Jamey Gannon - Become an AI Creative Director with Nano Banana and Midjourney

you don't want my prompts. My my process has nothing to do with prompts. AI is

just like any other creative process.

Like you have to get good at it. You

have to know what you want. You have to know like what tools you prefer. You

have to practice. It's not something that you know you can get out overnight.

>> Welcome to Dive Club. My name is Rid and this is where designers never stop learning. Today's episode is with Jamie

learning. Today's episode is with Jamie Ganon and we're doing a deep dive into how you can be an effective creative director with AI because there's so

clearly a moment in time happening right now where if you can master these tools, you can stand out in today's market. So,

we're going to get a behind the scenes of Jaime's process and how she works with MidJourney. And just seeing how she

with MidJourney. And just seeing how she worked is totally changing the way that I'm thinking about the importance of prompting. So, let's dive right in. I

prompting. So, let's dive right in. I

think most people suck at AI for like three main reasons. One, they lack direction and they don't know what they want to make. Two, they're overprompting and not giving AI the right signals to

actually make what they want to make.

And three, they're using the wrong tools or models or they're using the models incorrectly. Maybe we could go into the

incorrectly. Maybe we could go into the prompting piece really quickly because to me I almost would have assumed that you would have said something close to the opposite where it's like the the

magic is in the detail and the quality of the prompt and yet I came across a line that you shared that I found very interesting where you said AI is a

direction problem not a prompt problem.

So I'm hoping you can unpack that a little bit for us. I was like wrestling really hard with how to explain this and then I remembered the like old adage a picture is worth a thousand words. So I

think for a couple reasons a lot of like the ex AI influencers the people that like aren't designers or they're people that um you know are really good at like marketing and stuff so they get

interested in AI to like increase their creative output there. And because of that they're not very creatively minded I find. So they get really excited about

I find. So they get really excited about being able to like reverse engineer a prompt and like write these like crazy prompts and get these like oneshots that don't require any intuition or mood

boarding. I think people miss how AI is

boarding. I think people miss how AI is much better at understanding a vibe and an image and like a collection of vibes and images maybe than you will ever be.

Something that I have my students do in my course uh I have them try and describe this image of Haley Bieber.

Now, to most people, this, you know, might be easy. You know, it's Haley Bieber. She's in a sweatshirt, uh, on a

Bieber. She's in a sweatshirt, uh, on a red background. She's posing kind of

red background. She's posing kind of sexily. Maybe if you are like an art

sexily. Maybe if you are like an art director, a creative director, you know, like it's shot on camera, or you can say like lime wash on the wall. But if you give this image to Chachi BT, Gemini,

any other LLM, and you say like describe this image in like extreme specificity and give me a prompt, it'll give you like potentially three paragraphs. It'll

get into like the age of this sweatshirt, how heavy it is. You know,

it might notice her rings and you don't.

It might say that she's tan. It might

mention how her hair is falling and describe the way her expression is in a way that, you know, sure, you could do as a human with a lot of practice and maybe like running it a couple times.

But you're never going to beat MLMs at this. So people that try and beat AI at

this. So people that try and beat AI at like taking all this latent information and putting it to use are kind of just like fighting a losing battle in my opinion.

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Now, on to the episode. All of what you're saying really resonates, but now I'm like, okay, cool. [music] So, how do I put that into practice?

>> So, the first step in my process is always starting with a direction and a mood board. So, that can be like a

mood board. So, that can be like a specific camera style, that could be a specific sort of vibe or attitude. Like

in this case, it could be a specific type of model or scene. And then from there, there's a couple different options that you can do depending on what you use. For this example, I'm just going to show you guys Midjourney. So,

uh, Midourney, you'd actually upload this mood board. just copy and paste it into Midourney webboards and then you can just use that as a style. Um,

Midourney will make you a code based on that style. Uh, and then you can use

that style. Uh, and then you can use that. Now, what I found and what I'm

that. Now, what I found and what I'm showing you guys here is that sometimes the mood boards like don't actually work that well. Um, Midre tends to kind of

that well. Um, Midre tends to kind of like average out uh the images in the mood board, especially if you're kind of being a little bit less specific on like camera style or or model and things like

that. So you can see here if you compare

that. So you can see here if you compare these images I got back to the mood board. It's it's it's kind of missing

board. It's it's it's kind of missing the mark. And something that I think is

the mark. And something that I think is really important in my creative practice as I've grown as a brand designer, graphic designer, but also as like an AI creator, whatever we want to call us,

being like radically honest about what my designs look like or what uh my outputs feel like and if they're actually on track with like either the goals of the project aesthetically or

business-wise. It's something you got to

business-wise. It's something you got to get good at. And I think that's where a lot of people kind of get tripped up.

Especially when you're starting with AI or really anything, it's just like the second it doesn't look like, you know, six fingers, you're like, this is a win.

Like these two images like independently look really good and, you know, I would maybe use them for something else. But

then when you again compare it to the mood board, we're missing kind of like that that high contrast. Um that's

darkness. Um a lot of this like color treatment of like the the neons with the pastels. We can do better than that. Uh

pastels. We can do better than that. Uh

so what I try next is um SRF. So that's

basically uploading my moodboard images as style references imagery just again like copy and paste it into the prop bar and then we start getting like much better results. So you can see the style

better results. So you can see the style and kind of like the camera treatment is much better. Even just like the

much better. Even just like the aesthetic elements feel better to me in my opinion. Again going back to that

my opinion. Again going back to that mood board, you know, it's not quite there to me. It's feeling a little bit green. The next step for me, I'm going

green. The next step for me, I'm going to take away the green. So, we have this green eye image here. So, I'm going to try generating without that. And here

we're getting like much much closer to things that fit in that original mood board. So, that's kind of like my

board. So, that's kind of like my creation process and then starting to begin my iteration process. And as I begin to iterate, you know, you could bring in different elements. So, in

midJourney, we have this great thing called like profile codes. um profile

codes like work very similar to mood boards um but instead of uploading a bunch of images you rank images and mid Journey's personalization feature. So

