26 | The Roadmap to Efficient Creativity: How to Generate Mind-Blowing Visual Assets for Your Business with AI in Minutes with Drew Brucker, Midjourney and growth-marketing expert

0:00Hello and welcome to Leveraging AI. This is Isar Maitis, your host, and I've got a different show for you today. In most shows, when we talk about generative AI, we talk about text-related applications of generative AI like ChatGPT and Claude and Bart and so on. In today's show, we are going to dive into how to use text-to-image capabilities in a business context. We're going to dive into how to create amazing visual assets, any image you need, exactly the image you need that is unique for the scenario that you need it and also unique for your business, whether it's for a blog or for your website or for a marketing campaign or for print, whatever the use case may be, what are the exact steps, everything you need to know in order to create these amazing images in minutes without a camera, without a crew, without editing and have amazing results that only you and your company have.

0:59At the end of the episode, I'm going to share some really exciting and interesting news that happened this week in the AI world that you should be aware of as a business owner. And now let's dive into this fascinating masterclass on how to create visual assets with mid-journey. In the next few years, AI technology will change our world dramatically. Whether you are a business executive trying to catapult your business forward, or just somebody who refuses to be left behind and want to advance your career, this is the show for you. I'm your host, Isar Maitis, a serial entrepreneur and an AI enthusiast.

1:41You'll hear invaluable practical tips from innovative business leaders, AI practitioners, and some of the brightest AI minds in our world today on how you can leverage AI in ethical ways to advance your career and grow your business.

1:59Hello and welcome to Leveraging AI, the podcast that shares practical, ethical ways to leverage AI to improve efficiency, grow your business, and advance your career. This is Isar Maitis, your host, and we're going to have a blast today. We're going to have a blast because our guest today is, good or bad, is very much like me in several different things. We both really like photography. We both are marketers in our core, and we both really like using AI right now to expedite a lot of things that we're doing. And he's an absolute expert when it comes to mid-journey and how to use it in a business context, how to use text to image in a way that can help businesses be more efficient and get better results and faster, which is really winning across all the different aspects of how you run a business.

2:47And so I'm really humbled and excited to welcome Drew Brucker to the show. Drew, welcome to Leveraging AI. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to jump into this topic. Me too. So really, let's dive right in. In a business, why should I even care that there's this capability out there to generate images by writing text? And then later on, we're going to go into more details, including use cases and how to actually do this. But to get started, why should I even care? Yeah, it's a great first question and a way to kick off this conversation. The default right now, I think for a lot of people, if they've heard of AI or they've heard of ChatGPT, that's the default, right?

3:35Just like in marketing, when you think, let's create content, it's a blog. No, it doesn't have to be a blog, right? Let's get out of that mindset. But it's that idea where ChatGPT made all this noise. And just by that scale and that volume of how much noise it made, that's what most people hang their hat on in terms of, hey, this is what we think should be important. And of course, ChatGPT is super important. And there are a lot of other tools out there with AI components that are very important. Sure. I think with MidJourney specifically, it comes down to a few important things, right? Which is that text to image, while is not, I think there probably is a little bit different of a learning curve than something like a ChatGPT, it does have some similarities and it's got practical use cases in various ways for virtually any kind of company there is.

4:29So that's why it's really exciting and why people should be paying attention to it just in general. Yeah. So let's dive a layer deeper, right? So what can I use this for in a business context? Okay. I can generate images, but what kind of images, what I do with them, why should a business create images using AI or should they consider doing that? Yeah. First we have to address this elephant in the room, which a lot of people are bringing up right now, which is in relation to copywriting, infringement, these regulations on AI images, because the long story that is now short is that somebody like Midjourney has scraped the web for various images, copywritten or otherwise, from various artists, various styles, so it could learn, right?

