Strategy Beats Slop!

Welcome back and catching up

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0:31Pero por favor, don't scream en el drive-thru. Le van a doler los oídos a los employees. Get a $1 Small Classic Frosty por tiempo limitado. Solo en Wendy's. El precio y la participación pueden variar en los Estados Unidos. Solo a la carta. No es válido para delivery. Límite de 10 por transacción. El precio puede ser mayor en Alaska y Hawaii.

0:54Let's do it. All right, man. Brady, welcome back for your second try. Well, we should say second try today because we just missed out on recording and I majorly fucked up. But welcome back, dude. Glad to have you here. How's everything? Hey, thank you guys so much for having me. It's been a busy couple of months for me traveling all over the place. But we're happy to be in Austin for the next couple of days. Yeah, man. Lots of traveling for the rest of the month as well.

1:25Good. We were just talking earlier about that travel and coming back to your space and how good that feels. And I'm sure you're getting back to normal for a bit. And then it sounds like you're going right back out. So good problem to have. Yeah, man. I just need a couple of days to hang out in my office and not do anything before I really go heads down again. I love it. We were talking a few weeks ago. And the whole reason we were chatting about this episode here was Brady and I got invited to each host an event for Adobe over the last few weeks.

1:59And I got to do Chicago. Brady did Vancouver. And it was all about using Firefly in a new and unique way. And one of the things about this episode we want to talk about, Brady, you and I were already ready to do this. And then we both got this opportunity and it even made more sense to talk about it. Because there's so much of this AI slop, AI is crap, you know, it's the missing point. And there's the people arguing about that. We get it. We see AI slop being done by non-creatives and maybe even a lot of creatives who are taking the shortcut.

2:32And that idea of zero effort and zero strategy and then AI is going to give you what we see as slop, right? The posters we were talking about, you had mentioned like, you know, typical AI logos and things like that that are kind of, you know, I get it. They're getting the conversation out there. But I think if that's all you're talking about, you're missing the biggest point that I think AI could truly do for us as creatives. And through this event that we each got to do, we want to talk about how designers are truly using it for their pure advantage right now.

3:06And there's five big takeaways I think we both saw and we're going to talk about those a little bit. But let's get into the event really quick because this was really a blast, right? You and I were like so stoked when we found out we were on a call and I was like, you're doing one too? Like, this is great. Tell everybody about the event and we'll break it down a little bit too. But tell us about what this Create Now with Adobe was all about.

The Adobe Create Now hackathon

3:31Yeah, so this was a new type of Create Now event. So it was really more of a brand hackathon than your typical keynote speaker. And so what we did was we broke everybody up into, I think we had like 28 teams of three or four people. And then we gave them a brief and let them choose from a couple different deliverables that they could create and come up with a brand all together. And then basically use Firefly boards to sketch, mock-up, ideate together, and then create a quick presentation of three slides that the best six teams got to come up on stage and present in front of everybody.

4:14And so it was really amazing. With my demo, I went through and kind of redid the board that we had worked on and used a lot of projects that I had actually used with Adobe Firefly. And so I was able to pull all sorts of different references from the ideation stage to vectors that I had created in Illustrator to then mock-up for different projects and kind of show all of the different tools that they would need and then send everybody on their way.

4:48And as I was walking through the crowd, the energy was amazing. People were absolutely amazed with what they could do with Firefly. And I think most of the people hadn't even played with it yet. And so to see it click for people as this tool, as a part of your process instead of something that is replacing the creative process and everybody working together focused on the strategy part of that, because that's what really makes a design special, is understanding what you're building and who it's for and why you're building it was really, really,

5:29it was a unique experience because you don't get to experience a ton of people seeing their designs click in real time in that way. And just, we don't get to collaborate enough as designers as is. We all kind of work async. And so having everybody kind of break out and use their skill set to find a role within the team. And then, yeah, man, it was just electric.

5:59I can't even, I'm still coming down from the high of being there. Dude, you nailed it. Like, that's exactly the same energy. I loved seeing so many people with a light bulb moment happen. And they forgot they were using something, call it controversial, or maybe they don't feel 100% on it. But every reply, every note I got through LinkedIn or whatever said, you showed it in a unique way. You showed your real work, just like you said. And I think that's the point.

6:30It was not starting there and saying, give me a logo for a dog washing company. It was like, here's my sketch. Here's a little vector logo I created in two minutes on Illustrator. Here's, you know, I want lighting like this. And you draw a little bit of a sketch and do whatever. And when you give them that introduction into using these tools, I saw the same thing. Everyone was so excited. Then you bring the competition into it. And that even took it to, I think, a whole other level. And kudos to you, too, for doing that and, like, making your own version of it, too.