when I was making this personalization code I was thinking like 2025 aesthetic really clean studio photos iPhone aesthetic nothing like vintage or or illustration like this. So in this case I wouldn't have ranked these. And I

basically do this to kind of infuse a little bit more variety of input into my journey so it doesn't like continue to kind of make like the exact same stuff on like kind of the same plane if that

makes sense. Uh and then also infuse

makes sense. Uh and then also infuse some of my kind of like personal aesthetic choices that I've made. And

here is where I think I've kind of like reached a pretty good like success point with this mood board. You know, the images look crisp and real and high contrast. I really love the skin. I love

contrast. I really love the skin. I love

the amount of color that's in it. Next

steps is just like continuing to iterate within this kind of like winning prompt structure that we have. And if you've [clears throat] noticed like this whole time when I'm prompting, I'm doing extremely simple prompts. One, because

we're just testing. So, we don't need to like be too specific about scenes or or people or types of models. But this is why when people ask me for prompts, I'm like, you don't you don't want my

prompts. My my process has nothing to do

prompts. My my process has nothing to do with prompts. You'd be hardressed to

with prompts. You'd be hardressed to like recreate this image with you know reverse engineering a problems like this this prompt is just astronaut and these are the results that I get. So this

process like one is not only faster and like more scalable especially if I want to deliver this to a client or use it as like my personal brand. It's also just like better as a creative because I'm

able to interface with ideas that not only the AI understands better cuz again a picture is worth thousand words but also things that I understand better.

Maybe I'm not as good with words, but I know that like, you know, this closeup of a woman's face is going to give me kind of like an edgy editorial vibe versus like trying to explain that.

>> I really want to look at client work. I

want to pause really quickly though and zoom out for a second because we just showed midjourney. I am coming to this

showed midjourney. I am coming to this conversation as somebody who, like I said, like this is not my wheelhouse. I

feel a little bit behind even in the tooling space. How much of the tooling

tooling space. How much of the tooling space actually matters to you? Like are

you doing the vast majority of your work in midjourney? Are there other tools

in midjourney? Are there other tools that you might reach for? What are those variables that would dictate kind of what tools are in your stack?

>> There's a difference between like closed models and models that can only be interacted with on like their platforms. And then models like V3 or Nano Banana

Pro uh or cling. These models can be accessed on like almost any platform.

you know, you have Flora, you have Korea, also Hicksfield, which has been like a big controversy recently. So,

short answer is when I'm teaching AI stuff or when I'm giving recommendations, I almost never say a platform um unless it specifically has a really great feature or um has an

interface that I really like. So, I use Midjourney and Nato Banana Pro almost 90% of the time because Nanana Pro is a reasoning engine. Um, and it's really

reasoning engine. Um, and it's really good at listening to instructions and realism and even text. Like I've had people like full slides of text with like extreme accuracy, like no

blurriness, no AI slot, nothing. Uh, and

then Majority is an aesthetic engine.

So, that's where you can actually get stuff that like feels like something and doesn't [clears throat] just look like stark AI all the time. That's very

helpful and also encouraging because I appreciate the simplicity of the answer.

>> Yeah, you know, you can choose any tool.

There's so many to choose from. What

actually matters is the models that you're selecting to use in them and when you're selecting to use them and for what task.

>> Okay. So, maybe we can dig into that as a part of I I kind of just want to see a little bit more of your process and maybe we could look at some of the projects that you've worked on because I can already tell there's still a lot to

learn. So I can show you an example of

learn. So I can show you an example of kind of going from midjourney to uh a different model for a different part of the creative process I use. Kind of what the example you were talking about a

little bit earlier. How to go from like a Pinterest or a Cosmos mood board into like a set of images created with my journey with like a lot of consistency.

I went for like an iteration flow and I tried a bunch of very simple prompts and got these images. But some of them are not quite to the quality that I would like or I think that I can like push them a little bit further. especially

for thinking about, you know, like a final output, like being an Instagram post or being something on a website.

One example I have here, and you'll get this all the time with Mid Journey, and this is why you kind of need to have like a repertoire of models that you use. Midjourney, as much as I love her,

use. Midjourney, as much as I love her, she's not quite good yet at like hands or like consistency of like computers or devices or or even like clothing

sometimes. Yeah, you can get it to give

sometimes. Yeah, you can get it to give you a MacBook with the right prompting, but a lot of the times you're going to get a really good composition, a really good model, a really good expression, but there's going to be like one or two

details that are missing. And instead of like toiling away in midjourney trying to get it to listen to you and like in painting and and doing all this stuff that it's really bad at right now, what

I do is I just take it into Nano Pro.

So, in this case, I use Flora very often. Again, it's just one of those

often. Again, it's just one of those tools that has a lot of models in it.

It's a multimodal tool. Um, so I [clears throat] use it there and I give it a very simple prompt the same way that I would, you know, speak to like an intern or something and I just tell it,

you know, replace the computer she is typing on on a 2026 Midnight MacBook Pro. Great thing about Nano Banana Pro 2

Pro. Great thing about Nano Banana Pro 2 as well is that it kind of it has context of like the world. So, uh, as long as the thing is like a popular thing, you can usually kind of just like say what it is. You don't have to like

upload a reference photo. And then I've just learned from many times prompting that a little bit of instruction like keep the position the same, keep the size the same and you know what what exactly are we seeing of the computer that tends to just help it get it right

the first time. And yeah, and then we have like a real computer now in the shot. Um, also this is upscaled too very

shot. Um, also this is upscaled too very subtly. So it's like a a 4,000 x 4,000

subtly. So it's like a a 4,000 x 4,000 photo versus like a 1080 x 1080. We get

a little bit more detail in her shirt and her hair, but everything else is exactly the same. Now, if you were trying to do this in mid journey, it would take a long time and you probably wouldn't ever end up getting it perfect

either. But, uh, Nano Banana is like

either. But, uh, Nano Banana is like very surgical. It's like surgical

very surgical. It's like surgical Photoshop. It's like the Photoshop that

Photoshop. It's like the Photoshop that we've been wanting for our entire lives.

