Yehang Yin The advancements in Generative AI for creating videos and interactive worlds are making the concept of living in an AI-rendered reality appears increasingly plausible. If, one day, everything we see in the digital world is rendered by AI, will this also apply to text? In this presentation, we envision a future where we do not even need fonts, a world where all text is AI-rendered.
To reveal this possibility, we will demonstrate a generative tool named “UType” for Chinese logotypes and letterings. This tool, which generates letterings in real time based on user input and style descriptions, offers an alternative to the conventional display fonts now used by the creative industry. It provides infinite style variations with a more reasonable usage-based pricing model, compared to expensive CJK fonts, for which, the users have to afford the cost of designing thousands of glyphs.
However, all generative AI tools, including UType, depend heavily on vast amounts of training data. This reliance on existing datasets raises ethical considerations and copyright concerns. In this presentation, we will thoroughly examine these issues, addressing the potential misuse of copyrighted materials. We will also share our efforts to resolve the copyright challenges, ensuring the generated content adheres to the ethical standards of the type design community.
Considering our vision that digital fonts as a product may eventually disappear, let us imagine the potential future roles that future type designers may become. In a possible world that AI enables everyone to write letters beautifully, will type designers become obsolete, or will they evolve into entirely new careers?