7:04Because that's exactly what I think we did when I got the first boards from the team there. I was like, oh, let me drop in what I'm familiar with and what I know. And you doing the same thing, I think it really shows the authenticity. And anytime I've seen something that was a game changer from someone else, it's because I trusted them. You know, and I think that's what I wanted people to feel with this. And it's really cool. I have this thing called it's the amplification formula, right? It's your work, your original thing that you upload in, right, to whatever you're using.

7:36This isn't a paid ad in any way by our friends at Adobe. It's just we both got to share this experience. And keep in mind, Firefly has every model in the world in there that you can test against each other. It's kind of fun. But this idea of amplification of your work, you said it. You dropped in a logo and turned it into that wood grain thing on the side of a building. Or dropped it into a new ad or whatever it might be. Or turned it into a new effect. That, to me, is where AI is just like anything else you're pressing a button on on any other app.

8:09That you're using right now. Do you agree? Yeah, for sure. I think for me, it really replaces my template budget that I've been pouring money into over the last 10, 15 years. And so I can pull in something that I actually create, an illustrator. And then I can mock it up in a realistic way for presenting that either to a client or for my portfolio. In a way that looks 100,000 times better than pulling something from Adobe Stock or finding something that kind of works on creative market and paying $30 for it.

8:47And so for that, it is an amazing tool. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast instead of doom scrolling? Smart move. Another smart move? Getting help from one of State Farm's 19,000 local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto. Bundling. Just another way to save with the personal price plan. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state.

9:17I scream. You scream. Todos gritamos. Porque el famoso Small Classic Frosty de Wendy's está a solo un dólar por tiempo limitado. Más gritos. Happy Screaming. Summer Screaming. Gritando porque el Frosty está a un dólar. Pero por favor, don't scream en el drive-thru. Le van a doler los oídos a los employees. Get a $1 Small Classic Frosty por tiempo limitado. Solo en Wendy's. El precio y la participación pueden variar en los Estados Unidos. Solo la carta. No es válido para delivery. Límite de 10 por transacción. El precio puede ser mayor en Alaska y Hawaii.

9:49Right. The best example is like if you were to have to do a custom design sign, realistic, with neon, with this, with something cool, maybe animated, whatever it might be, good luck finding that mock-up, right? You've designed it on, you've designed it in Illustrator. It's 100% your design. Good luck finding how you're going to turn that into something real. Now with, you know, a prompt that I use AI to write my prompt, and I think you do the same thing, right? Like it's like, I want this, give it to me in the best possible prompt for this model.

10:21So if I'm using Gemini, if I'm using ChatGPT, you can ask it to write it specifically for the model you're using, and you'll get, I've been, I don't think I, maybe once or twice I'll tweak something now because my prompt, my first prompt is pretty damn good. Yeah, for sure. If you kind of understand how to feed into the LLM in the back end, you can, you really use all those things that you learn in graphic design history.

10:51And if you understand lighting and, in different shots, um, talking about different angles, you can get some really, really amazing, um, final products from, from Firefly. Yeah, and even if it's just, you know, blue sky stuff too, I, I tend to like use it there a lot because I, I love it when I can impress a client or anyone I'm working with, with something on brand, hits their expectations, and it was fast, and it gives them that reliability and that trust that I'm the right person to work with.

11:28Like, I don't think any creative doesn't want that. If, you know what I mean? Like, I want to, I want them to be like, wow, Nick and his team, they get it. And anything I can do to do that is, is worth experimenting with at least before I just chime in somewhere and say, oh, it's all slop. It's not. This is, this is truly based on your work. And like we said, everything we did is like, you upload from, you know, whatever your thing is, and it's so seamless with any other app that you're working with. Why not try it and see, you know, I'm hooked now because I'm, I think we get to demo it so much and I'm seeing how incredible the advantages to work with.

12:10What if, what, let's go down these five things because I think you're doing a lot of the same thing here. And what we want to talk about is the advantages that AI can play in your day to day. And this could be you in any form of the creative world, right?

Research and discovery advantages

12:24First on research and discovery. Are you using it in that way, uh, in any way, shape or form? Yeah, man. So I actually learned the design thinking methodology at SCAD. And so I was actually doing a lot of this on a whiteboard previously, kind of going through a whole design thinking exercise to create a brand strategy, understanding my why, who, how, what, you know, competitors, indirect competitors. Um, and then going through and, and kind of using that to create a brand voice who I'm positioning against my brand archetype.

13:01And so I've been using Claude and ChatGPT for that now where I can kind of take this super long prompt that I've created and do a ton of research on a project, whether it's a client project or an internal project. So that I can understand exactly where to position them in the market. And, you know, it's never perfect. Yeah. You typically have to sit there and, and regenerate it over and over again and give it more context. And you kind of, it's something that kind of lives.