So, that's how I tell people to use it essentially. It's good sometimes for

essentially. It's good sometimes for like early stages of photography as well, but kind of similar to Majority, there's things that you have to fight every model for. So, with every model,

there's going to be like strengths and weaknesses, at least for now. So, I

found with Nano Banana, while it's really good at realism and kind of like taking that like final step to make things look like real images, it can be

a little bit AI smooth at first. Like

this photo of these two runners while uh you know, I'm uploading the style references and I'm doing like pretty minimal prompting. We're getting an okay

minimal prompting. We're getting an okay result, but for me like it's a little bit too focused. It's a little bit too editorial. doesn't really have like the

editorial. doesn't really have like the same vibe of the references and they're also like exactly in unison. Their socks

match. So, you have to do a little bit more work afterwards to like actually get it to not look so like fake and robotic.

>> Can we dig into that for a second?

Because that photo to me >> perfectly exemplifies what I do notice in a lot of AI imagery, which is like it's just too perfect. Like you said, their socks match. Like come on, who's going on a run with the matching highly

unique socks?

>> How? Would you approach refining this image from this starting spot?

>> Yeah. So, if I wanted to refine this image, um, I would do a couple things. I

might try and change the angle. So, in

this case, I did um trying to make them like a straight on shot. Uh, to me, sort of like relax the frame a little bit.

And then the next thing I would probably try is changing their outfits. So, I

would work in steps and I would just say, you know, change the man's shoes and socks to black. And we'll just do like a quick

to black. And we'll just do like a quick generation here. Um, and the reason I do

generation here. Um, and the reason I do this in steps is it's just a lot easier for the model to like listen to one thing at a time. You can do two or three things depending on what it is, but I

find that this is just going to get you a lot better results. Especially what

I've seen like working with other AI creators and my students is that a lot of times when they're getting really tripped up and they're like, I don't understand why this isn't working, it's cuz you're just expecting a lot out of the model.

>> So moving steps.

>> Yes. Over prompting. Yeah. So moving in steps can be really helpful. I guess I haven't gone too far into Flora yet, but just the way that you're laying things out on this canvas, everything's so spatial and you get your iteration tree.

I kind of like it. It's pretty

compelling.

>> Yeah. Okay, here's a good one. Um,

another example, too, is like this image I ended up like getting correct correctly down um after a lot of like prompting and trying different references and and figuring out what reference would make

it kind of like listen to the vibes that I wanted. But in this case, you know,

I wanted. But in this case, you know, again, we have that kind of AI perfect matching. Um, and I wanted to avoid

matching. Um, and I wanted to avoid that. So, I gave it um a shoe. Let me

that. So, I gave it um a shoe. Let me

see if I can find this shoe. Um,

oh, and for this client, we didn't want to have any logos, so I just told it to remove the logo from the shoe very simply. And then I just funnel it back

simply. And then I just funnel it back in. Um, and I say, replace the man's

in. Um, and I say, replace the man's shoes.

>> Um, I think I said keep everything else the same. And then

the same. And then >> same for the next thing. I didn't want them to be super matchy matchy. So, I

replaced the van shorts with a pair of gray shorts that I also removed the logo from. So working like in this very

from. So working like in this very simple, very controlled, very calm step-by-step process is going to save

you a lot of strife and give you Yeah.

just more control over the model and what you're working with versus like kind of like rolling the dice and throwing like eight hell Marys at it and hoping that it like understands, you know, the shoes are white but the shorts are gray and and don't change the woman

but change the man. Overprompting is

like what kills generations in my opinion. Yeah, this is way more granular

opinion. Yeah, this is way more granular than I would have done out of the box.

It kind of then makes me wonder like when you reflect on your journey learning these tools and making mistakes and figuring out what pitfalls to avoid,

are there any other ways that you're able to identify a clear shift in the way that you approach these tools or different lessons learned that you think people can benefit from? Yeah, I think

first of all like any creative process, you sort of grow an intuition for like what isn't working. Um, like for example with these images here, like I know uh

because I've done this like just hundreds probably hundreds of thousands of times now that the reason we're getting this really cool like rainbow gradient is probably because of this picture. So if we take that picture out

picture. So if we take that picture out um we're probably going to get less of that style. And same thing for this like

that style. And same thing for this like really nice kind of like almost PNG editorial like gray background. We're

getting that from this image here where there's like no shadow and it's placed on. So I think intuition and just like

on. So I think intuition and just like AI a lot of people morally ethically could talk a lot about like is it art?

Like what does it mean for creatives?

I'm definitely in the camp that it is you know an art form and that you can't create the same thing that I can create you know from scratch essentially. Um,

if you don't have my process, if you don't have my references, if you don't have the way that I prompt, if you don't know the order in which I do things, you're going to have like a really difficult time getting it, which is why,

you know, I have a course on this. Uh, I

was almost for a while in the camp like, "Yeah, maybe it's not art." Like, and yeah, you're right. Like, anyone can recreate this until I started posting my images. I was like, "Oh, like nobody can

images. I was like, "Oh, like nobody can create this. Nobody knows how to do it."

create this. Nobody knows how to do it."

AI is just like any other creative process. Like, you have to get good at

process. Like, you have to get good at it. You have to know what you want. You

it. You have to know what you want. You

have to know like what tools you prefer.

You have to practice. It's not something that you know you can get overnight.

Now, is it easier to get good at it than painting or the violin? Yes, obviously.