5:15And so it could take these things and adapt and have things that relate to each other and create that connective tissue for the software in general. But with that said, and we don't really know where those regulations are going to land, there are things that you could do both theoretically, right? Or even right now. And so I think if we're talking about right now, let's address that first. It's creative campaigns. So I could create something on the fly as a marketer. It doesn't matter how practical, real life oriented it is, or if it's just colloquial or funny. So I work for a live event production software company.

5:55We provide software to that vertical. And speaking in general, it's very hard to create certain scenarios, both with topography and with graphic design. Staying on the design side, we could say, hey, look, We want to do a campaign that talks about our technology all the way back to the Stone Age or some major events that occurred in the past where they could have used our technology, but it just wasn't around. So maybe that is Shakespeare doing one of his plays. Maybe it's Abraham Lincoln doing his four score speech or some event like that where we can make a little bit of a comedic play, but also a very visual understanding play of what's happening.

6:36And we could stand that up immediately. there's no obstacles that exist in terms of the typical way that you would go about doing that, which would be, Hey, I got to go looking for a graphic designer, assuming I don't know anybody that could create exactly what I want. I have to vet them. I have to have conversations. I have to explain what I want to do. I have to create a creative brief, maybe a mood board, assuming they come back with something, provide iterations, who knows how many iterations that takes. and then I got to pay them. Graphic designers aren't cheap. So depending on what the project is or how that's being billed, whether that's by the hour or by project, it's expensive.

7:13It's very expensive. And just looking at the environment and the ecosystem that we're in right now with the economy, everybody's being asked to do more with less. Budgets are shrinking. Typically how that plays out in a business context is sales and marketing headcount or budgets are shrinking. So this just provides an easy way to provide several iterations, up your quality of the things that you're producing in mid-journey, which again is the text image generation. And like you and I were talking about, create endless cycles to refine exactly what I'm looking for. I can do that in a matter of minutes versus days and weeks.

7:52And I think ultimately what it comes down to is clearing out the obstacles, clearing out the worry of budget and clearing out the worry of time. So it's that combination of all those things. So creative is where I land right now in terms of an absolute use case you could start to execute on because you could layer, you could take that into Photoshop, you could make some changes here or there, whatever, as long as it's not commercially sold or monetized, it's good. It's good to go. So I think that's where the line in the sand exists right now in terms of, is this something you're monetizing off of?

8:26How do we feel about a particular image coming out of the package and being used just as is, right? Because that's where the murky water exists right now in terms of regulations and understanding like what's fair game and what isn't. I agree. I think you raise a few very important points. One is that the creative side totally avoids the whole, is this somebody else's image or very close to somebody else's image? And then am I infringing the rights or from an ethical perspective, do I want to use a tool that has infringed somebody else's rights? And both you and I are photographers. So we have even a softer spot in our heart for the people who actually create the images.

9:01That being said, I can tell you just, again, a small use case where I use this literally daily is to create images for stuff that I need, whether it's blog posts, whether it's social media posts, whether it's stuff like that. And my images are always so specific that I can guarantee you they're not just out of the pack because they're very specific. Now, does that avoid the ethical aspect of mid-journey stall other people's images in order to teach their model? Probably not. But so I still think there's an ethical gap. I assume that's going to be resolved by them paying a fine that's going to be distributed somehow.

9:39I don't even know. But the capability to have something and I'm when I'm talking about my stuff is not setting up what you do, which is you're talking about setting up a location and a cameraman and filming at an event and edit. That's a huge work. I'm just talking about going through stock photo websites for literally hours to look for something that I feel that kind of describes the thing that I'm trying to describe in my blog post or in my social media post, which takes hours. And you usually end up with something that's A, it's okay. It's not brilliant. And B, it appeared in 25 ,364 other blog posts because it's on a stock photo website.

10:25That's right. Versus in minutes, whether three or sometimes 10 minutes, I end up with exactly what I wanted with the right feel, with the right setup, with the right moods, with the right statement that I want to create that fits the exact format that I wanted. So square, landscape, portrait, wide, narrow, like whatever I want. And I don't have to crop it to that. It generates it the way I want it. So I feel that from a alignment with the goal of the content, which is what we do as marketers, right? You create, you need an asset that drives people to take action, which means you want to push them in a specific mood.