13:33And so for, for my Claude, actually, I'll use that to start a conversation. And then anytime as I'm going through the project, I need some boilerplate copy, or if I'm building the website and I need some ideas about copy for a section or, you know, what the competitors are saying in their testimonials or something like that. I can kind of use that as a tool to go and research for me and then bring in some, you know, lorem ipsum style content that is a little bit more expressive and unique than I would have had to otherwise sit there and write myself.

14:15Or do the research for and do tons of Google searches for something and weed through hundreds of results, right? Those days are, I can't believe that was only just a few years ago. For most people, because what I do now is that, that research and discovery, and like you said, it's not just client work. It's things you're doing for yourself. It might be your proposal deck. It might be your legal agreement, whatever it might be, right? Beyond just design. I love how Claude has become like, it's such a powerhouse.

14:47It's such a powerhouse, dude. When you try and you say like research, like I did at the beginning of the summer, I did a deep dive into how, how is the design education for creativity? And for graphic design changing around the world, the stuff it gave me was just, I could, how else could I have done that, right? How else could I truly have done that? And it, and then it gave me success stories. It gave me things that failed. It gave me things that to try that were customized to, because it knew everything about my school, my students, where, what, what, what demographic we are, what location.

15:22They're most likely going to work in what industry they're going to work in. And man, did it funnel down into this thing. And then, like you said, you can take that all and say like, now give that to me in three headlines. Because that's, that's all I really, I, I'm going to bore someone to death with, you know, 15 pages. So, that idea of research and discovery, and particularly trends, you name it, finding what's the latest and greatest for, maybe your new client is in a zone that you don't know anything about, but you want to be the instant expert in it.

15:54There's your, there's your, your golden ticket, right? Exactly. It can cover a lot of blind spots for you, especially during the ideation progress process. So, I'm, I'm using it all the time for every project. I kind of train my own, even if it's just a chat, instead of creating a whole separate app. But, yeah, that is my go-to for any type of research, finding competitors that I would have never otherwise been able to find, and even exploring different business models.

16:30So, you know, I, I started a painting business earlier this summer that I've been playing around with, and I don't know anything about the painting business. But now you do. But now I was able to kind of prompt it and understand all the competitors in my local market, and all of the bigger competitors who have been around for 20, 30 years, and understand the pros and cons of their approach, exactly how they're communicating on their website, and in, on their socials.

17:01And it, it really just was able to open my mind up to so many different ways that I could position my company as an outsider who, you know, is, is not really, uh, deep into the, the blue collar, uh, service sector. So, it really was able to open my mind up to so many new possibilities. That's incredible. When you told me that story, man, I was like, what a perfect example to show off, particularly that competitive landscape mapping.

Competitive landscape mapping

17:34That's our number two advantage. Because, honestly, for anything you're trying to get into, the number one thing you need to know is, what is the competitive landscape? What can I do right? What can I do? What am I, what could I possibly do wrong that I got to avoid? And I think the examples you just showed there, getting into something you, you're not familiar with, gave you that kind of confidence to at least try because of some amazing maybe knowledge that it gave you, or go this way, don't go that way, or whatever it might be. I love using it to talk about certain things.

18:07I found, like, creative briefs, when I gave it to a client after doing mood boards and stuff like that, wasn't enough. And what I needed to do was, when you tell them about what competitors are doing, and why this is a, when they're zigging, you're going to zag, every time I've used this now with a client, I get zero pushback. And it's 100% trust, because what can they argue about, you know, when you've given them what the whole competitive analysis is out there? They want to be, now they know they've got to be different, right?

18:39So, have you had a moment like that where maybe it shocks somebody that, you know, you're working with, or even yourself, and you're like, thank God I have this knowledge now? Oh, absolutely. And zag is a great book by Marty Neuheimer, by the way. Amazing book. But it definitely helps to open up so many different possibilities that you may not understand anything about. You know, in the design profession, we work with clients from all over the place. And so, we may not know everything about their business.

19:13And a lot of times, the founders may not even know who all their competitors are, especially in like local service businesses. They're so focused on the companies next to them, that they're not even privy to this company in Colorado or California, that is completely innovating in the space. So, to be able to show them those examples and be like, hey, look at this company, you know, over here in New York that is absolutely killing it on social media, or look at the way they've built a website funnel that flows everybody into this specific offer is, I mean, you can't, it's the best way to sell.

19:55If that doesn't sell someone on the advantages AI can bring to you as a solo entrepreneur, a one-person thing, a three-person agency, a 20-person agency, it doesn't matter. Like, that to me is brilliant, dude. Like, that idea of like, they're short reach, and they think they know what's going on in the industry, and they have no idea what even maybe 20 or 30 miles away someone's doing, let alone the other side of the country. Yeah, man, it's crazy. There's so many use cases.

