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Moleskine's AI Lord of the Rings collection can only mock
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- numlocked 6mo agoDoesn’t it seem more plausible that the marketing shots are AI (where the “generated by AI” note appears) rather than the cover designs themselves?
- limbero 6mo agoTurns out it is exactly that, the OP's post has an update from them: > Thank you for your comments. We just wanted to confirm that all Moleskine notebook covers are created by our designers, while AI was used to enhance the background of these images. We hope The Lord of the Rings inspires you!
- securicat 6mo agoYeah I just really don’t see the issue in that (not saying you do or don’t either). If it were me and I were them I would have contracted with artists because it’s only a few images and it would avoid controversy. However I also use image generation tools for fun non-commercial pieces that I never would have done without the tools. Does that make me more creative or less? I’m not sure.
- oneeyedpigeon 6mo agoI've seen people speculate along the lines of "all Moleskine notebook covers are created by our designers" doesn't necessarily mean "without AI".
- buescher 6mo agoThat’s exactly what a clanker would say, isn’t it?
- gilrain 6mo agoThis doesn’t explain the cover (seemingly not used in the final collection) with a hallucinated map on it. Maybe they only used generative art for mockups, but they did use it on a cover design.
- HWR_14 6mo agoDoes it matter? If you are opposed to buying AI art wouldn't you also be opposed to buying art from an AI ad?
- sheiyei 6mo agoNot from principle. Marketing is hateful work and almost necessarily anti-art, so I don't care. Of course you can do it badly (for example, unironically advertise to an artist audience with terrible slop illustrations).
- HWR_14 6mo agoI don't see how replacing a photographer with AI for advertising is considerably different from replacing a photographer of a nature scene with AI. Is it just "AI is okay for commercial uses"? But it seems more extreme when the AI is recreating the art you are considering buying.
- oneeyedpigeon 6mo agoShouldn't it be against some kind of law for marketing shots to not actually be of the product? I know there has to be some leeway, but a hallucinated image is clearly nothing to do with the actual product.
- wincy 6mo agoThese look nice. It seems it’s been confirmed these aren’t AI generated. But want to say even if they were, I’d have no problem with them being AI at all. This is one of those wedge issues that people get all activated about (it felt like the conversation was more nuanced when the models were more of toys and had too many fingers like Stable Diffusion) but to me it feels analogous to someone being mad that someone isn’t being carried via palanquin through the market after the motorized scooter has been invented. Sure, the scooter isn’t quite as maneuverable and you lose a certain majesty, but it’ll get most of the job done in most of the cases. A new tool exists that reduces labor and makes something previously out of reach accessible to everyone. I don’t really care about the unemployed palanquin operators, I just care about achieving my goals. The market will definitely make the decision here and just like photoshop was just too good to pass up, more and more art you interact with is going to be AI generated. The smart artists will just lie about it, because why wouldn’t they?
- LastTrain 6mo ago“The market” isn’t being honest, robbing is of the ability to decide.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- suddenlybananas 6mo agoDo you think art is a simple commodity?
- ModernMech 6mo agoI think that "art" and "graphics on a book meant to sell merchandise to a fanbase" are different things and we have to start making that distinction more clear these days.
- AlecSchueler 6mo agoA big franchise tie-in for mass produced notebooks is definitely on the commodity end of the artistic spectrum.
- wccrawford 6mo ago"There is also this notebook that features a map, which is included in the Instagram post but is nowhere to be found on the website. The map is too blurry to make out properly, but the geography looks inconsistent with other maps of Middle-earth." Absolutely unconscionable. Ads need to be truthful. They can't just make things up that aren't actually in the product. It's literally false advertising. I'm not against AI, but I am against deceiving people. If you can't be bothered to actually check your AI's output, you shouldn't be using it.
- DougBTX 6mo agoHere's the page for the notebooks-with-maps: https://www.moleskine.com/en-us/shop/limited-editions/the-lord-of-the-rings-collection/the-lord-of-the-rings-cahier-journals-multicolour-8056711512921.html https://www.moleskine.com/en-us/shop/limited-editions/the-lo...
- mpalmer 6mo agoClicking the image expands it. Looks like the real thing to me (and easy enough when you've got the rights; to use AI for this would have been idiotic)
- ryandrake 6mo agoThey aren't talking about the products themselves, they are talking about the ad images, such as [1], which yes, appear to be pretty obvious slop. 1: https://i0.wp.com/cjleo.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Moleskine_LordOfTheRings_InstagramPostMap.png https://i0.wp.com/cjleo.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Moles...
- PurpleRamen 6mo ago> Ads need to be truthful. Since when? Ads are full of made up shit. Even the products are often presented in a way where it's obvious that something is not real.
- mingus88 6mo agohttps://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/52#a https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/52#a
- lucy_hnatchuk 6mo ago[dead]
- bcjdjsndon 6mo agoIf you can't even tell it's AI and need to be told... then what's the problem? Personal preference? It's like only enjoying paintings if the artist used horse hair and horse hair alone for their paintbrush.... A very arbitrary constraint
- breezybottom 6mo agoYou really underestimate the LOTR fandom if you think they can't tell that the map is wrong.
- pigpop 6mo agoWhich part of the map is incorrect? It matches the other ones I can find. https://www.moleskine.com/en-us/shop/limited-editions/the-lord-of-the-rings-collection/the-lord-of-the-rings-cahier-journals-multicolour-8056711512921.html https://www.moleskine.com/en-us/shop/limited-editions/the-lo...
- breezybottom 6mo agoThat's not the AI picture. Or at least not the admitted one. Click the OP link.
- pigpop 6mo agoSo just the maps in the background of AI generated ads? The AI generated one that shows a staged notebook seems to have the same map features as the one on the page I linked and that one seemed to match up with the locations shown on other non-AI maps of Middle Earth even though it uses a different drawing style.