But it's still a creative skill, which is why the people that we see that are really good at AI uh happen to be designers and creative directors or people that have spent a long time uh

around photography or whatever they're trying to make. you know, we're not seeing people that are just, you know, fresh off the street, uh, you know, developer types or business types like getting really good at it, um, without

practice. Another thing that's really

practice. Another thing that's really helped my process is like understanding there is a process. I think like many of us u, and as you were saying a little bit earlier is like you didn't realize how granular it was and I also didn't realize either. I think I was treating

realize either. I think I was treating it up until even just a couple months ago like a slot machine and like not really understanding how to like reinforce what I wanted and telling what I wanted. But when I realized that there

I wanted. But when I realized that there were actually steps that I could take like 80% of the time to kind of sketch out like, okay, these are my references and this is my mood board and this is

how I want to prompt and here's how I should approach like bringing in these profile codes. It made things feel a lot

profile codes. It made things feel a lot less stressful and a lot like I was just like praying and and and getting randomness. And now I feel a lot more

randomness. And now I feel a lot more confident too that, you know, if I'm getting a client and they want like a specific style, I'm not like, "Oh, I've never done that. I don't know if I can do that." I know that there's like three

do that." I know that there's like three to four different paths I can take from any point to kind of try to nail that style. Whether it's um like I've shown

style. Whether it's um like I've shown you guys with the S wraps, whether it's maybe starting an N banana pro because my journey is not that good at photo realism, maybe that starts with like creating a better personalization code.

Um, there's a lot of different levers that you can pull, but knowing what levers to pull and when and for what task is where you kind of start to really be uh an or an an orchestrator of

these tools.

>> Yeah, it makes sense. And honestly,

something that you said that resonated was the like slot machine metaphor because to me, as someone who's quite novice in all of this, it has felt like a slot machine. Yeah,

>> it's felt like a slot machine and it's felt like I didn't have enough language under my belt in order to achieve any semblance of consistency. And

>> yeah, >> you know, I'm even thinking about, you know, brand building and creating this universe around like this product that I'm working on. And

>> I don't know, I haven't went as far into this world as I would like because I honestly just didn't think that I would be able to consistently achieve a style

that worked. Consistency is probably the

that worked. Consistency is probably the marker of someone that's actually very good at these tools. I think a lot of people on X especially go viral for making like very beautiful like art or

like fantasy stuff. But the second that you try and like apply that to you know a startup brand or you know a brand that maybe is like lifestyle need to showcase a lot of different audiences and a lot

of different things it can start to fall apart. So having like elements that

apart. So having like elements that you're able to swap is also helpful too.

So, something that I do often, um, I have many mood boards that kind of speak either to more general stuff like like this mood board I tried here or like

specific functions of, you know, styles.

So, in this case, I have like what is this called? Real skin. Um, so this is

this called? Real skin. Um, so this is all textures of real skin and wrinkles and freckles and stuff like that. So,

what I can do is, you know, when I have this style here, this like very kind of edgy blurry style, if I want to add this real skin in, it'll kind of help

reinforce that even though I have this style set. And this, of course, is

style set. And this, of course, is always an experiment, so we'll see together like what happens. But that's

like one way to get consistency.

>> There's one question that I can't stop asking myself. What if companies applied

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Is there an example that you can point at to show us what consistency and the skill of consistency looks like in practice?

>> Yeah. So, I think something that's like really [music] important for designers that are starting to get good at this stuff is like, okay, great. I can make like really beautiful stuff. It's really

cool. It's cool in the brand presentations, but how do I actually give this to a brand to use it? And to

be honest, I think this is going to be like a tool space that is evolving.

Right now in Midney, for example, there is no kind of like share prompt or like share mood board. the best you can get is like having the brand create a majority account and then you log in, do a bunch of stuff and then that's part of

the deliver. But currently

the deliver. But currently >> what I try and get to is not necessarily like a oneshot. Um well, you could maybe call it that. I try and get to like a master prompt. So that's like all the

master prompt. So that's like all the parameters that I have, the reference photos that I want to use. Maybe it's an image reference as well. Uh and then also any profile codes I'm using. This

is a remember match path. It's going to be coming out probably in like May or June. Um, and I was able to create all

June. Um, and I was able to create all of these images with this master prompt here. And the great thing about this is

here. And the great thing about this is while, you know, sometimes I might want to use slightly different prompts, longer prompts, maybe pull in like more specific mood boards to enforce a certain style. If they want a picture of

certain style. If they want a picture of like a very specific model, you know, maybe they want to add like a skin mood board to it. What they have is just a prompt that you can literally copy and

paste um or you know use in my journey and they can say like one word and it will get them something that is like probably pretty good. So I'm writing cat

right now with this as an example.

Literally my prompt is just dog >> and it's like I mean you know this one's not that great. This one probably wouldn't make it into the brand but I I think this is fantastic. You have like

the cool editorial lighting. You have

the uh the plain background.

>> It's even like extremely detailed already before we even upscale.

>> The fact that you got that from cat and that from dog is giving me hope right now.

>> Yeah. I mean, these are insane. Like how

would you even prompt this like >> Yeah.

>> You know, even if >> Yeah. I think that's the key. I I think

>> Yeah. I think that's the key. I I think this is like one of my biggest takeaways is you're leaning so far into references and imagery. And that's been the aha

and imagery. And that's been the aha moment for me because I've just been so intimidated by my inability to describe things. Like you were you brought up the

things. Like you were you brought up the original picture. I wouldn't even gotten

original picture. I wouldn't even gotten half as far as you got in the baseline.

And but I can spend too much time on Pinterest. Like I'm capable of that.

Pinterest. Like I'm capable of that.

>> And it it really compounds like over time. Like here is an example of we're

time. Like here is an example of we're using the same prompt here. So live

interfaces prompting finger switching futuristic screens. I think I was just

futuristic screens. I think I was just experimenting here cuz I think this prompt is cool. And this is using all of the parameters. I think all the

the parameters. I think all the parameters from magic path and the srfs.

And as you can see here, almost no matter what we do, we're getting those qualities, the high contrast, the like black background, the rainbow. And then

if we use that same prompt in this case, just without the references, you know, we're getting a different style. Like

still cool. Um, but these mood boards that I'm using here and these profile codes don't have all that rainbow and the background and the contrast and all these like unique elements. That's like

all I'll just be saying that to the cows come home. If you if you have to take

come home. If you if you have to take one thing from uh anything I post about AI or this podcast or my course is just stop prompting and start using reference

photos, it'll save you a lot of time, a lot of credits, and a lot of stress.

