Design For Change feat. Ken Day-Night

As part of our series ‘Design for Change’ we caught up with Ken Day-Night, Founder & AI Creator at Create Studio AI.

This blog explores how AI is transforming creative workflows, featuring insights from a design leader who’s helping creators and small businesses harness emerging tools to scale storytelling, boost experimentation, and redefine the future of design.

Tell us a bit about yourself, your role, and the kind of work your team focuses on.

I’ve spent most of my career in the creative industries. Starting in architectural visualisation, where I worked on high-profile developments, translating complex designs into compelling visual narratives. More recently, I’ve shifted into the world of AI, exploring how creative professionals can leverage technology to scale storytelling and content creation. My focus now is helping creators, entrepreneurs, and small businesses use AI to produce high-quality visuals, video, and copy without the need for huge teams or resources.

How is AI currently impacting your team or design process? Have you introduced any tools, strategies or policies that have made a real difference?

AI has reshaped how we approach almost every stage of the creative process. Where we used to spend hours on concepting, drafting, or rendering, AI now accelerates these steps, giving us more time to focus on strategy and refinement. We regularly use tools for image generation, video editing, voiceovers, and automated copywriting. One strategy that’s worked well is thinking of AI as a rapid prototyping partner, producing fast iterations so we can explore more creative directions before locking in decisions. It’s improved speed, quality, and creative experimentation across the board.

What challenges and opportunities have you encountered as a design leader adapting to AI?

The biggest challenge is rethinking how we value creativity. It’s easy to fall into the trap of using AI to churn out generic work, but the real opportunity is using it to push creativity further. Generating more ideas, testing more directions, and reducing repetitive tasks. AI has made it possible to work leaner without sacrificing quality, which is a huge advantage in today’s fast-moving creative landscape. The key challenge remains balance: ensuring that AI enhances creative thinking, rather than replacing it.

Has AI influenced how you hire or what you look for in designers? Are there new skills, behaviours or ways of thinking you now prioritise?

Definitely. I look for curiosity over credentials. People who are willing to explore new tools, adapt quickly, and experiment fearlessly stand out. Traditional technical skills are still valuable, but mindset is becoming more important, especially comfort with ambiguity and an ability to guide AI tools toward creative goals. Prompting skills, a good design eye, and the ability to judge and refine AI output are crucial now. Essentially, creative thinking remains the superpower, but it’s paired with the ability to harness and direct AI effectively.

Are there any resources, communities, or trends you’re finding useful or keeping an eye on?

I’m always following the fast-moving creator economy, especially where it intersects with AI. Communities around Midjourney, Veo, Flux, and grassroots indie creators on X (Twitter) and even LinkedIn, are constant sources of fresh ideas and use cases. I’m particularly interested in multi-modal AI, where visuals, audio, and text are seamlessly integrated, causing an explosion of short-form content. It’s clear that AI is lowering the barriers for creators, making high-quality content achievable for almost anyone.

What’s one piece of advice you’d offer to other design leaders navigating AI right now?

Experiment without fear. AI is moving so fast that the only way to stay relevant is to engage with it directly. Test tools, run projects, and see what works for you. Don’t wait for the perfect tool or workflow; the learning happens through use. But at the same time, keep your creative judgement sharp. The value you bring is in taste (knowing what’s good), what’s impactful, and how to guide AI to help achieve that.

Is there another shift – technological or otherwise – that’s had a lasting impact on your approach to design?

Beyond AI creativity, the rise of no-code platforms has been game-changing. It’s given creative professionals the ability to launch products, build websites, and test business ideas without relying on developers. That shift from being solely a designer to becoming a creator or entrepreneur, has changed how I see design itself. It’s no longer just about visuals, but about using design thinking to solve problems end-to-end, from concept to execution, with AI and no-code unlocking speed and scale like never before.