5 steps to generate consistent brand images with Midjourney

It all comes down to having a very tight and manicured process, which thankfully I have spent my 10 gajillion hours in mid Journey and an banana and everything to figure out exactly what that is so you're not pulling your hair out

prompting all day.

>> One of the things I like about the mood board is it's a visual language to explain to midjourney what you're trying to do. The picture is worth a thousand

to do. The picture is worth a thousand words. Like literally a picture to an

words. Like literally a picture to an LLM is worth a thousand words.

mentioning like Vogue or high fashion or even like a different artist name is a great way to tell the model a ton of stuff without actually having to tell a ton of stuff.

>> In the past, brand and creative directors or agencies will give you these photos and be like, cool, call us and reup when you want more photos. What

I love is that you're like, look, you're going to value me for all this upfront work that I'm going to do to find the space, give you these codes, really give you reference images, and then now you can go do this for yourself. It's just

like a very different model of providing service and I think it creates a really positive collaboration between the client and the creative director.

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Jamie, thanks for joining How I AI. I am

having you on the show for a very selfish reason, which is I think I'm the only pink AI brand in all of SAS. And

when I saw your work, I was like, "Oh my god, I need this lady to teach me how to create brand imagery that is beautiful and fun and girly and whatever magic she

has, I need." So, talk to me about how we can get amazing images like what you're showing us right now. I think

consistently is is the most important part because I can get a one-off image that's this great, but I can't get this brand portfolio. So, you got to tell me

brand portfolio. So, you got to tell me your sorcery.

>> Yeah. I mean, it all comes down to like unfortunately having a very tight and manicured process. Um, which thankfully

manicured process. Um, which thankfully I have spent my 10 gajillion hours in mid journey and banana and everything to figure out exactly what that is so you're not pulling your hair out

prompting all day and yeah, I would I would love to show you. Great. So, where

do we where do we start when you teach people how to do this? You know, where what's what's step one? So, first thing that I always do is I'm going to start

in either Pinterest or Cosmos. And I'm

going to create a mood board that is the general vibe of what I want. So, for

this exercise, I wanted to have like a very pink and cute but still kind of like not super girly, very internet kind of coded aesthetic. Um, I like

especially with AI doing like juxiposition. I think that's really fun.

juxiposition. I think that's really fun.

So, we have like an orange with piercing. We have like a fluorescent

piercing. We have like a fluorescent fruit dog on a computer. Things where

they shouldn't be. We have like a grungy unicorn. Um, so this is like a really

unicorn. Um, so this is like a really cool aesthetic to start with. And I

typically start, there's two ways that I usually start. I will either go in with

usually start. I will either go in with a mood board in MidJourney. And you can basically just copy and paste your images in or you can start by adding

them as SRFs as you can see here. So

estrs basically are style references and they kind of do exactly what they sound like. It just tells Midourney to take

like. It just tells Midourney to take the overall style and coloring and camera treatment and vibe if you will

and it like tells it to apply that. Now,

one of the first prompts that I tried to create this aesthetic is I use that mood board that you saw that I made. And in

this part of my process, in the create part of my process, I'm just trying to get information. I'm trying to figure

get information. I'm trying to figure out like what what are the images telling AI? What is my prompting telling

telling AI? What is my prompting telling AI? What's the mood board telling AI?

AI? What's the mood board telling AI?

And I just want to generate very fast.

So, I'm not very precious when I'm doing these prompts. Like right here, I just

these prompts. Like right here, I just have beautiful female model. I have

astronaut. You can see I'm using that mood board here. But if we remember like the original mood board and those final images that you guys have a sneak peek of, we can see that we're like very far

off from where we want to be. And I

think where a lot of people that are starting to use AI get kind of tripped up is like if you've ever just like raw dogged generated something in like mid Journey or trackt like this might be

like great to you and like some of these images stand alone are really cool to me but if we're working for like a client or we're trying to be consistent with the brand style we need to be like really really honest with ourselves on

like does this actually look like that vibe and truthfully it does not. So, I

think that there's going to be a better approach to get things going.

>> One thing I want to call out, if you could go go back, is I think one of the things people lack when they're working with more of these truly creative generative AI tools is they lack

language. And so, one of the things I

language. And so, one of the things I like about the mood board is it's a visual language to explain to MidJourney what you're trying to do. What I like about the style references, which we've

done a couple episodes um that have referenced style style references in in terms of midjourney. We've done one with Zach um the creative and design lead at Gamma. We've done one where we were

Gamma. We've done one where we were looking at style rest for more photography styles. So these are just l

photography styles. So these are just l alternative languages to tell midjourney or another tool something specific about a visual aesthetic which I feel like a

lot of people just aren't trained if you're not trained as a designer if you're not trained as a photographer you don't have and so I love this a picture is worth a thousand words like literally

a picture to an LLM is worth a thousand words. Uh, the other thing that I want

words. Uh, the other thing that I want to do, if you go to your mood board versus what was generated, one of the things I want to call out about this where you're comparing the mood board to

the images is somebody who has been a designer and has been around photographers, I bet you can see this and say, okay, like the saturation and the contrast on these photos is not as

high as they are in the generated images. um there's this like washed out

images. um there's this like washed out vibe on some of the photography on the generated images. And so one of the

generated images. And so one of the tricks that I wonder if people um might think about is you could actually upload this to like a like a chat or claude and

you could say explain to me why the photos don't match the mood board. And

so uh you know you are probably an expert at this and have language to figure out why it doesn't match. But if

for folks that are trying to teach themselves language, that's just one trick I think is really useful is throw this in and say, "Hey, chat GBT, explain to me why these top four images aren't in the same style as the bottom." And

that can sort of give you a seed seed to start. I try and avoid prompting at all

start. I try and avoid prompting at all costs in my process. But um like for this example, we're going to go like super super simple with like using and mood boards. But yeah, if I'm in one of

mood boards. But yeah, if I'm in one of these like I'm doing some insane editorial work for clients, it needs to be consistent across like a hundred images and like foolproof to like a

consumer eye. That's when like getting

consumer eye. That's when like getting really into the details, especially with models like [clears throat] Nano Banana can be super helpful.

