Thirty years ago, in June 1994, Disney released the animated film “The Lion King,” directed by Rob Minkoff and Roger Allers. This film holds a special place in my memory, not only for the enjoyment it provided but also for sparking my early passion for drawing. I clearly remember sketching the image of the lion with its head held high, using colored pencils on a white sheet of paper. This image remains etched in my mind as the starting point of my artistic journey.
While admiring the Renaissance-era printed paintings in a book at home, I found it hard to imagine how I could reproduce those masterpieces with acrylic or oil paints. My artistic journey started with traditional techniques, but quickly evolved into something much more captivating: digital art. At the age of 13, I began exploring drawing on the Paint software, saving my creations on a 1.44 MB floppy disk—an amount that now seems almost laughable, considering that today’s smartphones offer an average of 120 GB of storage in our pockets.
As I developed my skills, I moved beyond the basics and learned to use Corel software around 2005, which at the time was the main tool for professional designers. I created logos, illustrations, and much more. In 2010, I switched to another software called Adobe Illustrator, which had gained global significance for vectorization, becoming the best tool ever seen by professional designers.
However, we now live in an era where Artificial Intelligence (AI) has permeated not only content creation but also photography, video, and animation. What once took days of effort, imagination, and dedication to illustrate can now be generated in seconds just by writing a request on Firefly, Midjourney, etc. This technological revolution has unsettled many of my colleagues and the design community, including myself. But, when I started incorporating AI tools into the marketing company, I saw them not as a threat, but as an opportunity for continuous advancement.
The journey from traditional drawing to embracing digital tools and now AI has been transformative. As technology continues to evolve, the essence of creativity remains unchanged—a constant reminder that the tools we use are powerful only when we have the power of the mind and creativity to utilize them.
Written by: Prof. Shpat Komoni