11:14You need to grab the retention. You need to do all these things. The ability to do that today with these tools, text to image, and from my perspective, mid-journey is currently number one, is uncomparable to anything that existed before in addition to everything you said before. I don't need 20 cycles with other people on the team. Like I can literally just do it myself as a marketer or as any other person. Yeah, I'll just add one more point to that because I think that was terrific. I think social media, you think of any sort of content asset in general. If I want to turn a long form piece of content into a PDF or design that, again, am I going to go and rely on stock photography that people have seen over and over again?

11:56If I'm making, if I'm redoing a website, which is, this is a real use case right now. We have AI generated images on our website right now. And I'll tell you what's great about that is the points that you just made is you can create very specific images. they're unique and they have a tailored or specific feel to them, right? Perfect example, our brand colors are black and yellow, our primary colors. So everything that I was able to create has this undertone of this dark black contrast in this yellow light. And so now everything feels very cohesive as a brand, which you just told me that you would spend hours going through a stock photography website.

12:43I've been there and done that too. And it sucks. You're trying to manipulate the filters, the system, the keywords, just to get something that feels close. And you're probably making compromises on ultimately what you land on because that perfect item doesn't exist. And to your last point about the dimension of it, you only got square, landscape, and portrait. And sometimes you'd see a good portrait photo that you wish you could use for landscape or a good landscape, buddy. So that was a pretty real and sucky scenario too. That was definitely something we've experienced as marketers. Quick summary to what we touched on so far, and then we're going to go to the how.

13:21So the why is very clear. Regardless of the needs, every business has needs to create visual content. This could be for product PDFs. It could be for marketing, it could be for sales, it could be for any kind of visual content. That visual content historically took a very long time to produce, was really expensive. And in many cases, you would make compromises because time, money, or just availability of the resources you needed. And now you can, without a large team, with one person who knows what they're doing, create the perfect assets that speak in the language of your company to the feel you want to create in that content to get your customers to take action.

14:10And it's never been accessible in history before. So if that's attractive to anybody who's listening, let's not move to the how. So how How drew, do you, what are the different components that goes into a prompt that needs to create the outcome we just talked about? Yeah. And we got into a pre-chat about this that I think is really interesting too. I told you, and I believe this, that there is, this is different for everybody, this learning curve and what that looks like. And here's what I mean by that. I think for people that have been creative directors or on this graphical side, visionary side, really high velocity and seeing and feeling and touching these things and creating campaigns, they have an advantage.

15:01And probably so too do photographers. In fact, they do, right? Like people like you and I do have an advantage there because what comes into play with these images goes far beyond just what you're seeing. It's the composition and it's really the complexity of the end result and the output quality that come into play. So with a photographer in mind, I'll just give you some very specific examples. The things that you and I are thinking about, if we're out in the field and we're shooting photography, we're thinking about, first of all, light. Light is the most important factor with photography, right?

15:37and what time should I take a photo can play a large part in the quality of the photo, right? If you and I are traveling, which you were just telling me you were on a trip, sometimes you sacrifice getting up earlier, your sunset to get the right light naturally, especially if you're not using any other equipment besides that. So that's one example, different angles. So different times of day, light, shutter speeds. One other component of photography is how fast the shutter is opening and closing, right? So a long exposure, me taking a photo of something in downtown the city, I could go for a long exposure.

16:14And with a long exposure, that's going to capture all those light trails from cars. Or if I'm looking at the sky and it's a nice overcast day and the clouds are moving, it's going to create this nice, soft feel of the clouds that are passing by. And so that's just another manipulation of a camera that you can use that I don't think the average person is really familiar with. And so in large part, it goes back to the depth of knowledge and experience that you can bring into this system. So while you and I are thinking about camera lenses, angles, shutter speed, focal length, which is how much depth of field I want to capture.

