable.
But again, that's
better than a, a human designer though, to be honest with you.
Oh, agreed.
You know, it's, it's a tool for creativity, I guess, because, you know,
again, this is, to me, this only like seeks to like enhance your own creativity
because now, instead of like racking your brain or, you know, going for a
walk and waiting for inspiration to strike, you can get, you can rapidly
iterate on something and obviously right, the end result is gonna be better.
But,
and, and that's, it's been great for me for that, for that purpose there, um,
alone, you know, another, um, area of AI that we haven't really talked about
a whole lot are, you know, some of the AI tools that are being built into.
Apps now, like Photoshop and Illustrator, um, now have, you know,
generative AI built right into them.
Photoshop in particular has been fantastic, you know, some
of the tools it has in there.
Um, you know, with, with the work that I do, I do a lot of photo renderings
where I take an, an image photograph of, you know, the, the building,
the sign is gonna be going on, or the, you know, the, the landscape or
the site where the sign's gonna go.
And then I've gotta superimpose the sign in there.
And, you know, anybody in the sign industry knows that survey
photos are usually garbage when you get 'em back from, you know,
whoever you sent out to take.
I mean, they're, they're terrible photos.
Yeah, they're awful.
And they definitely, you know, I, you've heard me preach about this a million
times, uh, the sales presentation, what you put in front of your customer.
We'll make or break that sale for you.
You know, not just the design of the sign in there, but the way
you present it to the customer.
If your drawing looks like shit, if it looks like a kindergartner put
that drawing presentation together and that customer's getting other
bids from somebody else and you know, their drawings look better,
they're gonna go with that customer.
So using some of these tools like AI allows me to really efficiently,
quickly take these crappy photographs that I get and clean 'em up and turn
'em into presentation ready, you know, almost beautiful images that people
are like, wow, that looks amazing.
Like, they really put some effort and some thought into this presentation.
They really want me to see what this, the porta
potty out of it,
right?
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
And I do that kind of stuff all the time, right?
Like, I'll get pictures of like where a sign's gonna go, like where a monument
sign's gonna go and, and like their, their truck is in the way, like the sign's
gonna go here behind the truck, but here's a picture of my F-150, like, and I've
had to use it to, you know, select that truck and say, remove truck and it will.
At first it wasn't that great, but now, I mean, I can take an image
that needs, would've needed hours of work that I can have it, you know,
looking like a professional photo photographer took it in 10 minutes.
And that has, my clients have seen a huge impact in business with
that alone, because they're closing more sales now because of that.
And, and it's not costing them more money for me to go to that level where,
you know, it's not like I'm taking money off outta my own pocket by doing
this, because my clients wouldn't have paid me to go to that level if
I had to spend, you know, three hours Photoshopping a, you know, one image
to make it look nice in a presentation that's not really justifiable.
Right.
Yeah, yeah.
It's, it's not a sole job yet.
I mean, they're paying me to do this design on the hope that the
customer's gonna buy that sign, so they're not gonna pay an extra three
hours for me to, you know, Photoshop the hell out of this picture.
But if I can do it in 10 or 15 minutes, that adds more value
to the work I did, and I could charge a little bit more for it.
And they're, they're happy to pay that.
And that drawing looks amazing compared to what it would've
looked like if I hadn't done that.
And then it helps 'em sell the sign.
So they're, they, they eat it up.
So it's, you know, it, it, it ripples out and affects a lot of things indirectly.
And, and I think, you know, looking at it through the lens of efficiency and
just helping you do your job, you know, better, that better serves your client
in the end is, I, I, I think the lens that people need to look through to
avoid being, you know, so terrified of it, that they just completely avoid it.
Because that will, you can't avoid this.
If you do that, you're gonna be left in the dust, unfortunately.
Yeah.
Well, I, I watched like a video and like, we could start to bring this home, 'cause
I'm gonna have to go pick up my kids soon.
Right.
But like, I watched a video of like a, it was like an 8-year-old kid, or
maybe it was like a 6-year-old kid and she was like prompting, she was
using one of the LLM like code editors.
And like she built her own little app, whatever she wanted.
It took her like 30 minutes.
Yeah.
But like, I was just fascinated with it because like that's, you know, that job
is obviously like, cooked in a few years.
Like it building X, y, Z app.
Um,
yeah.
But how cool is that though?
How, how that's Yeah.
Freaking amazing Is that a 6-year-old is like, I have a need for this.
Like,
oh, well, yeah.
It is just being able to, to now get the, as a creator, it's as mind blowing, right?
Because right, right now I have a tool, like I don't even have to
spend years learning programming.
