Imagination meets algorithm: redefining design practices in the coming AI age

The summer of 2022 marked the advent of accessible text-to-image tools, revolutionizing image rendering with distinctive styles swiftly. This generated a creative shift among designers, generally addressed as ‘prompt design’, although this expression scarcely captures the profound interaction between design and digital tools. This paper elucidates the potential synergy between designers and AI through one pragmatic workshop engaged by university students. Our approach was focused on an exercise to foster a rich imaginative process before the text-to-image creation. The result is a discussion over the relevance of structured imaginative process and the capabilities of generative AI technologies,supporting an enriched dialogic interaction between design and dataset-based imagery: insights on the different conceptual layers between AI and narrative, a discussion for the development of improved narrative & AI tools, and reflections on conceptual aspects of co-creativity in the context of scenario design practice and AI. By positioning AI as a tool for conceptual exploration rather than simple automation, the study offers a novel perspective on the evolving relationship between computational systems and design practice. The structured methodological framework, integrating speculative scenario design and iterative AI interactions, provides a replicable model for studying the practical dimensions of AI-assisted creative processes.