AI-generated images

As a multi-artform festival, Bradford Literature Festival is absolutely committed to supporting creative careers – a founding principle of the festival – and the rights of creatives. We regret that the creation of some images used in our recent brand refresh does not align with these commitments. 

BLF is a not-for-profit Community Interest Company that routinely commissions and employs hundreds of artists every year, including illustrators and digital artists, and pays the market rate for all services. Since 2014, we have both commissioned and brought new works of art to audiences through our festival, community, and education programmes, and we are committed to doing so going forward. 

For 2023, we retained a small, local commercial design agency to create this year’s promotional campaign as part of an update of the BLF brand. We did not explicitly commission the illustrations or the use of AI, but neither did we explicitly exclude them from our brief. With hindsight, the agency should have been more explicit about the use of AI tools, and we should have fully interrogated their process. Going forward, we will ensure our processes are more robust and that we explicitly exclude the commissioning of AI-generated images from the outset.

The design agency, who employ three people plus local freelancers, were paid the market rate for their work. The agency was asked to bring our strapline ‘explore words discover worlds’ to life and they used tools, including AI source material, that they use regularly in their work.  

Since the issues were brought to our attention, we have stopped using images with AI elements across our platforms and these images have been replaced with licensed stock images amended by an in-house designer.

This conversation has taken place after we have started to distribute digital and printed promotional assets for 2023, the festival begins in 6 weeks. However, we will not be able to replace the AI generated images in materials that have already gone to print. 

The rise of AI is undoubtedly creating seismic changes across industries, and the debate about its proper use will continue for years to come. It is an important and evolving conversation for our society and all creative industries. For these reasons, we have events at the 2023 festival exploring this topic and are in the process of inviting illustrators, creatives and organisations to take part in this conversation.

We have been, and always will be, staunch defenders of the creative industries. We are reviewing our processes and the way we work with partners to ensure this does not happen again. 

We commit to not commissioning AI-generated imagery and to continuing to retain and pay fair rates to illustrators and other artists. 

There was never any intention to cause any harm; we thank those who have spoken up and apologise sincerely for the hurt this has caused. 

We would like to emphasise our appreciation of the incredible skill and creativity of illustrators, and hope creatives from across sectors will join us as we explore this new territory together through open dialogue and continued learning. We remain committed to continuing to listen to the thriving creative community that we are proud to be part of. We welcome the opportunity to continue discussing this topic and are currently considering more opportunities to do so in light of the ongoing conversation.

For further information please contact [email protected]