>> Great. Okay, so this doesn't match. What

do we do? Basically, what I kind of gleaned from this is like the mood board is not doing its job. It's not

communicating uh the vibe properly. Um

this is something that happens a lot with midjourney mood boards. There's not

a ton of like documentation from midjourney on exactly how it works. But

as creatives, you can tell like the more kind of consistent a mood board is.

Let's say it's like five images of like fuzzy 3D cats, you're more likely to get an image of like a fuzzy whatever you prompt. Um, when we're doing more

prompt. Um, when we're doing more generalized vibe stuff like this, Midourney can tend to average things out with the mood board. And I find that using SRFS as the mood board instead

essentially can give much better results. So, this was sort of the next

results. So, this was sort of the next step in my process. I wanted to try the SEFS and see if that made it better. And

you can tell we're definitely getting better contrast. We're getting a little

better contrast. We're getting a little bit more kind of aesthetic and edgy. a

little bit more of that like 2025 aesthetic that we want, but it's pulling really really green for me. Um, so what I ended up doing is I just removed that

green eye sruff. Um, this is something that comes with intuition. You know,

I've been using majour for like 3 years, so I kind of can like understand like where I don't know, it feels like sorcery to me, but I can understand like where the LLM is pulling certain things.

And I knew that if I removed this green, it would solve a lot of my problems. Um, so I did. And as you can see, we're starting to get a little bit more neutral in tone. We're also like a

little bit more zoomed out, too, especially with like the people photos.

So now I know I am on the right direction. Can I ask a question real

direction. Can I ask a question real quick? When you say I'm using the SRFs,

quick? When you say I'm using the SRFs, where are you getting those from your mood board or how do you actually deciding what the SREFs are? just for

people who are less familiar with Midjourney. I'm just using literally the

Midjourney. I'm just using literally the ones that were on that original Pinterest mood board. So, you can just copy and paste that image and put it in

there and then as you copy and paste things in, it'll like save in a library for you like forever. So, if I wanted to bring that green one back in to keep trying stuff, it's like already there

for me. Got it. So instead of the SRF

for me. Got it. So instead of the SRF codes that a lot of people and we've talked about in the past, you're using literally the UI to just drag in images as style references and that for you

sometimes gets you better results than just using the general mood board process.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> Cool.

>> And then I have one more question which is do you have some goto like test prompts? Like I love the astronaut as a

prompts? Like I love the astronaut as a prompt um because there's a lot of ways you could generate an astronaut. Do you

have some like go-tos that you run through when you're doing a mood board or does it really depend on your client and what you're working on?

>> Yeah, I would say I love doing like ethereal female model for some reason. I

do like I do that a lot.

>> Yeah, this is like a crazy silver one that I was doing. It tends to just like give sort of like a a more elevated vibe than just regular model. I think I do cats a lot because there's just a lot of

like texture to work with.

>> The other thing I would say is that there's probably a lot of training data of cat pictures on [laughter] the internet. So, Midney could probably do a

internet. So, Midney could probably do a pretty good job with a cat.

>> Yeah. Running to I feel like I do that a lot. Oh god, this is like my first

lot. Oh god, this is like my first generation. Isn't that crazy?

generation. Isn't that crazy?

>> Um scrolled all the way down there. But

uh yeah, I'll do running a lot or like runner. Yeah. Anything with like

runner. Yeah. Anything with like astronaut's fun too. Anything that's

like specific enough to kind of like give you the vibe. I'd say like vibe that's like kind of nonsense >> broad enough that those different styles

kind of apply. Okay. So, so you've used these style references. You're getting a little closer. What's the next step?

little closer. What's the next step?

>> Yeah. So, I consider this part of my like create step. And again, the goal is just to like get some like information.

Take like this should take like 10 or 15 minutes to start the create process. And

then what I'm going to do next is I'm going to move on to iterating. And

that's where we're going to start like getting a little bit more specific with our process, maybe slightly more technical, and then starting to combine more styles to get like your own unique

style and get better consistency. Um, so

what I'm going to do particularly in this process is I'm going to start to bring in some personalization codes and other mood boards. So what ended up helping me get these results is um my personalization code that I call late

2025 aesthetic. Um, now personalization

2025 aesthetic. Um, now personalization codes, again, it's kind of like a little bit of a mystery how it works exactly under the hood, but when you're creating a personalization code, Mag is going to put you through this like endless flop

matrix of images that you're either going to vote one or two or skip. Um,

and basically it you're just telling it what you like. And you can have like as many profiles as you want. So for like this profile in particular, I was trying to think I was trying to rate images

that were of a 2025 aesthetic. So like

more iPhone style. And we can see here like >> you'd pick that one.