16:51So a landscape and maybe I want everything in focus. I'm going for a higher F stop. If I'm taking a photo of you up close, I want some bokeh in the background or just a nice drop off. Right. I'm shooting an F2 or something like that. And so all of those components can affect the quality. So let's just start there. I think for the average person that's interested in mid-journey, marketers, graphic design, like maybe people that have these like parallels or they've got interest in aesthetics, we're just the average person in general. There are, you don't know what you don't know. And so what could be a prompt for them is they're thinking about, okay, I want to create this scene.

17:27I want to create a dog sitting on a couch with a cat. And they're maybe eating popcorn, right? And so while there are some very short prompts that could work, it's less reliable and less consistent in terms of the quality of the output that you're going to get versus if someone like you or I were doing that same thing, right? We would be thinking about all these other factors that could come into play. What color is the dog? What kind of light am I looking for? Am I looking for a composition that's going to include the whole scene? Am I looking for a light angle or am I looking for something up close?

18:01or where's the shot coming from? Is it from above? Is it from the floor? Because all those things affect the mood and how you interpret the image. And so if you're just starting out, it can be difficult. But even if it's somebody like you and I, a learning curve exists and you have to be willing to spend the time experimenting, playing around, just like you do with ChatGPT, right? There are going to be some people that know how to Google better than you. But the reason they know how to Google better than you is just because they've done it more. They've been through so many scenarios and practice learning and iterations of what that looks like.

18:38That's how they've gotten better, right? Yes, some people have handicaps, but that gap can't close. Okay. I love what you said. I think, let's break it down. Let's give people a list, a checklist of things they need to consider. Some people understand what these things are better. Like you're saying, okay, what's an f-stop? An f-stop is how much the actual aperture is open within the camera. Okay, what does it do? It defines how much is actually going to be in focus within the picture. Does that sound like Chinese to you? Maybe. Then maybe research that later. But there's 15 other things you can pay attention to.

19:13And you mentioned a few of them, but let's just break it down as a list to people so they can really go step by step and understand what are the Legos, right? So what building blocks can I use to build my next image on me, or by the way, any other text-to-speech tool out there that people need to be aware of, and then they can start playing, as you said, and learning as they go. Yeah, it's a long list, but you don't have to use all of these things, right? I think the idea is that you ultimately want to get specific. If there's an underpinned component to this, it's the specificity of what you're trying to prompt.

19:50So what I mean by that is, look, we mentioned camera angles and this and that, but maybe that's not super important to the image that you're trying to get, right? So maybe you don't have to include that. There's no thing that says you have to include that. But what I think will help is thinking about things like just like a template of what you're going to use, okay? I think you could think of like things like adjectives, right? So things like if it's food, like delicious, if it's a portrait, maybe something like breathtaking. If you're looking for a dirty scene, maybe it's filthy or dirty, maybe.

20:24So describing that. Second, mid journey is not just for realistic images, right? You can create the entire spectrum of what art imagery looks like. Are you looking for something that's surreal? Are you looking for something that's realistic, cartoonish, isometric, right? What are you trying to get? So that's like another option there would be like an artistic style. One of my favorites is inspiration. Is there a particular photographer, artist, a filmmaker that I enjoy that kind of look? One that I've seen quite a bit on Mid Journey, and it's a fun one, is Wes Anderson. He's a filmmaker. He has a very distinct look to his movies.

21:05It's very whimsical, very uniquely colored. The composition is a certain way. it's very symmetrical. And if you were to prompt with that inspiration of saying something in the style of, then that creates a very specific image too, right? Because it's going to pull what it knows about that particular artist or that inspiration. I want to pause you just for one second for the thing you said before, as far as the artistic style. In some of the courses that I teach on purpose, every single slide has a completely different style. And the reason I do this is after about 40 slides in, which is like day three of the course, I'm like, okay, now we get to the point of talking about text to image and like, okay, I want to take you back.

