Kayla Martinez/THE RIDER GRAPHIC
The For The People Alliance, cofounded in November 2025 by Isaac Amani Newman and Diana Laura Morales to provide a voice to the people of the Rio Grande Valley, has recently taken a stand against the influx of AI-generated poster designs used by event organizers, businesses, firms and individuals looking to promote their events and services.
On Aug. 10, FTPA took to Instagram and posted a comprehensive list of various graphic designers for hire in the Valley with the title “YOUR AI FLYER SUCKS,” going on to offer solutions to the observed problem.
Mace B., the multimedia graphic designer responsible for the poster atop the Instagram post, said Newman reached out to her to create the design for this post.
“I really didn’t know then that this poster would resonate with people and, like, it kind of took off,” said Mace.
As of Sept. 3, the post sits just shy of 1,900 likes on Instagram.
“The post that you’ve seen is just phase one of a multi-step plan,” Newman said. “The big picture, something, it’s going to be a really big undertaking.”
The post also highlighted the reasons businesses might opt for AI-generated designs. When asked to elaborate, Mace replied “Obviously [because] it’s cheap, but there’s no feedback fatigue. AI doesn’t have feedback fatigue because it can just keep producing, because it’s a machine.”
Newman’s new project with the FTPA, Mace and other graphic designers aims to nip this issue in the bud by pooling together graphic designers and artists to make them readily available to businesses, whether they are large or small.
“There aren’t really any firms or businesses that are advertising and marketing independent artists,” Newman said. “There’s no practical way to sell independent artists at scale for businesses, or at least no one’s trying to right now … the message that people are selling right now is that AI is fast, cheap and easy.”
With AI generative art on the rise, it has reached not only businesses, but students as well.
“[Small businesses] are finding it as an easier way, not only to not have to pay for all these [flyers], and they can save the money for other things,” Jean Pierre Mellado, a biology sophomore, replied when asked by The Rider. “They can have their ideas right in the moment.”
However, Mellado added that he believes bigger companies should have at least one artist on their teams due to the resources available to them.
Newman said he has plans in motion to replace the convenience of ChatGPT and other generative AI software with FTPA’s own “website or a program or an app, kind of similar to ChatGPT … interface wise” to make it easy for individuals and businesses to request human-made flyers and posters.
The project is in its early stages, with Newman saying he is still gathering artists and designers.
“Basically, [we’ll] just have our own kind of human ChatGPT,” Mace said, expressing her plans to stay involved with the project.
As for the website, Newman expressed that this human ChatGPT, or realpng.us according to Newman, is still in its early phase of development. He observed that artists are hard to reach due to their social media presence being their only marketing strategy, which is why businesses can not find them.
“Seeking them out; that’s the problem, and I hope to be the bridge between that,” Newman said. “If I can be the middleman, then that’s gonna solve a lot of problems.”
He is looking for artists and graphic designers at realpng.us on Instagram.