>> Yeah. Or I I skip a lot. Um that's

another thing when I'm giving like advice to people on personalization codes is like there's a lot out there on you know like Mr. says like don't skip that much but some people are like skip as much as possible. Some people like

skip a medium amount. I tend to skip like a medium amount and only pick things that I would like if I generated it. Um but I do find there's kind of

it. Um but I do find there's kind of like style bleeding. So, for example, let's say I like like the quality and the colors of this image. If I like a bunch of images that look like this, I might get a heavily influenced style

that like wants to be painted >> or wants to be like this like vintage or renaissance, whatever aesthetic.

>> So, that's something to consider as you're going through this. One thing I want to call out for folks um that is a little bit of a side of this this particular flow, which is when you're

building an AI tool yourself, I have I have not seen this like this or that personalization flow in a lot of AI tools. And I think it's such a good way

tools. And I think it's such a good way to like fine-tune whatever you're going to provide to your end user. And so a lot of times we get these like end AB

tests and like a Chad GBT prompt, but this is so interesting to kind of put this up front and say, "Okay, let's spend five minutes telling me what you like. Then

like. Then we can be more confident that when you have downstream experience in my in my AI tool, it's going to look great."

Okay. And you can create as many I've never again I have not used mood boards or personalized. I'm just like yolo up

or personalized. I'm just like yolo up in the >> in the main chat. So and you can create as many of these as you want >> um to to use. Cool. Yeah, unfortunately

you can't like go in and like edit them the same way that you can with mood boards, which is why you got to be good at like naming and trying to understand like what you were doing six months ago when you spent two hours ranking images.

Um, but I have my own crazy system.

That's just a quick brief on like what personation codes are. So, what I started to do, let me go back to these like other images. I I just felt like these could use more of my own style and

I felt that they were a little bit overstylized. Like I do enjoy the pink,

overstylized. Like I do enjoy the pink, but I was curious to see if like maybe we can get some like other influences in there. So by adding my personalization

there. So by adding my personalization code, I was able to just get like more of a depth, I would say. Also, because I wanted it to be like very crisp and like

modern, you know, um you start to see like better skin.

>> That one to me looks like very a good match for some of your earlier ones.

That one's the one that stands out to me.

>> I mean, it's kind of it's it's nuanced, but I'm liking where this is going now.

>> Well done. And side note, it's just you and me and little astronauts in the middle.

>> Yeah.

Yeah.

So you are combining some of your style refs and this like personalization model on top of each other. You're

getting way closer to what you want in terms of iteration.

>> So how do we take this to the next step?

>> Yeah. So I want to show you guys some like of the other midjourney techniques and ways um again to like start prompting and kind of like upping the ante on like what we're making. So as

you can see here, these prompts are no longer just like woman or astronaut. are

actually starting to give some like aesthetic thought. So, one prompt, I

aesthetic thought. So, one prompt, I actually found this on like the explore page a couple weeks ago. Um, but it's days editorial photo shoot. So, days is like this really hip magazine if you're not familiar. So, doing stuff like that,

not familiar. So, doing stuff like that, like mentioning like Vogue or high fashion or even like a different artist name is again a great way kind of in the same line of like a picture is worth a

thousand words to tell the model a ton of stuff without actually having to tell a ton of stuff. So with like a day's editorial is like a really famous like ASAP rocky cover. Um it's like super

gritty, high contrast, all these words that like are really hard to find even if you are like a professional photographer. But when you just say days

photographer. But when you just say days editorial depending on how like famous the publication is mid is going to know what you're talking about or you know uh Vogue especially it's going to know kind

of like the level of the highlights and okay we're going to be doing fashion stuff. So I love doing that. Same thing

stuff. So I love doing that. Same thing

with the word editorial. In this case, I say a woman a woman in her mid20s deep in thought up close macro photo. So, not

the most crazy prompt. I think everybody knows what a macro photo is. Up close is not like, you know, center frame zoomed in. It's very human language that I'm

in. It's very human language that I'm using. Um, so what I did for this prompt

using. Um, so what I did for this prompt is I wanted it to really have the vibe of this original SRF we have here. I

wanted to make sure it was like the same composition. So, what I did is I used an

composition. So, what I did is I used an image reference. Image references are

image reference. Image references are kind of tricky because definitionally they just structure your composition, but a lot of the times like the

structure of an image and the composition kind of is the style. So I

kind of don't like to separate style references and image references. If you

have a woman posing like really sexily and you use that as an image prompt, that stylistically is going to influence a lot of what's happening in your image.

it's going to immediately be more editorial or sensual, etc. But anyway, I use this as an image reference cuz I want that profile. But obviously, as you can tell, we're getting immediately,

which I don't hate some of these, but my intention was uh more of like a thinking photo. So, what I did is I literally

photo. So, what I did is I literally just zoomed in like in the mid journey UI. I cropped it

UI. I cropped it and then I just like dragged it back in and then I ran the prompt again and then we got something very similar to what we

were working with here. Especially in

terms of like image quality, the colors um for better or worse. It's also kind of like mimicking her like bone structure. Um especially this one you

structure. Um especially this one you can see like we have like these contours. So image references will give

contours. So image references will give you a lot in terms of style. One thing I want to call out that I've noticed in two year flows is on the we're getting too much green. There was just such a

compelling element in that green eyeshadow photo, which was like half of the eye was just very green. It was

clearly the most obvious thing about the photo. And with this image, the most

photo. And with this image, the most obvious thing about the photo is she's blowing a a bubble of gum. And so what I like is in both of those you're like

just boot the thing that is so obvious and so overwhelming. And you can either do that by kicking out the image or you could do that by cropping out um the part of the image that is pulling the

rest of the generations down. So that's

a really clever technique. And I love that you're just like like I'm just going to screenshot and drag it over.

