I guess that depends on the context in which you ask the question. For the context I’ll be discussing will be related to art.
In this digital age we live in now, there is always some new program or app (shoutout to ExamRoom Live) that is designed to make something much easier to accomplish. While even I welcome most of these new advancements, there are times when I get frustrated at just how easy technology has made it for the new generation coming up.
I remember when I was in art school and I handed in my painting assignment and my instructor called me out and lowered my grade because she could tell I used one color out of the tube. Which means I didn’t mix together my own color only using the primary colors. I would’ve gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for…. all these awesome color options to choose from! While to this day I try to follow that rule when it comes to painting, I have learned that maybe it’s okay to take advantage of the progress we made in the art world.
But fast forward to today, do we really even need to do an illustration the old fashioned way? Whip out the ol’ T-Square and draw out your perspective lines or draw from a live model. The way we’re going, all you’ll need to do is come up with any idea you can think of and type it into your computer and it’ll do it for you! The inspiration for this rant is seeing what the AI system “Dall-E 2” is capable of creating with just a few phrases. I can appreciate these tools that help make an artists’ life easier or reduce the amount of time it takes to complete a piece, but I do fear what this could mean for old school artists like myself. Is this like when Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story yelled, “Years of academy training wasted!”
Could I be looking at all this the wrong way? Are these just new tools to help push an artists’ imagination and elevate their artwork to the next level? There is no right or wrong answer I believe, I can only hope the old school way doesn’t get run off the road entirely by all these advancements. For example, remember when movie posters were iconic instead of the generic photoshopped blue and orange color scheme with floating heads stacked on top of each other that every movie seems to have today. At the end of the day the whole point of all of it is to work smarter, not harder. On the flip side, let’s just not get lazy either.
I don’t think I’ll ever fully embrace all of these advancements when it comes to art, but I am trying to adapt somewhat. Working on ExamRoom Live has made me reflect on my opinions stated above and I think I’ve come to a conclusion to the question asked, “Is it still cool to be old school?” Yes, but at the same time, the majority of people don’t care how it’s done as long as it appeals to them. However you choose to create, just make sure you enjoy the process. Sorry for the whole, “ back in my day…” rant.