AIGC technology demonstrates great potential in the field of cultural and creative design. This article explores the application of AIGC in the design of cultural products, elucidating its value in enhancing efficiency, expanding creativity, and promoting personalized design. It analyzes the application of AIGC in creative generation, design optimization, and cross-cultural integration, showcasing the various possibilities it offers as intelligent assistance to designers. Through the “Tancheng Cultural Creative Design” and “Sun God Bird Mask Series” cases, it presents the practical application of AIGC in cultural symbol extraction, visual element generation, and product creative design. The article also discusses the challenges faced by AIGC applications, such as the depth of cultural understanding, the protection of creative originality, and ethical issues, and proposes corresponding strategies. Through interdisciplinary collaboration, improved intellectual property protection, and adherence to ethical boundaries, AIGC is expected to become a positive force in inheriting and promoting human civilization, driving the sustainable development of cultural creativity.

1. Overview of AIGC Technology: Development History and Core Principles

Artificial Intelligence Generated Content (AIGC) technology is a significant breakthrough in the field of artificial intelligence in recent years. It enables computers to autonomously generate creative content that is close to human cognition based on vast amounts of data and knowledge through deep learning algorithms. AIGC has shown broad application prospects in areas such as image generation, intelligent writing, and virtual assistants, and the introduction of AIGC technology into cultural and creative design undoubtedly injects new vitality into traditional design.

The origins of AIGC can be traced back to Turing’s vision of intelligent machines, having gone through phases of expert systems and machine learning. The breakthrough in deep learning theory in 2006 was a significant milestone. The proposal of GAN in 2014 provided strong momentum for AIGC. In 2017, the Transformer architecture revolutionized natural language processing. In 2020, GPT-3 showcased the potential of large-scale language models. The launch of ChatGPT at the end of 2022 triggered a global AI boom. In 2023, GPT-4 enhanced multimodal AI capabilities, and open-source large language models like LLaMA promoted the popularity of AIGC. In early 2024, AI achieved breakthrough progress in multiple fields, sparking in-depth discussions on AI safety and ethics.

In the design industry, the application of AIGC, especially AI image technology, has also experienced rapid development. The emergence of GAN in 2014 provided designers with innovative tools. In 2017, models like pix2pix achieved intelligent image transformation. In 2018, StyleGAN made breakthroughs in generating realistic human faces. In 2021, DALL-E demonstrated the ability to generate images based on text. In 2022, Midjourney and Stable Diffusion brought AI image generation tools to the public. In 2023, models like ControlNet improved the controllability of AI creation, and Adobe integrated Firefly AI into design software, marking AI as a mainstream design tool. In early 2024, real-time AI image generation technology opened new avenues for interactive design and game design. AIGC is reshaping design processes and industry ecology, evolving from an auxiliary tool to a creative partner for designers.

The core principle of AIGC lies in constructing deep learning models with hundreds of millions or even billions of parameters, training them with vast amounts of data to master the knowledge, rules, and aesthetics of specific fields, thus enabling them to autonomously generate corresponding content based on input instructions or contexts.

The value of AIGC technology manifests in three aspects. Firstly, it can significantly enhance design efficiency, liberating designers from tedious foundational work and allowing them to focus more on creative planning and solution optimization. Secondly, AIGC can break the constraints of inherent human thinking patterns, stimulating more diverse and novel creative sparks through random combinations and cross-domain transfers, effectively expanding the boundaries of design. Lastly, AIGC can quickly generate personalized design solutions based on different user characteristics and needs, promoting the differentiated and precise development of cultural products.

2. Exploring the Application of AIGC in Cultural Product Design

As AIGC technology continues to develop and mature, its application in cultural product design is becoming increasingly in-depth. From the initial creative divergence to the later rendering presentation, from conceptual design to detail optimization, AIGC permeates almost every aspect of the design process. Designers collaborate with AI, forming a “human-machine collaborative” creative model that stimulates unprecedented creative inspiration and productivity.

(1) AI-Assisted Concept Generation in the Creative Generation Phase The starting point for designing cultural products lies in creative conception, and AIGC technology can serve as a powerful assistant for designers’ brainstorming. Designers can simply input keywords such as cultural themes, design styles, and usage scenarios, and the AIGC model can automatically generate dozens or even hundreds of preliminary creative solutions based on its vast repository of materials and aesthetic rules, covering various dimensions such as hand-drawn sketches, color combinations, and form designs. Although these AI-generated conceptual sketches may not be perfect, they can provide designers with more ideas and inspirations, helping them quickly complete creative divergence and shorten the brainstorming cycle.