I'm not going to like try to prompt it to say like remove the bubble gum or whatever.

>> Yeah. Oh my god. you will spend all day in majourney. You know, even if you're

in majourney. You know, even if you're using like something you can do is like the no feature and you can say no bubble gum. Um, you know, you can try and like

gum. Um, you know, you can try and like say like lips are showing. Sometimes

it'll work. Most of the time it won't.

If you really want to get specific, you could take this into Nano Banana and say like remove her bubble gum, but I don't think it's going to get >> Well, that's what I was going to say.

And I know we're going to get to Nano Banana in a minute, but then also if you move it into Nano Banana, you are going to wait like 45 minutes for that photo to come back >> and like waste a bunch of credits and

stuff that you just don't need, right, to do this.

>> Yeah, that's another thing too, like avoid doing all this SRF and this like this um the profile codes. I I don't have to prompt like 2025 aesthetic uh you know, like modelesque. like it

already knows that I'm going to have like a very conventionally attractive blonde woman because I gave it a conventionally attractive blonde woman.

Um or vice versa. I don't have to type in the colors and the grading every time. I don't have to do those horrible

time. I don't have to do those horrible JSON prompts that no one can use. Um so

this is like the laziest way ever >> to do prompting. Okay, let's go into some like more specifically prompting my arch nemesis. So, one thing I wanted to

arch nemesis. So, one thing I wanted to do, um, again, I like the juxosition of like the images on the original mood board. I thought it might be fun to have

board. I thought it might be fun to have like a deer in a New York City apartment kind of like bringing like the forest into the city and that could be cute. I

got these images like they're definitely on par in terms of like general style, but I was kind of missing like the New York aspect of it. So instead of like

going and maybe finding like a New York City esph or like finding an image of an apartment um and putting it as an image reference, which potentially could have worked, this is one time that I do

actually do some prompting. So all I said was like New York skyline can be seen in the window behind it. So again,

not doing anything super crazy with the language. I'm literally just saying what

language. I'm literally just saying what I want to see. Um another example, I thought the pink couch was a little bit too fantastical. So instead, I just said

too fantastical. So instead, I just said on a matte black leather couch. And now

we're starting to get We know it's in New York. It's a little bit more kind of

New York. It's a little bit more kind of like realistic, I guess. Couple other

things I tried was uh I said at night, I think it's kind of giving me at night, maybe sunset vibes. And then one the craziest I'll ever get is I have a list

uh this is included in my course of like all these different cameras. Um, so I have like DSLR, I have mirrorless, I have digital, I have film as kind of like quick shortcuts. Um, because that's really hard to remember all them and the

aperture and stuff. I barely know what aperture means. Um, so sometimes when I

aperture means. Um, so sometimes when I just want to try changing up the vibe or make things more realistic, um, make them have like a more 90s aesthetic, I'll just paste in like a camera, um,

that mimics that. Um, so the Sony RX100, I think I probably generated this with like shot. I'm assuming that this is a

like shot. I'm assuming that this is a '90s digital camera. And this is kind of like what I would consider the final image. So, we know maybe the legs need

image. So, we know maybe the legs need to be fixed, but we know it's in New York. We can see it's in like a

York. We can see it's in like a high-rise. We have that couch. It's a

high-rise. We have that couch. It's a

deer. Oh, another thing to to know what the prompt is like saying luxury New York City apartment. Uh, instead of saying on the fourth floor of a

high-rise in a new post-war New York City apartment, you just say luxury because like everybody knows and the LM knows or not the AI knows luxury is going to be like a big metal wig thing

super high up and rich people live on the top. So that one word luxury just

the top. So that one word luxury just gives us everything that we need to know about the scene which is very fun. What

is great about this particular prompt is it reminds me of what Ravi in an earlier episode did talking about midjourney for um generating images again and he's like you need the subject and you need the

setting and you need the style and so you have the subject which is the deer, you have the setting which is this luxury apartment at night and you have the style and he did a very similar

thing which is like cameras are cheat codes for styling and again what I appreciate about what you're doing and we love to here on how AI is everybody just wants to be lazier with their

prompting. No one want I mean if you go

prompting. No one want I mean if you go to the explore page on midjourney and you look through people's prompts like people need a job man like this is too

long [laughter] and so I love the idea you're just trying to find shortcuts for yourself to make these shorter and shorter and shorter but still get the same quality because you're generating a lot a lot of images.

>> Oh yeah. Oh yeah. like sometimes like thousands a day depending on what I'm doing. If I'm lucky, I like nail things

doing. If I'm lucky, I like nail things really fast like like this aesthetic I happen to get like very quickly. Um

whole point of it being 30 minutes. But

yeah, if you're trying to do something that needs like a lot of different aspects like I was doing a stock photo project recently. I'm doing like nature

project recently. I'm doing like nature stuff. I'm doing people stuff. I'm doing

stuff. I'm doing people stuff. I'm doing

skin. So like in this case like I can't really have just like one mood board cuz there's a lot of different things that we need to do in terms of treatment. So,

like being able to get like super like what's prompt do I have here? Like CMYK

highlights for me has been a big one that I've been using. Deep blacks, high contrast, and then we have just a really powerful SRF which actually came from a previous midjourney um generation I did

that day. And then we get all this like

that day. And then we get all this like cool stuff. I think yeah, the prompt's

cool stuff. I think yeah, the prompt's experiencing music. So, we're starting

experiencing music. So, we're starting to see like ears and like you know maybe body sensations. That's another tip too

body sensations. That's another tip too is like when you're uh in especially the create phase maybe even iterating phase they kind of blend together sometimes I'll literally if I'm doing like a startup deck or something like a VC deck sometimes I'll literally just like paste

in the sentence and just like see what it gives me like the full sentence like this is our business model just to get me thinking just get the model thinking um same thing like I'll just do like

financial markets really vague stuff um mid journey is like very poetic I would say you can like write little poems to it and it'll actually give you Um, it

it'll it'll do what you want it to do.

