Community organisations gathered in July for a media skills workshop led by The Indian Sun, with support from the Victorian Government, focusing on design fundamentals, visual storytelling, and how to navigate the growing influence of AI in content creation.
Held as part of a wider training and capacity-building program, the workshop attracted participants from the Multicultural Women’s Alliance Against Family violence, Indian Care, Brothers & Sisters and the Bakhtar Community Organisation, among others, and offered a rare chance to speak openly about the challenges and possibilities of producing community-facing content in a fast-changing media environment.
Led by media professional Saleha Singh, the session started with a practical presentation on visual communication by graphic designer Amy Tanner, who has spent over 15 years working across agency, corporate, and publishing environments.
Amy opened with a simple message: good design isn’t about flair or complexity. “Design is the visual part of communication,” she explained. “It’s not just about logos or pretty flyers, it’s about whether your message lands or gets lost.”
From colour and font choices to spacing and hierarchy, Amy walked the group through the everyday decisions that shape how readers experience a message. Using real-world examples, she showed how the wrong image, cluttered layouts or confusing fonts can quietly damage credibility or alienate an audience.
“There’s a reason your eye starts at the top left and ends at the bottom right of a page,” she said, pointing out how simple shifts in contrast or symmetry can help control what people actually see. She also warned against the temptation to overload a flyer with information. “Less text is usually better. If you need more detail, link out to your website or add a QR code.”
Several participants, including members of Indian Care, said they were now rethinking how they approach design for community newsletters and outreach. “I’d never realised how much fonts and spacing affect readability,” one participant said. “This gave us tools we can use straight away.”
Amy also spoke candidly about the growing role of AI tools like Canva and CoPilot, especially when teams are stretched for time or lack formal design training. “AI can help—if you’re thoughtful about how you use it. But if it starts replacing your judgement, that’s when things go wrong.”
That theme carried over into the second half of the workshop, where Amir Kutub, CEO of Enterprise Monkey, took the floor to explore the ethics and practical risks of using AI in media and daily life. Author of a bestselling book—The CEO Who Mocked AI— on the same subject, Kutub has been working in the AI space for over four years and leads an AI education platform called Dumb Monkey.
Kutub’s presentation covered the rapid rise of generative AI, from chatbots to deepfakes, and how much of this technology is powered by content scraped from the internet—without asking permission from the people who created it. “These tools are trained on everything from your blog post to your podcast,” he said. “And now they’re being used to generate new content that competes with yours.”
He also flagged the growing risk of misinformation, scams, and bias. “AI doesn’t know when it’s wrong,” he said. “It’s trained to give you an answer—even if it’s made up. And depending on who built the model, it will reflect certain cultural, political or gender-based biases.”
Participants raised questions about the safety of using AI in sensitive sectors like mental health, education, and law. Kutub shared an example of an Australian law firm that suffered reputational damage after a lawyer submitted a case built with ChatGPT, only to discover that the legal references had been fabricated. “It’s one thing to use AI to speed up a flyer or tidy up a paragraph,” he said. “It’s another thing to let it decide the facts.”
Still, Kutub emphasised that community groups should learn to work with the tools, not ignore them. “The first people who’ll be replaced by AI are the ones who refuse to engage with it. The goal isn’t to copy-paste—it’s to understand what it can do and what it can’t.”
He showed examples of AI’s growing ability to clone voices, produce fake invoices, and even generate convincing images or videos from just a few keywords. “It’s not about fearing the tech,” he said. “It’s about being awake to how it can affect jobs, trust, and the flow of information.”
Several participants expressed concern about the lack of clear accountability or regulation. Others raised questions about job losses in the media sector and how community voices can remain visible in a world increasingly shaped by AI-generated content.
Kutub’s parting advice? “Learn how it works. Be clear about your purpose. And wherever possible, use your own voice—don’t let the machine speak for you.”
As the session wrapped up, Saleha reminded the group that “shorter is better” in today’s media climate, and that audience attention is increasingly shaped by visuals. “Your flyer is forgotten in two days,” she said. “But if your website is clean, updated, and connected to your content, that’s where people will go.”
For the attendees, the workshop felt like a practical reality check. Neither a celebration of AI, nor a panic session, it offered tools and insight for people who are already doing the work and want to do it better. From font selection to ethical reflection, it was an hour well spent.
The Indian Sun acknowledges the support of the Victorian Government.
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