>> I want to zoom out for a second. How far

have you leaned into AI in terms of how you're even positioning yourself? It's

one thing to know how to use these tools and it's another to have success in the competitive market of independent design. So, help us cross that jump like

design. So, help us cross that jump like what are some of the things that you've been thinking about over the last year or two even as you figure out how to evolve your own business? Yeah. So, I

think for the next probably like 6 to 12 months, maybe touting yourself as like an AI designer will be beneficial, especially because the people that are interested in AI tools right now or AI

design work, they're interested in it because they know about it and they know it'll allow them to do things that were either previously impossible or, you know, would save them a lot of money and time. So like people that want AI

time. So like people that want AI product photography, they just want to like not have to pay >> a product photographer to do that or they might have the constraint where it's like, hey, we're getting our packaging from China. It's going to take

6 weeks, but I want the website up tomorrow. Can you do this? And before

tomorrow. Can you do this? And before

AI, you know, maybe 3D renders and stuff like that. It could be done, but with AI

like that. It could be done, but with AI product photography in particular, it's extremely easy and you don't even need a 3D render to get started with that. So,

I would say if you are using AI right now and you're very good at it and you want to sell it to clients, it's not a bad idea to mention it somewhere in your like headline of your site or maybe even

in your bio. But I think eventually, like any technology, saying that you're an AI designer is going to be as silly as saying you're like a food chef. Well,

of course. Uh, you know, it's like saying I'm I'm a Figma designer. Well,

Figma is just a standard now. You don't

even need to mention it anymore.

Basically, I think AI is going to become the standard. We're already seeing that

the standard. We're already seeing that in product design like way more extreme than branding. I mean, I'd love to hear

than branding. I mean, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, too.

>> I think my thoughts are that you're spot on that there is a window in time right now. And I think that almost every

now. And I think that almost every application of AI does have a window in time and it's has varying degrees of length, you know, like I saw that in product design 100%. Where people were

putting AI designer and I think looking back it looks maybe a little bit silly, but it worked. Like if you were able to convince somebody that you are an AI native product designer, you've had some

success in the market over the last like 6 to 12 months. And I don't even think we're fully at the end of that cycle. I

think even looking at your own success on Twitter, you've obviously crushed by being early to this, but the window is not closed. I think because there's so

not closed. I think because there's so few people, I mean, there's probably only a hundred people actually offering like AI services and that's pretty generous, but I have people ask me all

the time like, do clients actually ask for AI work? And it's like, well, yes, sometimes right now, but also they don't they don't care where it comes from.

They don't care if it's AI. As long as you can get into them for better, cheaper, and faster, that's what that's why they're going to choose you. For

someone who's listening, who's inspired by the things that you're saying and like me, they agree there's this moment in time where you really can capitalize on these skills and maybe they want to

be like, you know, one of those 100 or so people that are actively making a living bringing this kind of work to the table. You do have a course for people

table. You do have a course for people that want to go deeper. So I'm curious if you could share a bit about, you know, what is it, who is it for, what can people expect to get out of it.

Yeah. So, the course is called the AI creative director, and I basically made it to be a step-by-step system for people that want to make consistent, high quality sort of like client ready

work, whether it's, you know, for your own internal team or if you're a freelancer. Stuff that can actually go

freelancer. Stuff that can actually go out into the world and not look like slop. Kind of the impetus behind this

slop. Kind of the impetus behind this course is like I had people even like you, Rit, that have like been in the game for like much longer than I have.

I'm like 23, you I've I've been working a long time, but you know, people that have done some of like the biggest startup brands in the world or like worked on campaigns for Nike and all these places, they were commenting on my

AI post like, "How did you do this?" And

I'm like, "What do you mean?" Like, "You actually are like a a working creative director uh for these huge things and you're so like raw, like so much raw talent." After kind of like looking into

talent." After kind of like looking into it, I realized they just don't know how to use these tools. I think they've been led astray kind of by like the tools themselves. Like obviously when they're

themselves. Like obviously when they're marketing they want to you know say it's super easy to use like it's just one click and then you have kind of like what I call the prompt bros kind of mirroring the same thing like if you

just buy my course and follow my process you know it'll be so easy and I think that's like totally a myth like I've mentioned so many times now like I I hate prompts I don't use them that much.

So yeah, it's a course meant for people that have like good taste and probably a creative background or someone that's like been around creative workflows a lot in the past. It's not sort of like a

design 101 course. I also tried to make it pretty tool agnostic. So it's not even necessarily like a a model 101 course cuz I'm hoping that you know if midjourney decides to like change its

entire thing uh or a new model comes up in the next like 6 months that you know these skills are are things you can actually use. It's also has like four

actually use. It's also has like four live sessions too. So like I encourage people to like just come with like your question and like show me your prompt and we'll walk through it together. And

I think that's where kind of a lot of the value comes in because everyone's use case is different. And then

hopefully I'm going to train an army of like a couple hundred people in my exact process that are really good at AI. And

then I can, you know, offer us as like a sort of team package to companies that want to create a lot of these assets.

>> Hey, real quick. If that sounds like it's up your alley, then I asked Jamie if we could share a discount code for dive club listeners, and she agreed. So,

just head to dive.club/jamie

to get the special offer. That's

dive.club/jam

ey. Okay, back to the episode. A

takeaway that I have from just watching your process is yeah, there's definitely tool mastery and lessons learned and you're understanding how to take different steps to achieve this

consistency, but at the end of the day, it really is just good creative direction. Like you understand what

direction. Like you understand what makes a good brand and you put a ton of thought into the references. Like the

references, you don't get those for free. You know, references come from an

free. You know, references come from an understanding of what makes great creative direction. And so if anything,

creative direction. And so if anything, I think this has been a giant sales pitch for the value of somebody that understands brand and that AI isn't really going to swallow that anytime

soon.

>> No, I mean until AI can go through Cosmos and like pick the images and the visual direction for you, which I think certainly there will be a time and a market that that that would make sense

for. You're going to have to be a

for. You're going to have to be a creative director in order to get these kind of results. It's like the better you are at the visual stuff, the better you are going to be at commanding AI to make that visual stuff. And like all these references I have here for this

magic path, you know, style. A lot of these came from my mood board. Like this

is from Pinterest here. And then I doubled down as I started to create images and got a better sense of like, okay, you know, this prompt is working.