Like this is experiencing music to me.

You know what I mean? You feel like the vibrations through your body versus, you know, if you were to describe this image, it's going to say like a whole bunch of nonsense.

>> Even worse, even worse, if you do it in like uh Gemini or something, ask it to give you >> you're just never going to be able to get this, which is why I love Midourney so much cuz it just feels like an

extension of your of yourself, basically. Every time I see Midjourney,

basically. Every time I see Midjourney, I have to tell people, you know, now I'm this host of this AI podcast. I get to see a lot of tools and I do a lot of things every day. And I MidJourney was

the first tool that just switched my mind about what was possible with AI. It

really is an inspirational tool. It's

fun. It's accessible to not just people like you that are building a business off of this, but my kids love MidJourney. It's such a creative space

MidJourney. It's such a creative space and I feel like it's one of the more, you know, dare I say it like soulful AI experiences. Um, and so I love the idea

experiences. Um, and so I love the idea of just getting out of like the tactical and practical prompting of like I want this thing and this camera blah blah blah and just playing in a space with it

to see if it can inspire inspire things for you. This episode is brought to you

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That's lovable.dev.

Okay, so just to recap really quickly on our midjourney journey, we have done mood boards. We have used those mood

mood boards. We have used those mood boards to kind of um create some and get a sense of what's working well with the mood boards or not. We've pulled in those mood boards via um style

references. We've also pulled in

references. We've also pulled in specific images as image references.

You've shown us how to go from like the most generic astronaut prompt to slightly more specific but still pretty lazy dear New York City luxury prompt.

Now you're starting to get stuff that you want. How do you kind of like

you want. How do you kind of like package this up and and scale it out?

I'll basically just keep going with this same srf stat and just continue to generate images across um you know the subject matter. Um so for like this one,

subject matter. Um so for like this one, you know, I'm thinking about AI bubbles.

I'm thinking about uh talking about technology. I'm thinking about talking

technology. I'm thinking about talking about culture. So I literally just

about culture. So I literally just prompted AI bubble using the same prompt. But as you can see, we're

prompt. But as you can see, we're getting the dreaded like five finger thing. So, in this case, I'll hit very

thing. So, in this case, I'll hit very subtle or very strong and it'll help me like come up with a couple more generations of that aesthetic. So,

that's one technique I'll use kind of like fight those. I will also go and I'll like steal prompts or get inspiration for prompts from the explore page, especially when I'm generating

like really large kind of like stock photo sets of images. So, like here's like an edgy man. I don't have any edgy man photos yet. I thought the basketballs could be a cool motif in this aesthetic. So then I kind of like

this aesthetic. So then I kind of like pick apart those prompts and I use them here. And then eventually I get to kind

here. And then eventually I get to kind of like what we saw at the beginning, all these images that I'm very very happy with and I'll move on to sort of

reinforcing my prompts if need be me and editing images. Um so one thing that I

editing images. Um so one thing that I always try especially once I have like the exact outputs that I want already, I'll go ahead and I'll make another mood board again. Um, so you can literally

board again. Um, so you can literally just add from your gallery. You can just click. So I selected I think this is

click. So I selected I think this is about like 30 images that I liked. And

then what you can do is you can use this again. Um, so what should we prompt

again. Um, so what should we prompt like turtle and the sea?

>> I was thinking turtle. This is weird.

>> You were thinking turtle. We're floating

through mid journey together. I was like maybe she'll do like a turtle.

[laughter] >> Yes. Very funny.

>> Yes. Very funny.

So, this is like one again kind of back to the beginning. We're going to try the mood board, see if it works. If it

doesn't, um, the good thing is we already know this SRF stuff works.

Something else that I was trying, um, I'll take that new mood board with the images. Uh, and then I'll try with a

images. Uh, and then I'll try with a different mood board that I have. So,

this one's called real skin. Um, this is just when I'm trying to make like really realistic images of of skin or of models. Um, obviously it influences a

models. Um, obviously it influences a little bit of like what they look like, too. So I will use both mood boards at

too. So I will use both mood boards at the top at the same time. I might just say model and then we're able to kind of like play with using most aesthetics. Um

now I will say so these are generated with the mood board. Definitely like

closer than like if we hadn't used it but I still think the sruff is going to like be supreme here.

>> Yeah. So, what I'll do is I'll just take that um this mood board here and I'll click that run the same prompt again but using the srf and using the mood board and we'll see what I give this. Yeah.

So, same for this like closer to what we want but like not as like stylistically consistent as these which sometimes depending on what you're making like in my opinion like all these images are

great but like over time it might start to look a little bit um flat or like too much pink. So like weaving in a couple

much pink. So like weaving in a couple images that are like not the exact same style can also be good too as long as you have this kind of like through line.