21:49Here are all the images you've seen so far. Some are this, some are that. And I do this on purpose to show people that you can generate a cartoon and it could be a specific cartoon, right? I want, is this a Simpsons scene or I want this to be a Pixar scene and they're both cartoonish, but they're very different kind of different and it will create it exactly that way for you. I want it to be a highly realistic photo. I want an imaginary world that has this and that thing in it. Whatever you want, as far as the style can be generated. And again, it has to be there to achieve the goal that you're trying to be.

22:29And I want to go back one thing and then I'll let you continue with the list. None of this takes anything away from good marketing, right? The fact that you can now generate 10 ,000 photos in a day, exactly the way you want them, doesn't mean you should. There still has to be a strategic design process of what you're trying to achieve, what's the atmosphere, on what level you're trying to connect, who you're trying to attract, what, like all these things are still in place. It's just the production became extremely simple. So now I'll let you continue. You said - Great point. Adjectives, you said artistic style, you said inspiration.

23:02What other components do you have in your list? Yeah, I hope if you're listening to this, I'm gonna just give you a chance. You got a note app or on your phone or you got a pen handy, just like this would be a great place to pause and just grab this. Yeah. But because the options are really unlimited, But like to give you more of that entire sense. So we talked about looks, but you could also go for like sensory details, right? Edges, like materials, like things like that are super interesting too. Like smells, sounds. So like that becomes super interesting in materials. So are there reflections?

23:42Are there optics? Are there, are you looking for a soft material versus a hard material, physical properties, right? So like we mentioned dirty already, but something that's charred or something that's perforated or something that's mesh or like anything like that. And so you've got that materials. Is it stone, mineral, wood, paper? Like materials is another great one. I think one that gets used a lot in almost all my prompts is color. Color matters a lot to me. And I think that's probably maybe like the photographer side, but I'm constantly thinking about that color grading, if you will, of what I'm trying to achieve.

24:20That could be just naming a color or it could be like, hey, I'm looking for this kind of hue or tone or a gradient or something that's vibrant, something that's bright, something that's dark. How many colors do I want? What are the colors? So like that factors in. And then we mentioned kind of the inspiration side, but that's so deep because you can get into, let's just use photography as an example. Are we talking about if you're trying to create a portrait, maybe it's a good opportunity to use a portrait photographer style that you really like in the style of, I don't know, Peter Hurley comes to mind as a portrait photographer, like in the style of Peter Hurley.

24:59And that way I know what to expect and it's something to play with, but that could be very different from street photography and an inspiration I want to do there. So if I'm matching up that kind of image with somebody that is an inspiration in that space, that's a nice little shortcut to get very specific. We've talked a lot about lighting already, but natural lighting, ambient lighting, directional lighting, time of day. We've talked about angles and shots. So I'm really thinking about it from a more or less a photographic perspective, because I do think that knowing those things will get you some extremely better outputs than one or two of these things, or maybe even three or four that don't include the lens, don't include the light, don't include the depth.

25:44I think those things really matter. I agree. So I want to talk, I want to mention two things. One, you said in the beginning, and I think that's the summary of all of this, is be as descriptive as possible. The more details you're going to give to the prompt, the closer the outcome is going to be to what you imagine. And every now and then it will be better than what you imagine. It happens to me multiple times where it comes up because, and you're like, holy crap, this is good. And so it happens, but it happens more often, like Drew said, when you give it more details. So the more details you're going to give, the better.

26:24The second thing, which is the way I always think about it, and I must admit, I'm probably more of a marketer than a photographer. I always start with really, what am I trying to convey? Which means what I really start with, what I invest the most amount of time in is the composition. What is actually in the image? And it's not just, oh, it's two people shaking hands. I'm like, okay, where are they standing? Are they in an office? Are they outside? Are they in the park? What kind of people? Are there business people? Is it a female and a male? Are there two males? What are they wearing? So I'm trying to understand, okay, hey, who am I trying to connect with?