I could just jump in and like start hacking together something, which is
mm-hmm.
Which is why I, I think that's the best way to learn anyway.
But, um, yeah, it's just mind blowing.
Um, but I, I think that begs the question though, like,
like, are, are, are we humans?
Are we putting the emphasis, the value emphasis on the wrong part, right?
Like for that 6-year-old that made an app to solve a problem
that she identified in her life.
And you said that job is cooked, right?
Like making those apps in the future, is it, or does it just
create different opportunities that people need to adapt to?
Like, is, is that girl like, did, did that experience making that app, did
that eliminate a job in the future?
Or did that solidify in her mind that this is, this is really cool and I could, I'm
gonna, I'm gonna do this for a living, you know, and, and, and it planted that seed
in her brain that you can create things from scratch and solve problems and Right.
And, and the end result is what matters.
Not the tools you use to get there.
Not, not the endless lines of code that you wrote, as impressive as that all
is, nobody gives a shit about that.
They care about whether it works and whether it makes their life easier.
They care about whether the design brings them more business.
They don't care how you made it.
And I feel like there's a, there's a, you know, maybe we need to get
out of our, our own way and, and, and remove some of our ego from, uh, the
process of creation and creativity and.
And except that all that really matters is the final result.
Maybe, I don't know.
That's There's your spicy take,
spicy, all that matters is the result.
I mean, I agree.
Like, you know, I I, we didn't get a chance to, like, I, I, I think this is
like a series, honestly, because like, like you said, it's not going away.
Uh, and I, I wanna figure out how to pull you back into the podcast
for at least some of these episodes.
So I, but the, I, we didn't get a chance to talk about like, the other ways to
use this, but like, you know, there's so many different applications and Yeah,
I, I think, hey, like the things that I've learned, like working in the tech
space over the, the last year and a half, you definitely wanna talk about it.
Um, but yeah, I, I don't know where I'm going here.
Well, let's do a part two then.
I mean, part two,
he's committed.
We're doing a part two.
Yeah.
Love it.
Get Peter back on here and he can.
Talk about how AI is helping fast signs franchisees,
sorry.
Couldn't help it.
I had to get my jab in on fast signs.
I just
fast signs.
Okay.
Getting the, the cease and desist letters from the franchisees.
Now, I, I mean, personally, like I, I'm using it to do the shit that I really
don't want to do, like, you know, like, write a description for this
podcast, probably like I'm gonna, yeah.
There's an AI that I'm going to use to, well, actually the, the, the
platform that we're using Riverside will spit out a transcript for me.
Now I'm gonna throw that into Claude and I'm gonna say.
Write summary for this based on, uh, is like this format that we've used
in the past, and it's gonna take 30 seconds and I'm gonna be done with it
and I can move on to the next thing.
So yeah, lots of things like that.
We'll, we'll revisit.
Um, well we got the, the existential, you know, dread part of the conversation
outta the way today at least.
So we can actually get down to the, you know, the bare, the bare bones.
Okay.
All right.
We'll, do we wanna save the, let's save the Terminator shit
for the end of the next one, then
we'll be back.
I takeaways.
I don't, do we have any takeaways?
Don't be scared.
Yeah, I was gonna say like, I think
that's the only one.
Like if you're not, what you don't understand,
you, if you're in the sign industry, and even if you're a designer, you don't
have to run out and start a plumbing business or get a plumbing job just yet.
Um, you know, we got some runway.
But back to my spicy take, this thing is, is getting better at a crazy rate.
So yeah, these predictions may not age well,
but, but I think like it's safe to say, don't, don't sit on this and
don't just write it out and think it's gonna go away because it's, the chances
of that happening are slim to none.
I think at this point, we all have to embrace it or be,
well as soon as Apple releases
the update where like the AI is ubiquitous into the iPhone, where mm-hmm.
You know, like it, it will write a text message to my wife explaining why I
spent too long on the podcast for me.
Like, we will, it, it's not going away at that point.
Yeah.
No.
Mm-hmm.
I, I'm addicted to, I'm not addicted to it.
I'm, I'm just, I can't imagine going through a day without
using it at this point.
It's just, it's become as commonplace in my life as Google.
And, and I think it will continue to do that for everybody as time goes on.
So to be continued, part two coming soon to be
continued.
If you are interested in joining the podcast as a guest, make sure you
hit us up at hey@bettersignshop.com.
Uh, we'd love to have you on, uh, if you're a sign shop owner,
you've got an interesting story.
We'd love to tell interesting stories, uh, aside from just rambling on.
So definitely do that.
We love to do that too.
And make sure that you hop onto the Facebook community, uh, that is just the
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