20:27Love that. I love that example. That's number two. Number three is AI as the co-art director. Okay, I think that's the slam dunk for me, man. I'm currently working on like a new personal brand, and AI is, it's so good on this, man.

The co-art director approach

20:46I keep uploading my new logo. And they're like, nope, you said, Nick, it had to be, it had to represent these three key attributes. I think you're going off on a tangent. I was like, it's right. It's so right. Like, it's so good. And it's keeping me in track. It's also telling me principles. It's saying that won't scale. It would say, these two lines are kind of blurring together, separate them a tad more. It was like even saying, take this one area and rotate it counterclockwise three degrees, and then re-upload. I'll give you my honest opinion.

21:24I was like, dude, how cool is that, right? Like, have you been using it for any kind of co-art directing in any way? I actually don't use it as much in that way. So it's interesting to hear from you. I do use it to get general feedback on like my portfolio from an SEO perspective, or sometimes you can pull your social media feeds into it, and it'll tell you what you're doing well, what you're not doing well, what the opportunities are.

21:54So I do use it in that way. But I haven't used it as much from an art direction perspective, other than like creating imagery. And a lot of times a brand will come to you and they don't have any photography. They don't have anything to go along with the brand identity you're building for them to use on the website. So I can kind of use it to create some general mood board art direction images. But that's really the only way I'm using it in that way. But I see the opportunity there.

22:29Yeah, it's it's also the the instant expert on let's say you're creating a dial line for a custom box, you can upload it and say what's the feasibility of this is this going to increase, you know, per unit cost for my client, based on you know, you can literally give it two options and say, you know, kind of like flesh this out for me, what what's going to happen if we go this direction? Do you do you foresee any kind of additional cost in printing or whatever, like, it's so incredible. Incredible.

And again, this is all you uploading the work that you've designed that it's your it's still your original artwork, you know, and I've been finding that to be really cool. And I'm using letting my students do this too. Because one thing we did was we put together like a case study, chat GBT, GBT, and it has pretty much, I pretty much uploaded two to 300 PDFs that I've used in my class all about building a proper case study.

23:27And then it has templates and it has best practices and all this stuff. So my students, as they're building a case study, they can upload the URL and say review this, what would Nick say? So it's like, it's this, it's almost like they get you on, on tap anywhere and anytime. And that's all I want to do. I want to, I want to, and I think this is also bridging the gap to a lot of these younger designers that don't understand where AI's places just yet. And here they're using it and saying, whoa, like this is all based on his knowledge and everything he's taught. So to me, this idea of AI as the co art director, if you're the solo entrepreneur, and we talked to so many designers, you know, throughout conventions, trade shows, I'm sure you talked to a bunch of people there at the Adobe event, I did too.

24:14And everyone feels a little siloed more than ever, you know, cause working from home or folks that are in cities that maybe don't have a huge kind of, you know, artistic or creative kind of influence. And they don't have that go-to buddy that I think, I think a lot of us, you know, have to like, look at something, throw it in AI, let it, let it, but be ready. Cause it's going to be so blunt and tell it, you should tell it, like, don't pull punches, like give it to me. Cause isn't that funny? Like sometimes I think our egos don't want to hear it from somebody else, but I'd rather AI tell me cause it's only, it's only me and it.

24:52For sure. I do use it like that from time to time. I find myself like being, being somewhat skeptical of the answers. So I'm like, I might give it a logo or something and have it review it for me. And then it'll be like, oh, this is amazing. This is great. They're gaslighting you. And so I'm like, wait, give me more, you know, more upfront, like critical feedback. For this. I'm not looking for you to just tell me that it's great. Like I actually want you to push back.

25:52I scream. You scream. Todos gritamos porque el famoso small classic frosty de Wendy's está solo un dólar por tiempo limitado. Más gritos. Happy screaming. Summer screaming. Gritando porque el frosty está un dólar. Pero por favor, don't scream en el drive-thru. Le van a doler los oídos a los employees. Get a $1 small classic frosty por tiempo limitado. Solo en Wendy's. El precio y la participación pueden variar en los Estados Unidos. Solo la carta. No es válido para delivery. Limita de 10 por transacción. El precio puede ser mayor en Alaska y Hawaii.

26:24It's true, man. I think I, one thing I've been noticing too, is it's this idea of the art itself is like you and I might, you might create something you love and be like cool with it. Like that art is, I'm happy with it and I'm Mr. Impatient. So a lot of times I might publish before really sending it to other folks. So to me, I really like the, the cut to the chase kind of like truthful, honest thing there because I think a lot of times too, it's like you do need second eyes on things all the time.