Um so like good example here is like this turtle our mood board and our SRFs is like not super optimized for animals.

>> Yeah, that's more Yeah, it's way more optimized for like editorial stuff. So,

what I might do here, I do have like a nature moon board that I have adventure core. Um, and I never delete my mood

core. Um, and I never delete my mood boards, so I'll just like keep them around and we'll see.

>> Yeah, we'll see what this gives us. Um,

using the suffra getting a sexy lady.

Um naturally >> that is one of the downsides of midjourney is you're going to get a lot sexy ladies.

>> Yeah. So, again, cool. Not so realistic.

So this might be a part of the process where we kind of go back to square one in a sense and think like okay maybe we need to find reference photos of vintage

National Geographic that kind of have this like print aesthetic but it's of animals to give majour a little bit better information to work with. What I

I want to say is I love this process of you're just like finding the right two or three things to mix in midjourney.

And sometimes it's a style reference and a prompt. Sometimes it's a prompt and a

a prompt. Sometimes it's a prompt and a mood board. Sometimes it's a mood board

mood board. Sometimes it's a mood board and image reference, >> you know, and so you can just combine all these things and ultimately iterate to a package that you want to want to send to clients.

>> Yeah. And then I'll just deliver this.

Usually um in Figma, the only thing with me, they don't have any sort of like sharing. I think I've literally seen

sharing. I think I've literally seen designers like if they're on a big enough project, they will like literally create a majourney account just for

that. And then what I usually do, I'll

that. And then what I usually do, I'll literally just paste in in Figma what that like final prompt is. So the most important stuff is like the profiles that you're using. For this one, I

happen to go like very crazy with the profiles, stylization if necessary, and then I just say like these are the reference photos. So for like all of

reference photos. So for like all of these images that you see here, I think like 100% of them, if not like 90% of them were generated with like this exact

setup right here. So I just give the clients this. Um I'll give them a set of

clients this. Um I'll give them a set of images. Um also these images are going

images. Um also these images are going to be like in context, but yeah, it's still kind of the wild west. What I

think is really cool about this and the reason why you're leaning into it I really appreciate is you know in the past and we've talked about this a little bit in our episode with Zach at Gamma who got a very similar package

like this from their their brand team is in the past brand and creative um directors or agencies would like give you these photos and be like cool call

us and reup when you want more photos.

And what I love is that you're like, "Look, I put in all this. You're going

to you're going to value me for all this upfront work that I'm going to do."

Yeah.

>> To define the space, give you these codes, like really give you reference images, and then now you can go do this for yourself. And if you want to evolve

for yourself. And if you want to evolve the brand or you're not quite getting what you want, great. Come back to me and I can give you another package and we can go forward. But it's just like a very different model of providing

service. And I think it creates a really

service. And I think it creates a really positive create uh collaboration between the client and and the creative director.

>> I know sometimes I'm kicking myself. I'm

like, gosh, I probably should just not get to them and just continue charging them. But I'm kind of allergic to

them. But I'm kind of allergic to retainers. I like I like doing this

retainers. I like I like doing this beginning process so much that I don't want my old clients to bother me. I just

want to keep making new stuff.

>> Well, I I love it and I'm sure people are going to see this and you might have a few more for new new clients. Okay, so

you showed us kind of end to end how we get through these packages. What are

just a couple other workflows that you find yourself using?

>> I guess to continue on with this one, I can show some that I already have done.

So, for some of the images in Mid Journey, I'm sure you have all seen the terrible hands. Um, often times too,

terrible hands. Um, often times too, when you're doing kind of like more vintage aesthetics, if it ever can give you an Apple logo, it might give you like some weird old computer. Um, so

something I do a lot of the time, even just for my personal stuff, I post on X.

Uh, I'll take my midourney images and I'll take them into uh, Flora uh, or Hicksfield sometimes and I'll just use Nano Banana as Photoshop. Nano Banana

uh, literally is just Photoshop. That's

exactly how you should think of it. Um,

you're just able to speak to Photoshop essentially for most people. So, what I have here is this image that I really like that we generated it. U, but I want to upscale it so I get more texture in her shirt and stuff. And then I want

this to be like a real computer. Nana

Banana does require a little bit more prompting than major, but it's much more I don't want to say forgiving. It's much

less complicated, like if you're a beginner in some ways, depending on what side of the line you stand on, whether you're more like technical or or more artistic. But anyway, I just said

artistic. But anyway, I just said replace the computer she's typing on on a 2026 Midnight Black MacBook Pro. Um,

so Nano Banana uh is like a reasoning model, so it like actually knows what things are. So you don't have to give it

things are. So you don't have to give it a reference photo all the time, especially for stuff that's in like the public mind sphere.

>> Mhm.

>> I also usually mention like don't change anything else. I say keep the position

anything else. I say keep the position and the size of the computer exactly the same. And then just because I've done

same. And then just because I've done this so many times, I know sometimes the banana might, you know, change the angle slightly. So I just say exactly I say

slightly. So I just say exactly I say exactly what it's seeing. So like only the left side and the keyboard is visible. And yeah, and then if I were to

visible. And yeah, and then if I were to download this photo, it's going to be like 4,000 x 4,000 versus like 800 by 800. Kept the style pretty much exactly

800. Kept the style pretty much exactly the same. We just slotted like a real

the same. We just slotted like a real computer. So it would be relevant to

computer. So it would be relevant to like use now on social media. I just

going to behind the scenes at Howa AI, we use a very similar process to upscale screen caps from the podcast for our

YouTube thumbnails. And so, you know, I

YouTube thumbnails. And so, you know, I like make make these faces and then we want to clip them for the podcast, but just screen capping from the video is really low resolution. And so, we use a

very similar prompt to upscale and improve the lighting on on our photos, and then we drop those into our thumbnails.