If I can show you guys, I start to kind of like dog food my own style. So I put images that I made into the style references to like reinforce that style.

Um so this one was one that I made in AI like very early in the process and then I loved it so much that I was like hey AI I want everything to have elements of this and that obviously was like super

fruitful for consistency and then also just nailing the vibe that I wanted.

>> Is that pretty typical that your output would slowly take over the initial references? Yeah, especially for stuff

references? Yeah, especially for stuff that's like very abstract and and and juicy and very midgety like this.

Definitely. That's just the best way to like reinforce your prompts is to give it stuff that you've already made that you like. And then also too, like for

you like. And then also too, like for anyone that's concerned about like, oh, I'm using reference photos of like, you know, it's not my work or the stock photo. I don't want it to be generic or

photo. I don't want it to be generic or I don't want to like maybe be copying someone. As you start to do this, you

someone. As you start to do this, you also 100% go into your own unique style.

Like this image is solely mine. Like

this was not taken, you know, from Pinterest or anything. Same with this.

Like I made this image and this one. So

now even though I'm using some references from Pinterest, um, or stock photos, I'm pulling in my own style as well. So it is totally

unique to me. And then also the clients get that benefit too that they're not, you know, potentially looking exactly like some other brand because it's impossible.

>> I know the topic of taste is pretty wishy-washy and a little bit hard to talk about sometimes, but I look at that photo with the rainbow gradient cubes and

>> I mean that's taste, right? Like it's

not >> I think so.

>> It's not obvious to me that this would even be great, you know? like you have to have an understanding of what you're trying to accomplish and how you want to stand out. And I'm sure I'm not alone in

stand out. And I'm sure I'm not alone in looking at that and being like, man, yeah, I have a little bit of room to grow there in terms of growing this muscle of of taste and bringing more to the table in that regard. And

>> I know it's difficult to talk about, but like how practical can we make this?

Like if somebody comes to you and you're like what are some steps that I can take to grow my own taste and invest in this as a very core part of how I'm able to

differentiate myself as a designer. Do

you have any advice for that person?

>> What I recommend to anyone and students in my course is you need to have a daily taste practice and taste has to be a part of your life. If if you want to be

someone that makes visuals for a living, you you got to think about the things around you, the things you're consuming, even the things you're wearing, the things you're eating. Um just anything that you consume, you know, visually or

culturally. And there's a couple things

culturally. And there's a couple things that I do. So like number one, I'm like always mood boarding. If you can see here, I have like the Pinterest plugin.

I got the Cosmos plugin. I have it downloaded on my phone. So, anytime I'm like shopping or anytime I'm even on X, I'm like constantly able to just like

quickly share images. Um, so let's see.

As you can see, like, yeah, here's Geomet. I can save this frame to

Geomet. I can save this frame to Pinterest with the little plugin that just popped up. Or even this if I, you know, this is uh someone talking about their uh protein ice cream. This is not

a design post, but the diet is really cool. So, I'm going to save that as a

cool. So, I'm going to save that as a design. And then what I do as well as

design. And then what I do as well as something I used to struggle with all the time was I used to have like really specific mood boards like here's my like UI design mood board and here's my

vintage branding mood board and and here's my like winter fashion mood board but obviously things overlap. What if

it's like a light jacket? Does it go with fall or winter? I like to just separate my mood boards by like way bigger categories. So, like I noticed

bigger categories. So, like I noticed like over time I was saving a lot of things to my design inspiration that could probably just be its own mood board as product photography. As you can see here, I probably need to switch the

system off a little bit cuz I have 7,000 design inspiration pins. Uh maybe I need to do like a yearly one. But I noticed, okay, like I specifically want to look for just product photographers, logo, so I split it into that. But otherwise, I

try not to over complicate it because that decision fatigue when you're saving stuff is going to prevent you from actually saving it and just like yeah getting that into the archive. So that's

most important. So that's kind of like the function of it. So you got to find a place where you can save your inspiration. My mind, Cosmos, Pinterest,

inspiration. My mind, Cosmos, Pinterest, you know, even notion, you know, if you're saving maybe writings too. And

then next, I would say, I think I tweeted this a while ago, but the worst thing you can do as a designer is learn more about design. And I think personally like some of the best things

I've done to help me in projects like even like the randomst things like I one time had like a handbag project um that was like really alternative and kind of edgy and I had just happened to watch a

YouTube video on this fashion show like on fonts they reach premier I don't know some crazy brand like super edgy like heroin chic aesthetics and had I not been watching these fashion videos I

wouldn't have had the like reference repertoire to be able to execute like so great on this like edgy handbag. my

project and that works like all the time. Like I love to cook. I watch a lot

time. Like I love to cook. I watch a lot of cooking videos. If I ever got like a cooking brand, I'd be able to know like oh yeah, like Julia Child or maybe know more Anthony Bourdain and I have this kind of like cultural reference that

helps me, you know, either very specifically and then even more broadly too like as I'm like AI prompting like watching movies like knowing like oh like I really want this like kind of

quirky feel. Well, I'm going to say like

quirky feel. Well, I'm going to say like Wes Anderson, like Wes Anderson style or maybe I'll find a Wes Anderson frame to put into the prompt as a reference or an image prompt versus, you know, if I just

like toileted away only saving Pinterest design inspiration and and never tried to like go outside of the box or it's something that happened to me a lot is I I had goals. I want to become a better

designer. I'm just going to like design

designer. I'm just going to like design design. But actually watching movies and

design. But actually watching movies and you know maybe taking breaks uh or traveling has actually given me that kind of like space and inspiration that

has been like very tangibly useful to me. So I would say that like if you are

me. So I would say that like if you are maybe like a developer guy or like you a girl that comes from like business or marketing or sales like I I had a student reach out that was taking the

course and asked me for books on like being a creative director and I didn't really have any great recommendations.

