What is AI?
First off let’s just clarify what we mean when we talk about AI in this particular context – we are not discussing some super artificial intelligence, that AI currently being deployed anywhere and everywhere are language learning models (LLM’s) and they work by feeding off human-made data they access from the web. Nothing is sacred, they crawl the web, scraping data whenever they come across it. They are basically prediction machines, completing a sequence with the most likely answer – learn more here: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-ai-works/

So the AI we commonly see being integrated into offices and workplaces is basically a pattern recognition tool, whether that be a piece of music, a video clip, writing or an image – the user inputs a prompt and the AI gives its best/most likely answer. As the technology improves so does the output and it’s definitely getting harder to spot the difference between human-made and AI. But how does this impact creativity? Proponents for the technology say it allows them to be creative by being able to bring their ideas to life. I would argue that has always been the case – just pick up a pencil and draw, an instrument and play or a pen and write- what’s stopping you? The problem is that we want everything at the touch of a button, people don’t want to wait and learn or spend money on employees when they can get a machine to do the job in half the time.

What Can Generative AI Help With?

• Struggling for ideas for new content? LLM’s can give you fresh ideas to help when you’ve got writers block. Remember, it’s all about the ‘prompt’ – be as clear as possible with your wording to gain optimum results!
• Need some design inspiration? AI can help users explore different ideas when trying to come up with a concept or design – take care that the outputs are not infringing on any trademarks or copyright.
• Utilise AI as more of a tool to help enhance our thinking, rather than using to as an alternative to actual human creativity.
• Speed up mundane tasks that would take a person a large amount of time to complete – typical case uses include 3D Visualisers who need to make changes to scenes and environments but don’t have the time needed to complete the tasks by themselves. "I wouldn't have been able to complete this task on time without the help of AI…clients put unrealistic timescales on jobs because they think AI can speed EVERYTHING up.”

Why You Should Use Caution When using AI
Your customers have chosen your brand because they have forged a relationship built on trust – when you start to use generative AI to write content and create images you are risking breaking that trust if you are not diligent. It’s imperative that you carefully proof all content before you post it – the software you use produces images and text derived from a massive pool from the web and even if you feed it your own data there is still a risk it will mislead or hallucinate. We see badly thought out content rushed out all the time, often as a result of using generative AI l – this Christmas ad recently made the news : https://archive.ph/USngO

Copyright issues aside (well, the big tech companies seem to think they don’t apply to them anyway) there are other issues that arise when we use AI for creating imagery, text and music. Is it really creative to type a prompt into a machine for it to spit out an image or piece of music which is basically just a bit of a rehash of preexisting works that the AI has been trained on? Personally, I don’t think so, although I know many people who find LLM’s really helpful at drafting pieces of writing or coming up with ideas for art and design. On hearing that people are using AI to write emails or letters I was pretty baffled – is it really that hard to write a sincere email or letter? I understand that life is hectic and that we are constantly looking for ways to save time, especially on mundane tasks.

The thing is, for most creatives, their jobs are far from mundane and AI is solving a problem that was never there. In the past we dreamed of a future where robots would do the boring stuff like cleaning or ironing, or the less popular jobs like refuse collection. We were promised a utopia where we could live out our lives creating art and music but it seems the opposite is being shoved down our throats. Instead of fostering a lifelong love of learning and creating we are watching as the world becomes reliant on technology to do the thinking and creating for us. We are getting to a point where homework is being completed by AI and university degrees are accomplished because of ChatGPT – a dumbing down of the population. That sounds pretty scary to me!

Written by Louise Lockhart Digital Sorceress & Global Head of Crayons at Creative Remedy.

If you’ve spent time coming up with a name and creating a logo for your business the last thing you want is for another business to start trading with a similar name and logo. There are laws in place (the common law trade mark) giving you some protection from this but without an officially protected trade mark your rights are not as secure as they could be. You might have put off registering your logo because it seems like too much hassle but in this blog we are going to show why it’s worth the time to protect your brand.

What is a trade mark?
In basic terms a trade mark is any intellectual property that can be used to distinguish your business or services from another (logo, name, song, sound shape etc). You can use your name in a trade mark, for example if you offer a specific service such as a photographer, ie Annie Smith Photography but there would be nothing to stop someone with the same name registering a trade mark as Annie Smith as long as visually it is significantly different.
 
Registering your logo adds value
Registering your logo as a trade mark is a valuable asset to your business and allows you to sell, franchise or licence it. If your end goal is to ultimately build a sellable business then having the trade mark registered is vital. It shows the buyer you have carried out every step possible to protect your brand.
 
Differentiate your business from your competitors and protects your brand
Your brand and logo are what helps build customer loyalty and confidence and having a registered trade mark helps prevent other businesses from imitating your brand or logo. By registering your trade mark you are ensuring you are legally entitled to take legal action against anyone who tries to replicate your brand.
 
Exclusivity
Registering your trade mark will give you exclusive rights to use your trade mark in the territory it is registered (eg UK, USA etc). Don’t forget to renew your registration when the time comes though (10 years in the UK).
 
Cost
HMRC have a detailed breakdown of costs associated with applying to register your trade mark, starting from £170 for online application. Creative Remedy will do all the hard work for you with costs starting from 3 hours, this is to carry out the necessary research, complete the registration and liaise with you tthe client and HMRC if required.
 
At Creative Remedy we will work with you to ensure your brand logo meets the requirements for trade mark registration before helping you start the registration process. Once the trade mark is registered your brand is protected for 10 years before you need to renew.
 
Do you have a brand, product or service  logo that you need to register as a trade mark? Contact us for help and advice and we can help you protect your brand.