26:57And this has been a really cool game changer for me. And I'm, I really liked that, you know, cause it's again, even though you have many people to reach out to, I'm so happy to have this thing here. And I think it's another bridge that people have. If there's something you do, and this is to listeners right now. And I think you'll agree. If there's something you do that's super unique to yours, whatever you do for your creativity and work, I bet you a million bucks. You can find two or three things that AI could be your art director on that.

27:27You can get really creative with you were talking about how you want to start that business and how you started using it as this, like, be my mentor into this world. Right? Like you let your imagination flow and it will be a very unique advantage you have that maybe nobody else does. So it's like, just be open to it. You know what I mean? Yeah. One of the prompts that I always use is telling it like, all right, you are the CEO, CFO, COO, you know, chief design officer, head developer. Here's my idea. Here's all the context behind it. Give me the pros and cons from it, from every single perspective.

28:09And it's really good at poking holes from different angles because, you know, sometimes as designers, we're so stuck in marketing and product brain that we're not even realizing that, oh, there's going to be an operational supply chain issue. Yeah. That we're going to have to deal with even further down the line or, oh, there's this hold up on the, you know, there's so many ways that it will show you opportunities and kind of give you a different perspective from different angles.

28:43Good point, man. I, again, that's, that's such a good one. It is, I shouldn't even say co-art director. It's just more like a hired hand. Like it's like anything you need that's not on your team right now, it could portray immediately. Number four. Your board of directors. There you go. I have it as my head chef. So it, it tells me it puts together recipes and puts together like macro things for like, if you're making something to eat, I absolutely love, like, it's like, it's the coolest thing.

29:13For those little moments where you just like need an extra hand and you want to get an expert, you know? So think of it that way. It's your hired expert ready to go for anything you're looking at. The fourth one here, and you and I, I think probably showed a ton of this at the Adobe event that's generating mock-ups and applications. And again, like we said earlier, this idea of like the customization of a mock-up you can get for the blue sky idea and the custom logo you've already created.

Generating mock-ups and applications

29:38You get to put them together and now make these incredible things that people will be blown away with. I love it for quick can designs, for packaging, a unique bag that maybe the client wants to see. What, what, what areas have you used it for in the application and mock-up thing that you feel are kind of standouts? Yeah, that's the main thing that I'm using it for. Almost all of my projects now, instead of going and finding some mock-up templates, I'm just using Firefly to create super unique ways to show off the product.

30:14And so during the Create Now event, I was actually showing them a logo that I made for, it's called the Bradfield Center. It was the first place I ever played basketball as a kid. My old basketball coach became a board of director there and they're starting this thing called Night Hoops to keep kids off the street. And so they needed some quick graphics to throw on some t-shirts and some banners. And so I actually used Firefly. I pulled in a bunch of references and made a vector.

30:46Well, I made a simple image of the building itself in Firefly and then used my own typography, pulled it into Illustrator to vectorize it, created a whole logo, and then pulled it back into Firefly to generate it on kids' t-shirts and some banners that are hung around the actual gym. And so it was a great way to kind of showcase different ways that they could show the logo around the gym and actually get them to invest in vinyl banners and some t-shirts that were more than just a one color print on a solid color t-shirt.

31:28And so it was really good for stuff like that. It can show your logo embroidered. I had it like embroidered on a felt banner on the side of the gym. So it looked amazing. There's like kids in motion underneath. It looks like a real picture that somebody took within the gym. And so for that, it's amazing to use it as a selling tool to kind of showcase those real world examples. It's so cool the way you put it because I think that's 10 times better of a chance of them actually moving towards something, feeling okay with maybe the budget of creating that felt sign.

32:09Because let's say you couldn't replicate it exactly the way you did there because there's no mock-up that exists that's going to do that 100%. But now that you've given it to them and maybe you get a quote too, maybe it's a few hundred bucks and it's like, ooh, but if they could see the real deal, I feel like you and I's kind of persuasion, and that leads us into the fifth one here in a sec, is so much better. And it's not like you're just making more money. You're making it a happier client.

32:40Even if it's this, I bet you probably even did it for free. So like, I mean, you know, it's like, that's a great feeling for being able to do something for something, giving back and showing them that value of what this might look like. Like, um, I love this idea that food trucks, um, things that like a client might be iffy about spending the extra money for not only in the design part, but then the fabrication and everything else. If I could get, take pre-done graphics that we've already created from their, their style guide and just pop it on a quick, they can even send me a picture of the van they aren't thinking of.

33:17I don't have to, you know how hard it is to find van outlines for these like trucks that, you know, for the model. Now you just put in your graphics and that image of the van they sent you and it's 72 DPI and it looks like crap. It will make you the most pristine application shot. And the client might just go, let's go for it. Green light. I've actually done that for multiple, uh, Sprinter vans for a roofing company. Um, they, they got, they got wraps for a Sprinter van, a Ford F-350 and a trailer as well.