It is worth mentioning that AIGC demonstrates a unique advantage in cross-disciplinary integration during creative generation. For example, when we input keywords like “Dunhuang Flying Apsaras + Weaver Girl + Anime Style,” the AIGC model can automatically combine aesthetic elements from different fields to generate imaginative creative images. This random combination and cross-disciplinary collision are precisely beyond human thinking capabilities but may spark unexpected creative ideas. Designers can then select and optimize the content generated by AI to maximize the expansion of creative territory.

(2) AI Intelligent Iteration in the Design Optimization Phase After the creative ideas gradually take shape, design optimization and solution iteration are indispensable parts of cultural product design. In traditional design processes, designers need to spend a lot of time manually drawing product renderings and adjusting design details, making it difficult to improve efficiency. With the help of AIGC technology, designers can achieve rapid iteration and intelligent optimization of design solutions.

Specifically, designers input the initially determined creative solutions into the AIGC model, along with optimization suggestions such as “enhance the technological feel of the product” or “highlight the traditional cultural connotation.” The AIGC model will automatically adjust the original design based on feedback, flexibly modifying details such as material texture, color matching, and form design. For example, the model can change the product’s material from wood to a metallic feel to enhance its technological aspect, or incorporate more traditional cultural symbols into the pattern design to highlight cultural connotations. Such intelligent and targeted optimization of design can significantly improve design efficiency and shorten the cycle of repeated modifications.

At the same time, AIGC can simulate different lighting conditions and usage scenarios, automatically generating high-fidelity product renderings to help designers intuitively assess design effects and quickly identify problems. Designers can then repeatedly adjust and refine details based on the renderings, enabling them to complete in-depth optimization of design solutions in a shorter cycle, accelerating the product launch process.

(3) AI Empowerment for Cultural Fusion Innovation The soul of cultural creative products lies in the in-depth exploration and innovative expression of cultural connotations, and AIGC technology can inject new vitality into this. Currently, AIGC models can deeply learn the cultural symbols and aesthetic characteristics of different regions and ethnicities, autonomously generating creatively designed works that fuse cross-cultural elements through random combinations and transfer learning techniques.

For example, if a designer wants to develop a cultural product that fuses Chinese and Western cultural elements, traditionally, the designer would need to manually collect and organize typical symbols from different cultures and conceive innovative design solutions, which is quite challenging. With AIGC technology, designers can simply input descriptions like “Chinese ink painting + European Baroque style,” and the AIGC model can automatically extract typical elements from its learned vast repository of Eastern and Western artworks, generating dozens of creative images that fuse cross-cultural elements. These images may cleverly combine ink wash landscapes with Baroque patterns or juxtapose expressive peonies with realistic angel sculptures, offering refreshing creative combinations.

The value of AIGC in cultural fusion innovation also lies in the intelligent extraction of cultural symbols. Taking Dunhuang murals as an example, manually extracting typical elements such as flying apsaras, musicians, and lotus flowers requires a lot of time. However, the AIGC model can automatically analyze the composition of murals, quickly extract key elements, and combine them with contemporary design aesthetics to automatically generate a series of culturally rich and cross-disciplinary innovative designs.

Of course, AIGC’s understanding of culture and fusion innovation still cannot reach the depth of cultural scholars. This requires designers to deeply understand the historical origins and internal logic of different cultures when applying AIGC for cross-cultural design, clarifying the boundaries of cultural element usage, and achieving innovative expression while respecting culture. The cultural core of design still needs to be grasped by humans.

In summary, the exploration of AIGC technology in the creative generation, solution optimization, and cross-disciplinary fusion of cultural product design makes human-machine collaboration a new paradigm for design innovation. With the intelligent assistance of AIGC, designers can greatly enhance the efficiency of creative conception and solution iteration, sparking new creative sparks in the fusion of traditional culture and modern aesthetics. In the future, as AIGC’s ability to understand human cognition and cultural connotations continues to improve, its application scenarios in cultural design will become richer, assisting designers in using technology to promote traditional culture and write a new chapter of the era with their creative pens.

3. Case Analysis of AIGC Cultural Product Design

Beyond theoretical discussion, the article will further analyze specific cases such as “Tancheng Cultural Creative” and “Sun God Bird Mask Series” from the perspectives of cultural connotation extraction, creative element generation, and contextual application, examining the application paths and practical insights of AIGC technology in actual cultural product design.