I, you know, send them some like Virgil Aba videos. But I think any book that

Aba videos. But I think any book that you read in a creative director is not going to be as good as like reading just good literature or watching a good movie

or, you know, making a playlist and tapping into the Spotify and learning about the artists a little bit, checking out their Instagrams and seeing how they brand themselves. Like that is where you

brand themselves. Like that is where you actually get good at creative direction.

Um, like finding those references more so than reading a book that's like telling maybe telling you to do that probably. I don't know. I don't read

probably. I don't know. I don't read creative director books with the creative act. Um I like Ruben, it's very

creative act. Um I like Ruben, it's very if you've tried to read that book, it's extremely meta.

>> It's kind of a lot of nonsense anyway.

And it's I think he kind of reiterates like it's about you. It's about your taste. Like I'm making what I make is so

taste. Like I'm making what I make is so good because I like it and I have all my life experience like putting into this thing. Yeah. So there's no textbook on

thing. Yeah. So there's no textbook on being a creative doctor. Unfortunately,

you have to just be like a cool person and creative >> and you have to put in the reps. So, I

mean, the biggest thing that I'm honestly taking away is this all pins.

Like, you have over 15,000. That's a

really big number. Like, you've saved a lot of stuff.

>> I think another great example, too, is when I first moved to New York, I would see all these like influencer girls, and you know, they're like incredible fashion, incredible Instagrams, and I'm like, oh, like, how do they do that?

Like, are they just like rich, whatever?

They're just like born with it. And then

you spend time around these girls, you go on vacation with them, it's like, no, when they're making an Instagram post, like they're spending five hours doing it. They're they're posing, they're

it. They're they're posing, they're watching videos, they're scouting locations, like they're spending time shopping. Like nothing comes for free,

shopping. Like nothing comes for free, basically. And that's the same thing

basically. And that's the same thing with like really good creative directed images, whether you're making them for real or AI. Um, you got to you got to put in those that time and that reps.

And it does pay off. It It's slow. It's

kind of like the gym a little bit. I've

definitely noticed like even just with my own like fashion for example, like you know, I'm kind of like coming of age right now, so I think it's natural that like my style is evolving, but I've been like really focused on it for like 2

years and I'm just now getting to the point where like almost anything I pull out of my closet I love. But it's still always an effort. And that's the same thing for design, which I'm sure you feel as like a product designer as well.

You know, you don't really hit your stride for like five or six years. I

feel like it's very easy to kind of go from like being a Canva designer to being a Figma designer and like, you know, being better than everyone, you know, but going from like being good to

great takes like forever. And it's

because it's all about the taste and and stuff. You got to like live and breathe.

stuff. You got to like live and breathe.

>> And you got to have enough reps with the bad taste to get it out of your system, too. Like, I'm sure you could scroll

too. Like, I'm sure you could scroll back in those 15,000 pins and you'd probably hate that first 20%. Like, I do that. I have a notion database and I

that. I have a notion database and I have yeah >> a ton not 15,000 but I have a lot of UI saved in there and if I scroll to the bottom of that list or maybe I apply like too specific of a filter where I

get something from like 5 years ago and I look at this and I'm like that's trash. I would never save that today. In

trash. I would never save that today. In

some sense it almost feels good cuz I can sense growth a little bit. But you

really do just have to put in the reps.

>> Yeah. This is from like 104 weeks ago.

So what is that like? This is like barely two years, three years. This is

the AI I was making, you know, not very long ago. Part of that is obviously the

long ago. Part of that is obviously the tools improved, but most of this is like my understanding of it and my taste. And

I thought this was good. Something I was talking about before is being radically honest with yourself because I had never used AI before. I'm like, "Oh my god, I was able to create an image that it kind of listened to me. It like looks kind of

like what I want." I was like, "This is so cool." like, wow, it's like neon and

so cool." like, wow, it's like neon and it's like overlaid, but like if you're honest with yourself, you're like, no, this looks like [ __ ] Like, keep keep trying. Don't settle. Yeah,

trying. Don't settle. Yeah,

>> imposter imposter syndrome is deserved most of the time.

>> I think the [clears throat] lack of imposttor syndrome is stagnation and that if you don't experience imposter syndrome every once in a while, then that's actually quite a negative sign.

>> You should be looking at other people's portfolios every day and comparing yourself. I think that's a really good

yourself. I think that's a really good practice whether it's with like AI images or even just like branding stuff like take a screenshot like go full page that that plugin take a screenshot of like a big agency's case study then put

it next to your own and you will quickly see you are not that good you have a lot of work to do and that doesn't come from you know it comes from like with brand design or logo design like literally putting in the reps physically knowing how to like do it and what looks good

that takes time but the references you're using the mood words you're using why you're making the decisions you're making matters a lot more which I know a lot of junior designers don't want to here. But sometimes time is like the

here. But sometimes time is like the only thing that's going to make you better.

>> The one thing that I will say that is very pro junior designer though is my god, you can make reps much more quickly than you could years ago. You know,

we're not doing painstaking things in Photoshop for design. You know, it's not like we're designing apps in Illustrator anymore. You know, they're using tools

anymore. You know, they're using tools like Magic Path where you can get reps 100 times faster than I could when I was a couple years into my career. So, I I I'm pretty bullish on early career

people that are growing up natively with these tools.

>> Yeah. I mean, I have no idea like what that's going to look like. Like I I know there's kind of probably not my generation designer, but a little bit older um and people in their 40s and 50s, that kind of designer that was like

making the first like apps, you know, early Facebook people, early Shopify people, whatever. There's such a

people, whatever. There's such a specific kind of like builder, tinkerer, artist, quirky personality. I'm I'm

really interested to see like what it looks like, what the designer role looks like in the future because I think that we're kind of converging. There's going

to be like three jobs. There's going to be like ideas guys, like CEOs, like people managers, you know, this one called like finance and stuff like that.

And then there's going to be brand people. So that's anything that you see.

people. So that's anything that you see.

So marketing, websites, even events, logo design, that's all going to be just like brand. It's like my job in the

like brand. It's like my job in the future, you know? I I do brand strategy.