>> Oh, I got to show you. Um, you don't actually have to take thumbnails anymore.

>> Uh, hey, show me live >> live demo.

>> Have you been seeing my like articles?

>> No. Show me detour.

>> So, this is a really like kind of for all these like nodes and stuff. So, uh,

my profile photo is AI. I think I got quite attention for doing that. I think

I ended up making in Higsville at some point. But basically what I do is I'll

point. But basically what I do is I'll take a bunch of selfies of me that are like more realistic looking. Um cuz

sometimes like you know you'll take like the best selfie and like doesn't look like you at all. I also like show my teeth. I don't have like perfectly

teeth. I don't have like perfectly straight teeth. I'll take a couple

straight teeth. I'll take a couple reference photos and then I can just make me do whatever I want.

>> Um it >> this was another one. I had a mid journey photo that was this and I wanted her to be annoyed. Uh I I I kind of already had this process in my head. I I

knew I wanted a photo of me in this vibe but angry. So, I took this photo, made

but angry. So, I took this photo, made her angry, and then I replaced my face, which like me on my best day, this 100% looks like me. I have like multiple

reference photos to make sure it's like actually getting my vibe. And then from there, I'm able to, you know, I was thinking about like an anti- agency post. Uh, I think I just ended up using

post. Uh, I think I just ended up using this photo. This was one took me a

this photo. This was one took me a couple tries. This is where again, like

couple tries. This is where again, like reference photos kind of really come in.

And sometimes, especially with Nana Banana, sometimes you just got to like write that prompt, uh, you know, like with the actual camera angles, with the background, but I ended up just finding

these on Pinterest, I believe, of like the aesthetic reference and the actual pose reference. And then this was for my

pose reference. And then this was for my article on AI legal stuff. What else have I done?

This is one recently. Funny enough, I could not get it to give me extra fingers, which is hilarious because there [clears throat] were years of my life where I was trying to do the opposite. So, I was like 15 minutes I

opposite. So, I was like 15 minutes I was able to get it to give me uh like AI fingers. That was a recent article I

fingers. That was a recent article I did, too. Uh again, we're like using

did, too. Uh again, we're like using SRFs. This one didn't actually kind of

SRFs. This one didn't actually kind of like carry through. Uh but in earlier references, it did. So, I just want to call out for people who are listening, not watching because I'm making a face, which is Jamie basically dragged in a

bunch of like realistic um but still my face, which is really hard as somebody who's trying to generate images of himself. Realistic

but still my face selfies and then has used Flora to generate a bunch of mix and match remixed versions for articles and thumbnails. Y'all, my YouTube

and thumbnails. Y'all, my YouTube thumbnails are about to get real real good. I'm so excited. This is very very

good. I'm so excited. This is very very helpful. And if I could throw back to

helpful. And if I could throw back to probably three, two or three years ago, it had to be three years ago. One of the first things that I did um was back in the day when you actually didn't have

these beautiful UIs is I fine-tuned >> a model on directly on my face that I could call like a it was like a light I forget what it was called.

>> Yeah, it's a Laura I think. Laura. So, I

I fine-tuned it on my face and then um I generated a bunch a bunch of images and it was so useful to have this specific one and now we're all spoiled. We can

just do this in this UI and I never want to see this um Chad Steve Jobs ever again. But I love the idea of dragging

again. But I love the idea of dragging these two notes together um into into an image.

>> Yeah, people people struggle with it.

It's hard to get to nail it. I think I have like a really kind of like strange face. say have like big eyes and stuff

face. say have like big eyes and stuff that it like just latches on to me really well. Like I have an Asian

really well. Like I have an Asian boyfriend and it just like refuses. Like

every generation I make of him is just like generic Asian guy.

>> We can we can do the aside of like the bi like the bias of what goes into these training training sets. I mean we can get a lot of convention, as you said, conventionally attractive blonde women.

>> Yeah.

>> We can generate all day all night because they're all over the internet.

Um fingers crossed. Well, every every athlete if you if you want an athlete in Mid Journey, it's going to be a very large black man. It's going to be a very strong, beautiful black man. Oh my god, >> you cannot get a white you can you

cannot get a white athlete in >> I mean this is what's really interesting is as you start to play with these models you really start to understand they are trained on the internet and I was mentioning recently in some like

chitchat about um molt book which is where all the open claw lobsters are together and people are like why are they weird and I was like they're weird because it's a fake Reddit trained on

Reddit data and people on Reddit >> are weird and so I think one of the things you have to know about using these models is like where is the training data come from and therefore what's it going to generate for you and

what isn't and I and I the more you explore it the more you more you hit those edges Jamie I love all this this is all super useful I'm going to be able to go put this into practice literally today because we're working on a on a

thumbnail today prompts >> so let's let's skip over to lightning round and then I will get you out to generating another thousand images so my first question is where do you go for

inspiration I think one of the things that you sort of like pass through is you're like, "Oh, if you know this magazine or that editorial style, that camera, and I feel like people aren't cultivating their visual taste and

language enough." So, what are some of

language enough." So, what are some of your, you know, other than Pinterest, what are your some of your sources where you're um continually improving your language and your aesthetic taste through exposure to other things?