(1) Tancheng Cultural Creative Design Tancheng is an important component of ancient architecture, rich in religious cultural connotations. The primary step in AIGC-assisted Tancheng cultural creative design is to deeply analyze the historical background, structural characteristics, aesthetic styles, and symbolic meanings of Tancheng, forming a systematic cultural semantic repository. Based on this, designers can input keywords such as “architectural details + fantasy elements + cartoon style,” and the AIGC model can automatically generate dozens of concept images, presenting creative solutions that integrate Tancheng’s structure with contemporary aesthetics, inspiring design ideas.

After the creative ideas gradually take shape, AIGC can assist in refining the plan and optimizing the appearance. Designers input the creative sketches into the model and indicate the details that need adjustment, such as “enhance the sci-fi feel” or “increase interactivity.” AIGC analyzes the suggestions and makes targeted optimizations to the plan, such as generating mechanical textures on the surface of Tancheng to enhance the sci-fi feel or hiding buttons in certain structural designs to increase interactivity. Designers can then review and fine-tune the AI-optimized plans to quickly complete the conceptual design.

AIGC can also assist designers in quickly trying out various application scenarios. For example, applying the optimized Tancheng creative concept to desktop ornaments and cultural derivatives, AIGC can automatically generate corresponding product effect images, helping designers intuitively assess product positioning and market response.

(2) Creation of the Sun God Bird Mask Series The Sun God Bird is an important image in ancient Chinese mythology, and designing the Sun God Bird mask series requires an in-depth understanding of its morphological characteristics and cultural connotations. Firstly, designers collect and organize various image materials of the Sun God Bird, such as bronze wares, stone carvings, and paintings, extracting key visual elements such as cloud patterns, flame patterns, and bird forms to input into the AIGC model for learning.

In the creative generation phase, designers provide AIGC with inputs like “Sun God Bird + different regional styles + mask shapes,” and the model can automatically generate creative concepts that integrate different cultural elements, such as Dunhuang-style Sun God Bird masks and African totem-style Sun God Bird masks, expanding design ideas. Designers select the most promising directions from numerous creative proposals and repeatedly collaborate with AIGC to optimize details, pursuing exquisite refinement in the bird form, line texture, and color matching.

Once the product plan is basically shaped, the design team inputs a series of application scenario keywords into AIGC, such as museum cultural products, cosplay props, and children’s theater performances. The model can quickly generate corresponding product visualizations for different usage scenarios, helping to assess the applicability of the design and audience acceptance. For example, for the children’s theater scenario, AIGC could generate more cartoonish, exaggerated, and brightly colored mask designs to highlight playfulness.

(3) Insights from the Cases Through the design case analyses of Tancheng Cultural Creative and the Sun God Bird Mask Series, the value of AIGC technology in cultural product design is evident. Firstly, AIGC injects new inspiration into cultural creative design through a deep understanding of cultural IP and element extraction, helping designers break free from fixed thinking patterns and interpret traditional culture from novel perspectives. Secondly, AIGC can act as an intelligent assistant to designers, providing immediate feedback in creative divergence, solution optimization, and scenario simulation, making the design process more efficient and flexible. Thirdly, AIGC excels at integrating cross-cultural elements, adeptly capturing shifts in contemporary aesthetics, guiding cultural creative products to follow trends while inheriting traditions.

It should be noted that AIGC’s role in cultural design is as a “collaborator” rather than a “substitutor.” On one hand, AIGC still struggles to reach the depth of cultural understanding and artistic taste that human designers possess; on the other hand, many key design decisions, such as positioning judgments and solution selections, still require designer involvement. AIGC’s advantage lies in clearing obstacles and opening up creative ideas for designers, but the quality of design and cultural connotation ultimately depends on the designer’s cultural accumulation and creative drive. In the future, how to achieve the best match between AIGC’s capabilities and human creative thinking will be a long-term exploration topic in the field of cultural design.

4. Challenges and Responses of AIGC in Cultural Design

Despite the revolutionary changes that AIGC brings to cultural creative design, the technology itself is still under development and faces several urgent challenges that need to be addressed.