I can do a little bit of marketing. I'm

on X. But like part if I were to get hired, you know, in 5 years, I think I would likely be, you know, doing the brand design, probably running the social media, doing the marketing strategy, running community, whatever

that looks like. And the third job is just going to be product. If you can click on it, it's going to be like one type person's job. There's not going to be engineers and designers anymore, PMs anymore. It's just going to be one

anymore. It's just going to be one person and they're going to manage >> themselves and you know the PRDS and the road maps and the development and the front end. So

front end. So >> I think I agree. I was just texting my co-founder a few hours ago and we're like is this just product builder? Like

is that the title? Like what is happening right now? Something I saw on Twitter recently that I thought was quite interesting is they were hiring for a launch designer >> and it was this.

>> Yeah, I saw that.

>> Right. It's very It's like as soon as I saw I was like, "Oh, wow. That makes so much sense." Cuz you're right. You're

much sense." Cuz you're right. You're

owning all of the visual imagery. You're

probably owning a bit of motion. You're

owning the copywriting. You're owning

the strategy of like how are we what's the story that we're telling? Like

that's a real generalist role. And I do think it kind of speaks to where this is all going where it's like, yeah, you're just going to have to be comfortable wearing a lot of hats.

>> I think that's definitely the future.

And if you don't think it is, then you're going to be competing with people like me that can do it all, you know? I

mean, this started early for me. Like

any designer that posts on social media, uh, I'm sure you understand this. Like,

you could also theoretically be hired for like media stuff. You know, someone like Figma who probably has hired you. I

mean, you get sponsorships obviously.

You know, they're hiring you to do marketing stuff. They're hiring you to

marketing stuff. They're hiring you to reach an audience and and do strategy.

Like that was like kind of like the first leg up is like the unicorn designer is like I'm a designer that understands how to talk to people and how to get attention. Uh and that's just going to like expand to be like I know

how to I'm a designer that knows how to talk to people and get attention and get people to buy and like keep them retained, you know, and and grow this this whole thing.

>> Have you ever felt pressure to expand the team to hire people underneath you to go more of the agency route? And has

that changed with all this AI stuff?

>> Oh yeah. I mean people I felt pressure just from like seeing you know other people's success having an agency and even just like people in my own life just be like why don't you scale like you could like take on more clients. And

I think for the longest time I've been so against it because as a brand designer it's really hard to find a junior brand designer. Like if I was going to hire someone, which I actually now have like an assistant creative

director, but in the past, like if I was going to hire someone, for it to be worth their weight, it might as well be like 50% of the contract value. My

contract values up until like a couple months ago were sometimes only like 10, 12, 15k. So at that point, like getting

12, 15k. So at that point, like getting help would just meant like splitting the project. And you know, when you're a

project. And you know, when you're a freelancer only doing 10 15k projects, that looks like 250k a year. And

splitting it in half just, you know, doesn't make sense. Why would you freelance? Like why would you have the

freelance? Like why would you have the lifestyle for? It's kind of just a trap.

lifestyle for? It's kind of just a trap.

Like there's a lot of happy agency owners. I would say maybe 20% of them.

owners. I would say maybe 20% of them.

They love doing the sales. They love

having a big team. They love that they're able to like land big clients, but 80% of people are not going to going to get that. You know, there's the 8020 rule for a reason. You know,

>> they're not going to get the big clients. They're not going to get the

clients. They're not going to get the best talent. There's only so many A

best talent. There's only so many A players out there. So, you're going to be working with B players. More money,

more problems in a sense. Like if you're have more people on your payroll, then you have to get more clients. Then you

have to have more project managers and there's more stress and you have less control and you basically just become like a manager essentially instead of a designer. And often times you're also

designer. And often times you're also making a lot less money. If you can get a 100k client because you have an agency and you have enough to support like a motion design and a brand designer and a

project manager, you got to split that project. you know, maybe not evenly

project. you know, maybe not evenly among them, but like certainly a lot versus if you were just really lean and you know, maybe had like one contractor help you or even just yourself with AI maybe. Now, as a brand designer, take

maybe. Now, as a brand designer, take like a 50k gig, you get to keep almost all of that money and then you don't have to worry on your payroll and you don't have to constantly have work coming in as well. So, yeah, I honestly

think the agency kind of narrative is kind of a scam for a lot of people because I'm certainly like a living breathing example of that. Like I

actually saw I won't like say their names, but I think I saw someone kind of like publish their like agency wrapped for the year like how much money they made with like two people with like

pretty cool like big clients and I made more and you know I'm working with like sure you know I'm I'm not taking on like the Google you know commercial projects or whatever and my project values are

like much less and maybe I got to like chase my leads down a little bit more but the money and the lifestyle for most designers which I A lot of us our goal is just like I want to create cool

stuff. I want to have a good living. I

stuff. I want to have a good living. I

want to be able to like close my laptop at some point during the day and hang out with my family or do my, you know, passion project. And I don't think

passion project. And I don't think agency life is conducive to that for most people.

>> Well, Jamie, I appreciate you coming on today and this episode has really moved the needle both in like the the granular practical tactics, but also just a lot

of like career strategy. It's like very different ball games about, you know, how to learn these tools versus how to make sense of the way they fit into your journey, you know, years from now. And I

I I feel like you've shared a lot of insights on both fronts. So, I

appreciate you taking the time today.

>> Well, I'm glad. Yeah, this is fun.

>> Before I let you go, I want to take [music] just one minute to run you through my favorite products because I'm constantly asked what's in my stack.

Framer is how I build websites. Genway

is how I do research. Granola is how I take notes during crit. Jitter is how I animate my designs. Lovable is how I build my ideas in code. Mobin is how I

find design inspiration. Paper is how I design like a creative. And Raycast is my shortcut every step of the way. Now,

I've hand selected these companies so that I [music] can do these episodes full-time. So, by far the number one way

full-time. So, by far the number one way to support the show is to check them out. You can find the full list at

out. You can find the full list at dive.comclub/p

dive.comclub/p partners.