>> Yeah. Um, one thing that I recommend to everyone is to start a list on Twitter.

There's tons of like basically Tumblr accounts still to this day that post like really aesthetic images. So like

some of these are like uh this account is literally called pink glitter. So she

posts a lot of like 2000 stuff. Um so

that's really great to use for midjourney fashion accounts. A lot of fashion is what I follow. So I have like a Twitter list of like really aesthetic photos. Like this is obviously great if

photos. Like this is obviously great if you again want more sexy ladies. So

that's what I do. Also, Cosmos, of course, is superb. So, let's do like the real model here. One of your favorite images.

>> Yeah. Um, so obviously this is just like a treasure trove of estraps, especially for like specific moods and vibes. I

feel like as a designer, I still, as much as I love Cosmos for like branding stuff, like logos and like website inspiration, I still use Pinterest a ton as like my home base. But I will still use Cosmos for like art direction

things. The great thing about both of

things. The great thing about both of these is like Pinterest has a plugin.

Um, so you can literally save from like any page, especially like again if you're on like X, you can go save to Pinterest. Cosmos I believe has the same

Pinterest. Cosmos I believe has the same thing, but I don't have it turned on right now. So that's what I do. And then

right now. So that's what I do. And then

anytime I'm like shopping online again, X Instagram, um, something I teach in my course as well is a daily taste practice. So, just like get really on

practice. So, just like get really on top of saving and archiving stuff. My

mood boards on Pinterest are actually shockingly simple because I realized if I had too many, I was like uh getting kind of like decision fatigue, which is why my design inspiration board is 7,000

pins. It's probably time to like switch

pins. It's probably time to like switch that up. But I have like I don't know

that up. But I have like I don't know what is this like 20 mood boards. So

like instead of having like ethereal model mood board with like 10 images, I just have like one that's like ass. And

anytime I see anything on Pinterest that I would like love to bring in to my journey one day, I just save it. And

then when I need inspiration for like any project, even like client projects, like I'm doing a sock brand soon, so I have a lot of running stuff. I just save it all here. And then it's really easy

for me to go through and just like copy and paste into mood boards. As you can see here, like these are images that I've saved. I don't know what

I've saved. I don't know what [clears throat] the hell I was looking up.

>> You were looking at that. It's like

shells and it seems like very >> it was like a website for like >> technical 3D scans, but this is like a grain of rice or something. But it was

sick. So, I like saved this and then I

sick. So, I like saved this and then I really need someone to do this for me.

But I get like millions of views on Pinterest a month now because every time I see something and I save it like images I was already gonna save anyway.

Like this is just from like high fashion Twitter. I just saved it and it has like

Twitter. I just saved it and it has like 200,000 impressions. So not only this

200,000 impressions. So not only this this is a kind of like source of inspiration for you, it could actually be a source of business for you because you're sharing out and making these resources useful to people. Jamie, uh my last question I have to ask you ask

everybody which is >> you know you you have seemed to your prompting technique is keep it dead simple. We also talked a little bit

simple. We also talked a little bit before the show about how you don't love to prompt a lot and you're not like, you know, you don't want to spend a bunch of time in Claude. But

>> yeah, >> if AI is not giving you what you want, if we're getting to ugly stuff here, what's your pro what's your prompting or personal technique to just get it going

in the right direction? Whether it's

images or text, are you mean? Firstly,

take a break always. like you're never gonna be able to like see properly if you're kind of like in it. Um so like sleeping on it or just like walking away and then sometimes I come back and I

just like new SRF different prompt like grab this reference use this camera and then it immediately works. Um so I would say walking away and then part of my

process too is just like during that walk away when you come back be like okay what is actually the problem? Like

for some of these generations I'm like it's just too busy. It's too mid journey. I'm using like 18 SRFs. Like

journey. I'm using like 18 SRFs. Like

this is just not going to work. So, I'm

gonna like take a step back. I'm gonna

read the mood board and I'm gonna figure out what exactly from these images is important. And it's like, all right, I

important. And it's like, all right, I keep getting this like stupid red color.

I'm going to take out this red color.

Like even though I love this image and I would love for I would love for it to like come through, it's not giving me what I want. Money is not listening to me. So, again, like I think I talked

me. So, again, like I think I talked about this in the beginning, like brutal honesty on like what's going on and trying to like not I don't know, make AI work the way you want it to work and actually

understanding how it works in general, but I think time away is probably >> I I love it. Time away and seeing things from the AI's point of view.

>> Yeah. Well, Jamie, this was great. How

can we find you and where can we be helpful?

>> Yeah. Um, so I spend all my time on X.

So, uh, XJamie Ganon or TechBimbo is my name. And yeah, I have an AI course

name. And yeah, I have an AI course coming out. It's called, um, the AI

coming out. It's called, um, the AI creative director. It's on Maven. Um,

creative director. It's on Maven. Um,

you can find that on my X or my website as well. So, if you are interested in

as well. So, if you are interested in like really deep diving into this and getting live coaching from me and hearing more of my by yapping on AI, I

would highly recommend you do it. Um,

it's meant to be able to make you create consistent client level work like I showed today. So, join the course.

showed today. So, join the course.

Awesome. We'll link to that in the show notes. Well, Jamie, thank you so much

notes. Well, Jamie, thank you so much for sharing this and I'm going to go dive into Mid Journey.

>> Awesome. Cool. Thanks, Claire.

Thanks so much for watching. If you

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