(1) Enhancing the Depth of Cultural Understanding in AIGC-Generated Content Culture is a highly complex and nuanced entity, with distinct interpretations of art, beliefs, and lifestyles across different cultural circles. For AIGC to play a greater role in cultural design, it must enhance its depth of understanding of different cultures, truly grasping the historical origins and emotional attachments behind cultural symbols. This requires accelerating the application of methods such as knowledge graphs in the cultural field, helping AIGC learn the diversity of human civilization in a more systematic and detailed manner. Additionally, strengthening the cross-disciplinary integration of AIGC models with cultural studies, anthropology, aesthetics, and other humanities and social sciences will help supplement and optimize AIGC’s learning paths from a humanistic perspective. Only in this way can the content generated by AIGC achieve a balance of high and low culture and serve both ancient and modern purposes.

(2) Establishing Copyright Protection Mechanisms for AIGC Creativity As AIGC becomes increasingly involved in the creation of works, issues of copyright ownership and protection have become significant challenges. The originality of AIGC-generated creations is difficult to determine using traditional standards, leading to potential disputes. Furthermore, the vast quantity and rapid dissemination of AIGC works complicate copyright oversight. To address this, collaboration among academia, industry, and research is needed to accelerate the legislative process for intellectual property related to innovative outcomes, explore copyright ownership mechanisms for AIGC-generated works, and streamline channels for rights protection. Additionally, further enhancing the copyright awareness of AIGC practitioners is crucial to foster an industry consensus on respecting others’ intellectual property and protecting one’s own creative rights. Only through a dual approach of institutional and conceptual measures can a favorable ecological environment for the development of the AIGC-driven cultural creative industry be established.

(3) Upholding Ethical Boundaries in AIGC Applications The powerful capabilities of AIGC also bring ethical risks that require ongoing attention. AIGC may amplify existing cultural biases, generating negative stereotypes and discriminatory remarks against certain groups. If misused or abused, AIGC could also produce false information and infringe on personal privacy. Therefore, practitioners need to enhance ethical education regarding AIGC, promoting cultural inclusivity in AIGC research and applications. Continuous improvement of regulatory mechanisms for AIGC applications is necessary to promptly identify and curb unethical behavior that violates public order and morals. AIGC platforms should also establish content review mechanisms to prevent the dissemination of problematic content. In summary, the innovative applications of AIGC must adhere to ethical principles, directing technology towards positive outcomes and fostering the exchange and mutual learning of diverse civilizations rather than creating cultural divides.

5. Conclusion: AIGC Empowering Cultural Creativity, Forging New Heights of Civilization

Overall, the application prospects of AIGC technology in cultural product design are encouraging, as it endows cultural creativity with a new connotation of intelligent engines and cross-disciplinary integration, offering significant opportunities for the innovative expression and industrial transformation of cultural IP. However, AIGC’s grasp of cultural connotations still needs improvement, and its role in creative generation is more of an “inspiration catalyst” rather than a “creative subject.” In the future, as the capabilities of perception intelligence, knowledge computation, and ethical constraints improve, AIGC will participate more extensively and deeply in all aspects of cultural design.

From a broader perspective, the significance of AIGC’s integration with cultural creativity lies not only in enhancing the productivity of cultural products but also in reshaping the ways humans express, inherit, and innovate culture. AIGC allows cultural symbols to engage in dialogue across time and space, reorganizing new cultural connotations and enhancing the continuity and richness of cultural production. Meanwhile, AIGC provides new technological possibilities for the cross-media presentation and all-scenario application of cultural IP, enabling cultural values to reach a wider audience and enhancing the dissemination and impact of civilization.

Of course, the innovative expression of culture has never been the exclusive domain of technology; it is underpinned by the spiritual pursuits and value guidance of generations of cultural creators. AIGC offers richer forms of expression and advanced creative tools, but it is the human agency that shapes the cultural core and leads cultural confidence. Only through human-machine collaboration and complementary advantages can cultural innovation be achieved on the foundation of inheritance, and mutual learning of civilizations be realized through exchange.

Looking ahead, AIGC is expected to blend with more traditional cultural IP and modern technological elements, building a bridge for the mutual understanding of Chinese and foreign civilizations while promoting local cultural confidence. We look forward to the joint progress of AIGC and the cultural creative industry, illuminating new heights of human cultural creation with the light of wisdom, and composing a magnificent new chapter of human civilization through the collision and fusion of diverse cultures.

Yan Jingqun, Deputy Director of the Non-Heritage Inheritors Industry Base of the China Folk Association.

Editor: Zhang Shupeng

Source: Non-Heritage Inheritors Industry Base

The above text and images are sourced from the internet. If there are any disputes regarding the ownership of the text or images, please contact us.