33:51So I was able to make a general mock-up because, you know, these rap companies don't send you a super accurate, uh, mock-up most of the time. And so I was able to kind of create a general graphic, mock it up within Firefly on these different applications to kind of see where, all right. The logo is like going to cut off from the door or, oh, this van has a sliding door. So it's actually going to, you know, cover up the phone number when they're, you know, actually at work.

34:25And so you can kind of work out a lot of the little kinks during the printing process by mocking them up on these, on these vans and trucks as well. So that's a good point to the idea that you are a creative partner to someone taking that extra step and making life easier because when the fabrication or the vendor, who's going to actually create something that your designs are, you know, basically based on, I love when you could do that to someone and they could be like, oh, this, this rendering tells me exactly what you need.

34:57No questions. And so like, you know, I remember two or three years ago doing one for a food truck and it was the back and forth was crazy. And because we couldn't just render it so quickly and so accurately, and now I can. And they, they look at it as like, uh, one of my clients even said, they're like, they complimented the graphics that you provided because of the rendering was so on point. They knew exactly what our expectations were and the client, the client loved it. And then the client's vendor or the, you know, the fabrication of the, the wrap was so happy.

35:30That's our job, dude. Yeah. I want to make everyone's life easier. And God knows these print companies will just print whatever as well. So if you make a mistake and your QR code is, you know, in the wrong position or it's not going to the right website. Whose fault is it? Things are getting cut off. It's your fault. Yeah. So you have to be either super, super involved in the process from the beginning or, you know, double and triple checking all of these little things during the process. It's true, man. Yeah.

36:00There's a, that's such an advantage. If you are the, the owner, the lead in any kind of one of these situations, I hope these ideas are kind of just lighting a light bulb above you because it's so true. How once you hit it to that point where you're more commerce and you're more business than you are creative. And I think many of us get to there because you, you're running the show, you're doing your budgeting, you're doing your, your outreach, you're doing all those things. Right.

36:27I need any advantage I can get to look more trusted, to look more ready for them, to be more prepared and for them to say yes. And so these, these, this is what it does for us. And I love it. Let's, let's get into this last and final one.

Presentation and persuasion support

36:41And I think it's a big one and it's presentation and persuasion support. I think we talked about how everything one through four helps with our persuasion, but what about presentation wise? Yeah. When it all funnels into that final deck or whatever that you're sending out there, have you seen advantages where your AI assisted stuff has helped the presentation? Oh, without a doubt, especially during the sales process. So the way I kind of pitched it at the create now event is, you know, obviously they were creating their own brief here, but I was saying, imagine that this is a brief that's created by, you know, a potential client.

37:23And you only have an hour to actually create this brand from scratch to show them and sell them on your ideas. And so I think the whole exercise that we went through was really about how to create that presentation and how to, you know, not only generate a bunch of cool looking mock-ups and, you know, cool looking imagery. But to actually get to the point where you're taking them into a couple slides and saying, hey, here's all that we can do for you.

37:56These are the types of applications that your brand is going to show up on. And, you know, we're building all of this around your, you know, potential client and we understand X, Y, Z about them and what their demographics are, where they live, what they do. And here's why this works. And then at the end, here's what my package is. Here's how much this is going to cost to actually get this done. That's the add up in the funnel.

38:27I think that it does bring to your presentation is kind of like a game changer for me. I've, I've used it two ways. I think one is whatever project I've been on, if it's time for presentation, I probably have four to five weeks worth of chat going on in a project for that particular project, right? From the very beginning, the onboarding, the things they said in a meeting, right? Their must-haves, our creative brief, the ins and outs of the creation of every single logo and concept we did, right? Now I'm making my five to six page presentation on it.

39:00I could say from everything in this thing, the cumulative five weeks I've got here, give me a rough draft, just type only, slide by slide, how I should present this based on everything we've gone through. And it will remember those little nuggets and those things where it's like, you know, where we had those game-changing moments and what maybe a comment the client said. And the way it could, you know, first try didn't work that well here. It takes a few times to get in there and like really understand. So your prompt again has to say like, from everything we've learned here, now I need to sell this to the client and it should, has to be an immediate yes.

39:38What are we writing? What does this look like? Right? So that's the first thing. And then my second way I'm using it is on Claude and on ChatGPT, which I believe it's Codex, is their kind of coding thing. I'm putting it all together in a URL, in a website, rather than a interactive, maybe it's a PDF. I used to do just a PDF or whatever it would be. And if I can present it live, great. But a lot of times it's through Zoom. But it's creating me a mini site, almost like this parallaxing kind of like mini site that looks like a one-pager that's got everything.