- nkrisc 6mo agoBecause the existing cultural understanding of art is that someone took the time to create what you’re experiencing. AI generated “art” subverts that expectation. It feels deceptive. Honestly it reminds of Duchamp’s Fountain and similar works, which some people hated for more or less the same reason. I am not equating AI slop with Marcel Duchamp, however. His work and what he did was very much intentional to evoke the sort of reactions it did.
- iLoveOncall 6mo agoI can't imagine getting such a famous IP as The Lord of the Rings and doing AI slop for it.
- WillAdams 6mo agoGiven that many of the images look to be derived from Wizards of the Coast's Magic: The Gathering Universes Beyond Lord of the Rings set without attribution, I'd expect them to be getting a strongly-worded letter from Hasbro's lawyers any moment now (and for once, I'd support that).
- bb123 6mo agoI don't really have a problem with this - the designs look nice and don't have any of the hallmarks of AI slop. My issue is when the AI generated product is just bad, not merely the fact it was AI generated.
- adhoc_slime 6mo agomoleskine doesn't even make good notebooks anymore. for a premium price you can get a notebook with paper that bleeds with a ballpoint pen. they've spent any goodwill they may've generated at one point or another and now its a dead brand.
- goolz 6mo agoHard agree. There was a time when I really enjoyed these packs of tan, grid moleskins that had covers you could also sketch on. Really convenient. But the pricing was too much. Paying a premium for what is essentially a designer notebook.
- armitron 6mo agoThey never made good notebooks. Compared to German and Japanese notebooks that even cost less, moleskine is terrible.
- dude250711 6mo agoTemu/Etsy notebooks.
- semiquaver 6mo agoI find this post baffling. Would one normally demand angrily to find out whether someone used photoshop when making a product mockup? If not, why is this different? It only makes sense if you’ve made a political decision that anything associated with AI is bad, regardless of whether you would otherwise like it.
- f6v 6mo agoThere're a strong disdain agains any AI among the artists. I've seen these kind of comments many times, like people getting upset someone uses AI-generated profile pic in Discord. I get that they're scared. They should be: it was difficult to make a living for many artists even before AI. The market was already oversaturated and they had to accept low-paying irregular jobs. But now there's literally no light in the end of the tunnel for 99.9% of artists. That being said, boycotting AI use will get them nowhere.
- madamelic 6mo agoSomething I read elsewhere was "if someone is using an AI avatar, they were never going to be your customer anyway". I used to commission avatars every year or two from a specific artist. It wasn't super cheap (hundreds of dollars). At the end of the day though, spending hundreds of dollars, waiting weeks, and then maybe getting 85% of what I wanted doesn't make sense when I could instead spend ~$0, wait 30 seconds, and get 98% of what I want. In my view, artists should be moving up the 'stack'. If they are a commission artist, they should be having customers come to them with their '98% efforts' or only taking on commissions that either mean too much, too elaborate for AI, or otherwise sensitive. Humans want art. Humans love pretty things. AI will never replace the entire need for artists. I see it as getting rid of the bad commissioners (price sensitive, beggars, etc) and making it easier for people to express themselves thereby making an artist's job easier to extract info from their commissioners.
- Ruthalas 6mo agoThis is very foreign to my way of thinking. I commission artists somewhat regularly, and if I had to name the top two reasons, they would be 1) I really like their style, and want a piece in that style 2) I want to support them so they can continue making the art I like. Meeting my checklist of inclusions is important, but definitely secondary to the reasons above. (And sometimes the deviations are reflections of the artist's particular style and therefore welcome.)
- postalcoder 6mo agoIf you do want a good reason to make fun of moleskine and not buy their products, it's because they're all extremely poorly made. I don't have a single moleskine where the pages haven't separated from the cover/spine after a few years.
- vova_hn2 6mo ago> Moleskine have not provided evidence of completely human-made artwork for the covers > but they also have not credited an artist or provided any proof of human creation What kind of "evidence" or "proof" would satisfy the poster?
- semiquaver 6mo agoPitchfork-and-torch-wielders are generally reluctant to put them down, regardless of what their target says.
- futune 6mo agoI always assumed that any output from a generative model would be uncopyrightable. And hence, if a company produced, say, notebooks whose only distinguishing feature was being decorated with a generated image, then anyone else would be within their legal rights to copy it wholesale and put the exact same image on their own notebooks. Therefore, if a company wants to manufacture actual intellectual property, then they need to hire an actual human to produce it. I'd love to hear if anyone knows: a) Is this interpretation accurate in any relevant jurisdictions? b) Has it ever been tested in court?
- lentil_soup 6mo agoI think a lot of people are misunderstanding this. This is not some random tie-in to the LOTR franchise. Moleskine used to be one of the main notebooks for artists for a long time, and as the article mentions some of their notebooks have featured artists in their cover, their manifesto is all about "timeless power of handwriting" and "put pen to paper, and unleash your unique voice", etc. Having a company with that reputation and those connections to the art world just go with some AI slop for this collaboration is a slap to the face to its own users for potentially selling some notebooks to unsuspecting LOTR fans. It's the enshittification of a brand once loved by artists.
- PurpleRamen 6mo ago> Moleskine used to be one of the main notebooks for artists for a long time Isn't that just a story they made up to push their product?
- lentil_soup 6mo agopotentially, you're right, anecdotally many artists I've known and worked with have always liked and sought those notebooks
- analog8374 6mo ago[dead]
- palmotea 6mo agoI think their next product should be a pre-written journal. > Take your AI usage to the next level, with Moleskine! It's not just a thought partner, it's the author of your deepest thoughts! > Imagined by Moleskine, generated with AI.