So, I’m a Xennial. We’re the micro-generation that was raised between analog and digital worlds, and we’re pretty comfortable with mad swings and huge shifts in technology and life.
When I was 8, I remember my mom yelling at me not to jump on the hardwood floor near the stereo so the vinyl record wouldn’t skip while she recorded her favorite songs to a Magnavox tape for her aerobics class.
Later in my teens, I was stoked to be able to fit dozens of songs on a CD. Then even more thrilled when I could just have hundreds of these teeny MP3 files on my iPod.
As a graphic designer, I’ve been subject to many, many technology upgrades and shifts over the years.
TL;DR: I’m not afraid of new tech.
That said, I want things to work well. So I’m not an early adopter.
The reason I want things to work is that I’m an efficiency nerd. I like when projects (and my life) run smoothly and efficiently. For example, I don’t like showering twice in a day, and I will sweat it out all day in a greasy ponytail if I know I’m going to be biking later.
As for my work, I work for myself and am solo for the most part. I hire help as needed for things like complex websites or large writing needs.
I take on branding projects and have an intimate, one-on-one process that I guide my clients through. This has yielded happy clients and work that I’m proud of.
I’m always learning more about branding and small business marketing, and over the years I’ve honed this process into a pretty reliable little engine.
When AI came into my life over the past year, at first I was unsure. I held off for a bit.
Would this be something that threatens my livelihood?
Will people be able to just create their own brands for their small businesses?
The short answer: Nope.
Will this be possible someday? Perhaps.
But right now, without the knowledge of how to use AI as the tool that it is (and a powerful one at that), the outcomes are meh.
I recently posted on Threads:
Hot tip: Use untrained AI for your branding and marketing needs and you won’t have to do any more thinking. Nobody will even notice because you look and sound like everyone else. It’s like “Melania Face,” but for brands.
This is because AI can only reference everything that already exists. Original, thoughtful, soulful brands aren’t going to emerge from an alphabet soup containing everything under the sun.
This is the biggest issue I see in the realm of branding and AI: without proper instruction and direction, the results are very homogeneous. Boring.
And most often, my clients don’t want a brand that fits in with their industry. They’re rebels and troublemakers. They march to the beat of their own drum. They want brands that make people do a double-take. That get noticed.
The real work of creating a powerfully unique and original brand is the raw, in-person conversations about what makes your brand unique. The experiences that have driven you to do what you do. The unique path that got you there in the first place.
ChatGPT doesn’t know you, your heart and soul, or what makes your product or service truly unique.
That’s the work I do with my clients.
What I do use AI for
Content outlines
Brand book content outlines
Social media brainstorming and caption outline creation
For writing that I want to sound like me, I only use AI to help guide my points. And I only do that from what I call a “Well-Informed Thread” that has been fed all of the background information on what I’m writing for.
Content creation for clients once we have defined their brand personality, voice, and messaging.
What I don’t use AI for
Brand concepts
Brand design
Logo design
Graphics of any kind
Illustration
Typography
What my clients / small business owners could use AI for in branding and marketing
Content creation, only if you have fed the AI engine the right “fertilizer” first.
I create AI Fertilizer documents for my clients after we’ve worked through a branding project. They define your brand’s personality, target audience, tone of voice, words you use (and don’t use), and more.
“Trained” AI still screws up and sometimes sounds off, so I always recommend editing your AI-generated content to make it feel right. This can take some practice.
Creating multiple content pieces from one anchor piece, like a blog post. AI is pretty good at this, again, as long as you’re giving it instructions that will produce decent content.
What my clients / small business owners should NOT use AI for
Don’t use it for writing any of your initial drafts of your brand story, mission statement, or vision statement. Those need to come from your brain, fueled by your passion and unique experience.
Don’t try making a logo. Everything from line weights to typography to general style will be horribly bad, not to mention poor file quality and improper formatting.
Don’t make graphics or illustrations for your brand. Not only will the results be off-brand and meh, you could run into licensing issues if your generative content looks too close to an existing artist’s work or brand.
For the love, don’t use it to give “visual feedback” to a designer. Our job is to create for you. Also, by inputting our work into the AI realm, you are disrespecting confidential work created for you.
Don’t use it to try to save money on design or artwork. Your brand image will suffer.
10 Tips for using AI to create verbal content (that’s not meh)
- Feed your engine. Give as much background information as you can (like the AI Brand Fertilizer mentioned above).
- Define your audience. Are you speaking to customers or people in your industry?
- Define the platform. Are you writing for a social media caption, a blog, or an email?
- Set the tone. Describe the personality you want the content to have.
- Set the length. Know your audience’s attention span. (And know it’s often much less than you’d like.)
- Describe the format. Should it include bullets? Is it just a headline and body copy, or do you want sections and subheads?
- Evaluate and push. Once you have an output, read it and ask for improvements in tone, length, or format.
- Copy, paste, and edit. AI is often still too wordy or uses phrases I don’t like.
- Know you can train it. For example: “Update your memory: Don’t use so many em-dashes.” (A personal pet peeve of mine with ChatGPT, and a quick red flag to readers that you’re using AI-generated content.)
- Have a unique point of view. Guess what? AI still needs your brain. Always think about the message you really want to send so you don’t generate boring crap.
But through all of that, one thing hasn’t changed:
The most interesting brands still come from human brains, human experiences, and real conversations.
AI is a powerful tool. I use it almost every day.
But the strategy, the storytelling, the gut instinct about what makes a brand feel alive. That still comes from people.
So if you’re curious about using AI in a smarter way, or you want to build a brand that actually stands out instead of blending into the algorithm soup, I’d love to help.
And yes, the kid in the photo at the top of this post would absolutely think it’s pretty badass that this is my job now.