April Fool’s Day used to have a date. Now it has a schedule.

That’s the world we live in. Fabricated photos. Engineered videos. Voices cloned so convincingly you’d swear they belonged to the real person.

Just this week, my wife shared a video advertising senior walkers styled like Volkswagen buses — clever enough to make me smile, and real enough to make me wonder. A quick search confirmed what I suspected: you can’t actually buy one.

For the record, I didn’t steal the image. I asked Copilot to make one for me.

That’s the new reality. The joke is no longer confined to April 1. It’s everywhere, all the time.

And for those of us in design, that should get our attention. When AI can generate an image faster than a sketch can be erased, our old habits of looking carefully become more valuable, not less.

In a world increasingly shaped by digital tools, even the hand sketch has become a sign of “actual thought.”

Over the past two years, I’ve watched the American Residential Design Awards wrestle with the use of AI in a way that says a lot about where our profession is headed. Their response has been both expected and surprising.

More on that in a moment. But first, here are a few vintage April Fool’s jokes from over the years that I’ve applauded.

• 1996: The Taco Liberty Bell – Taco Bell took out full-page ads announcing it had purchased the Liberty Bell and renamed it the “Taco Liberty Bell,” prompting angry calls to the National Park Service before it was revealed as a joke.
• 2008: A giant platform is proposed for the top of the Eiffel Tower – Dezeen was the victim of a “fake news” story when it ran one about Eiffel DNA, a competition-winning proposal by Serero Architects to redesign the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
• 2014: Richard Branson launches plane-shaped skyscraper and moon hotel – A range of unlikely-looking architectural projects, including a hotel on the moon that looked suspiciously like the cover artwork of Mike Oldfield’s 1973 Tubular Bells album — the record that launched Branson’s Virgin label.
• 2014: London’s bread-shaped skyscrapers unveiled – The same day, sensational plans for two London skyscrapers in the shape of slices of bread. Located on either side of the “Cheesegrader” (which is real, actually), they would create a new ensemble known as “the ploughman’s lunch.”

Then there’s my overall favorite, so far:

• 2013: Mourning the loss of Fallingwater – The architectural community was aghast at reports that Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1936 masterpiece had finally done what it always looked like it would do and collapsed into Bear Run Creek.

Full disclosure: that last one was mine. I’m not saying it was the best, but it made a few Monday Minute readers very upset for a few minutes.

And that’s where things get interesting.

Because what I’ve seen over the past two years with the ARDA program is a little bit like April Fool’s Day in reverse. If AI-enhanced images are not disclosed, judges tend to accept them unless something in the picture raises questions. But when AI use is disclosed openly, the reaction is often much colder — sometimes an outright rejection of the project.

Granted, the ARDA committees have always worked hard to introduce a different jury each year. Whenever possible, it’s one builder, one architect or interior designer, and one building designer, meaning that an entry that didn't win an award last year might be successful this year.

For the past decade, our profession has relied on digital tools to enhance photos. Sometimes that means the grass is a little too green. In other cases, it looks as though landscaping was digitally planted after the photographer left the scene. The difference today is that AI software can now remove or invent details with far more speed and power than a traditional touch-up ever could.

Staging the rooms can be a viable option, especially if the house is photographed while empty. While it’s the design that’s being judged, the judges are only human, and it’s natural to prefer seeing a space in use.

I’ve also noticed jurors questioning the practicality of certain design choices in photos. For example, one jury pointed out a nightstand placed a few inches in front of an outswinging closet door, raising questions about its functionality.

In another case, a carport lacked a clear connection to the street, with landscaping forming an unbroken line along the front of the property. And yet the entries were recognized with an ARDA trophy.

Kind of like this image, where, if you look closely, the walkways don't quite line up with the front doors.

Very often, only images are submitted for judging. If there’s any way possible, I strongly suggest including floor plans, especially if it’s a remodel or addition. "Before" pictures, too, seem to be well appreciated.

Once, only images were submitted, and the judges looked at them closely. They appeared to be photographs, but the final decision was that they were AI-generated. The project was rejected largely because there was nothing beyond the images to show that the design was viable. Without a floor plan or other supporting context, the judges simply didn’t trust what they were seeing.

The next year, the same entrant included a floor plan and the same images. This time, with context, the AI images were accepted as renderings, and the project won an ARDA in the unbuilt category.

As a designer, it’s a very fine line you’re asked to walk.

So the issue isn’t whether an image has been touched. Designers and photographers have been touching images for years. The real question is whether the final submission still tells the truth about the project.

And that brings us to the practical part: what this means for designers.

Use enhancement to clarify, not to disguise. If you correct color, balance exposure, straighten verticals, or remove a temporary distraction, you’re helping the work read more clearly. But if you’re altering the image so much that it no longer reflects the project as built or as designed, you’ve moved from presentation into persuasion.

For award entries, include enough context to let the jury judge the design fairly. That may mean floor plans, before photos, site images, or a brief note explaining what was changed in post-production.

For portfolios, the same rule applies. Clients, editors, and future collaborators are not just looking for attractive images — they’re looking for proof that you can think, design, and execute with integrity.

Which reminds me of an article I read a few weeks ago: “The architectural sketch is back.” In a world increasingly dominated by AI, hand sketching is now seen as a sign of “actual thought.”

When you help the viewer understand the work, the strongest submissions and portfolios are not the ones that look the most perfect. They’re the ones that are clear, credible, and confident enough to let the work speak for itself.

Maybe that’s the real lesson of April Fool’s in the age of AI: the image matters, but it is not enough.

Designers now have to supply the context, the caption, the floor plan, the before photo, and the plainspoken honesty that says, “Here’s what was done, and here’s how we got there.”

If you’re interested in putting these skills to the test, join me in entering the 2026 American Residential Design Awards.

Feel free to use the link in my signature to set up a brief conversation about tips, lessons learned, successes, and failures. My goal is to help you put your best work forward, because ARDA is a recognition program, not a competition.

Registration is open, and the submission deadline is June 8. Plenty of time. Right?