40:14And it's got clickable links and all these cool things. And that to me has been a game-changer too, because I'm feeling 10 times more confident sending that out than just going, here's our page-by-page PDF. And the response has been so cool. I can't code worth crap. I can't build a website without using Wix and a template. So this is a game-changer for me. And it's creating these things. And it's so, again, I'm giving it a folder that has all the assets, right?

40:46All of my beautiful renderings, all my discovery boards, everything. So it's putting that in, it's my approved copy, maybe color palettes and everything. I'll brand it to our look and feel of the brand and the font choice and everything else. And it's creating me these incredible things that I'm like, if that doesn't sell you alone on this stuff, I don't know what will. It's pure success. I love that. And that's a great deliverable as well. There's a lot of conversation online right now about how we've all delivered a brand guidelines that gets completely ignored after handoff.

41:26Or you have clients who are constantly hitting you up, being like, oh, can you send me this logo and a PNG? And it's like, I sent you everything. You refer back to the folder. And so being able to create a mini site. Framer is actually really good at this with the new Framer agents. You can feed it, you know, all of your assets or a folder of assets, and it will create an entire brand guideline for you that you can then push live on the website, hide behind a URL, and then just share that with the client themselves so that they can share that out to other marketing partners or, you know, print companies that they're working with.

42:07So then they have access to all of the vector files and all of the resources they need to keep everything on brand moving forward. What you just described, I think, would have been on every creative's wish list just two or three years ago, right? Give me that one thing I can give to them, and it has, rather than a folder with the PNGs, the PNGs medium, the PNGs large, you know, white, whatever, a site that has everything clickable to download, and the brand guidelines in one.

42:41Like, interactive, with some movement, that to me, you show them, you build one of those once, right, and now you have a template for any other client. But imagine showing that to them, and then saying, maybe I up my logo package price two grand, because look what they're getting. You know, you need that, I know, that's how I feel, I need more things in the cart before I can charge more. And that gives me that right there.

43:11Yeah, man, that's a great deliverable. And there's been tons of websites and tools that do this, but they charge literally, like, I think there was one called brandguidelines.com, and it was like $900 a month. It was something insane. Good luck, guys. Because, like, a few people were even talking about yesterday, we were talking about what we've used in the past. There's a few of those apps that, like, you know, you can give it everything, and it will at least even, like, categorize and download and put things in nice folders and all that.

43:42I think those days are gone, too, because, like, what you're finding out is that one subscription you have to whatever LLM you use. In most cases, you know, I love that they're fighting each other. Like, one day it's ChatGPT, then it's Claude again, and then, like, you know, it just keeps going and going and going. It's like, let them fight, because we're getting better and better tools, you know? So that's changing. That's changing. All right, dude. Should we stop saying AI? This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast instead of doom-scrolling?

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Dropping the buzzwords

45:05So, I very strategically didn't say AI in my presentation. I didn't mention it a single time. I didn't say generate because that's, you know. It's a button. The word. Yeah, that's the button that you have to. But I very purposely didn't talk about AI. And I even made a video about this. And I had multiple people that were there in Vancouver message me and was like, I didn't even realize this was an AI demo. And so, I think by just showing them what the tool does, and we have to get past this era we're in right now where obviously the investors and the board of directors are pushing you to say AI as much as possible because their stock price goes up.

45:53But to us as the end user, just tell me what it does. I just want to know what the tool does. And at the end of the day, it's just a tool. And so, I think I've seen this in the past by working in the crypto and NFT space for a little while. I think the blockchain technology was a little bit ahead of its time. I still think that there's some use cases for it, but it got way over its skeeves. And everybody's talking about NFTs. And everybody's just talking about the infrastructure when they're talking about AI right now.

46:27Every time you say AI, you're literally just talking about data. And nobody cares about the data. Just tell me what I can do with it. It's like the old Apple versus PC commercials. You know, Apple is thinking different and being a creative, and PC is telling you how much RAM the computer has, or how big the mega chip in the Pentium processor in the background. None of that means anything to me.

46:58I just want to know what I can do with it. And so, I think we're starting to move into that next realm of marketing where people get over the AI buzzword. It's the same as like, I looked this up and it was like, I remember when everyone was saying, like, how did you do that? Well, I used a computer. Or then it became, I used desktop publishing. Because that was, again, like the last time I think our industries had quite a huge, you know, new thing drop.

47:29And everybody, a whole generation go, no, like, do not put a computer on my desk. I do it this way, you know. And we've passed that. That is gone. We got over it. And now it's 100% there. And I did see someone talk about something saying, like, you know, if you've updated an app any time after 2019, guess what? You've used AI. Like, it's in just about everything that you touch now. So, I like this idea, man.

