Bay Area lettering artist Jesscia Hische knew that when she took a freelance gig to design the M logo for Meta’s new AI assistant Muse, it was bound to make some people angry. “AI is such a third rail, and Meta is such a third rail,” she tells me.
Still, as a small business owner who relies on client work to keep her two brick-and-mortar art and stationary shops in Oakland afloat, she says she needed the money. “New Work! (Don’t be mad at me),” Hische wrote in her newsletter last month. “I worked with Meta on an icon and logotype for their latest release: Muse, which just launched! It’s Meta’s foray into the AI agent / personal assistant world. I know folks have big feelings about both AI and Meta, but this has been a really fun project for so many reasons.”
The news quickly went viral on Threads, where dozens of fellow designers criticized Hische for selling out. She responded to the haters by trying to explain the decision:
“For the past year, I pretty much have 2-4 payrolls in my account at any given time, which if you own a small business, you know is pretty precarious,” she wrote. She added that she had also invested $100,000 in Studioworks, an admin platform she runs for creatives, and $30,000 in Drawling, her art shop for kids in Oakland, where she hosts classes and workshops. “I have 4 people on payroll including myself, my mom, and two shop employees,” she added. Nothing she said seemed to help.
“Disgusted,” wrote one user. “It’s not about money, it’s about ethics.”
Another person responded saying, “Doing this job is like doing a hit for the mob, and being surprised later when the mob takes you out too.” Other users posted photos of Hische’s house and speculated about her wealth and finances.
Hische had expected some pushback from the artist community, but the level of vitriol caught her off guard. Even if people didn’t like Meta, she felt the company should be commended for hiring an independent artist rather than using generative AI. But the backlash made it clear just how unpopular generative AI has become in some circles, to the point that working for one in any capacity is seen as a betrayal.
We spoke on the phone last week about the backlash, her design process, and whether she was instructed to not make the Muse logo look like a butthole.