47:59We both did that same idea where don't, just don't use the topic. Don't use the word. And I'm going to try to get through this semester at school with the same thing. But I know it will come up in conversations, but what I'm going to do is not use it when we're talking about how do you get there. You know, I'd rather just say, like, oh, let's look at chat versus, you know, just talk, just name the application you're using. That's one thing I love about Firefly is I did something the other day where I did something and it was automatically on Flux, I think.

48:30And it didn't work right. And then I just used another one that I hadn't used before. All the models are in there. If you've got a paid subscription with Adobe Cloud and you go to Firefly, there it was. I used another one and it gave me 10 times better. So, like, that's what we're using. I like this idea of kind of like, you know, so I'm glad we're both on the same page with that. Like, I'm going to try to do it even in conversations with designers who I know are still on the fence. Don't even bring it up. I think this is always happening, though.

49:01I remember my first job title as a designer. I was a digital designer. Yes, there you go. And I was like, as opposed to what? Even if I was a print designer, I'm laying things out with InDesign and Illustrator. Like, this was like 2012, 2013. I'm like, everybody's a digital designer. There's no crossover point at that point in time. And so, for a while, it was like, digital innovation. We're innovators. It was like, all right, you're just using the web and social media to put out marketing.

49:37And so, I think there's always, there's going to be some new buzzwords next year that everybody's going to take hold of and is going to know shit out of all of us designers. Strategic brand communication. There's all these things. It's the same, it's my same argument of why I tell people, don't, you're not a freelance designer. You're just a designer. What are you? Are you a senior designer? Are you an art director? Are you a creative director? Even if you're the one person show, drop that. That just tells the world how you build.

50:07Like, how you, what, how you're kind of situated. But, I just hate the word to begin with, but I, that's my argument of like, drop freelance. And you're, you're a designer, you're a creative, you know, you're for hire, just like anybody else is even a full-time or nine to fiver. But, you just do it based on the project and the contract and you build it. No one wants to just work on something and say goodbye to the client and be like, I hope you work with me again. No, we've learned how to be super, kind of like partnerships.

50:40We're like, we're not a vendor. We want to be a partner with you. You know, I, I, I cherish the, the long years relationships I have with clients. I don't want to just come in and out and be like, we're done. Go find someone that's going to do, you know, the next thing for you in design. So, I, I think this is, there's an argument to be said here. It's like, just don't even use the term AI any longer. Yeah. I'm going to try.

51:05It won't be in the title. I, I'm going to try to do a title for this episode and I won't use it. It's just going to be like, get over it. I think that's the name of this one. Any last words, bro? I like it. No, man. I, I appreciate you having me on. It's a, it's always a pleasure. Looking forward to coming out to LA and maybe attending one of these Glyphic meetups. Yes. It's going to happen, dude. I think we're, we're, we'll keep a lookout on Glyphic LA. We're looking at an October thing and hopefully we'll get Brady out here to LA for that.

51:36Be a blast, man. A big thank you to all of the folks that invited both of us to come to the Adobe events. The team is so good. And I feel like they are really seeing an influx of like positivity and things because of the change in this model that they did. I think you nailed it. Your description was 10 times better than my description of the event in our first take. So yours was, yours was 10 times the hackathon, the whole idea there, man. And, uh, dude, what an honor to be doing it with you. I was so glad it was the two of us.

52:07And, uh, again, we've, we met through the whole Adobe ecosphere here. So like, uh, glad you're a part of it, bud.

52:15Yeah, man. It's, uh, always a pleasure to, to connect with you. Hopefully we'll, we'll get together in person soon. Yeah. Again, after crop. Yeah, man. I'm not going to make the Ohio crop. I'm missing out. Even though I'm from Ohio. Oh, so you know it. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's what I got to share with you is I used Claude and I made a, uh, where's where to go in Cleveland, um, site and it is awesome, dude. It is so cool. So if you, even if you're doing something for like a family reunion or whatever, the, the,

52:49these tools are just fantastic. And I hope we were able to open up your horizons with this, try these things before you have, you know, uh, uh, like a strong kind of, you know, negative thing towards it. The advantages are incredible. And I think what we both shared with, with everybody here, I hope it was a kind of that like light bulb turning point, tipping point thing for you to try it out a little bit more. Yeah, man. We will have to host the async, uh, Adobe Firefly challenge at some point to get people online.

53:24I'm down, I'm down. All right, buddy. Well, thanks so much for joining, man. I know it was great to get this together and I think, I think there's some good compelling stuff here. So I really appreciate you kind of coming on again, bud. Thank you again, man. Appreciate it. If this conversation helped you think a little longer term about your creative career, hit like, and subscribe. It helps more than you think. And if you know a creative who's trying to figure out their next move, share this with them. That's how we get this community to grow. Thanks.

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