Accelerating marketing design with AI

1. Accelerating marketing design with AI

We've explored how AI transforms content creation, focusing primarily on text. But content creation isn't just about words, it's also about visuals. In this video, we'll discover how AI can accelerate marketing design workflows and create compelling imagery at scale.

2. AI imagery in marketing workflows

AI image generation fits in many marketing workflows. Whether rapid prototyping when submitting design requests, low-stakes content assets like blog headers, or even paid media and organic social posts where we need fresh creative constantly.

3. Best practices for creating images with AI

Creating effective AI imagery follows similar principles to AI communication, goals, context, and limitations are everything. On the goals side, we need to be explicit about what we're creating. What's the objective of the image? What should the image include? What's the aspect ratio? On the context side, we need to provide your AI tool with all the context it needs to create on-brand high quality imagery. This can be uploading our logo, specifying exact hex codes for our brand color scheme, defining our typography preferences, sharing reference images of our desired style, and even the moods it should evoke. The more context you provide, the more on-brand your results will be. Think of it like briefing a designer—the more specific we are, the better the output. On limitations, think of any constraints it needs to be aware of. For example, to not include certain icons, or any other other elements we should omit.

4. Creating course promotion assets with AI

Let's take an example that's close to home, and try to create an image that advertises this course you're taking right now. We'll use Copilot here, but you can try this out in any AI system that supports image generation. First on the goal. We want to create a 16:9 image that promotes the DataCamp course "AI for Marketing". On context, we want the image to include the DataCamp logo, the DataCamp font which is Poppins, and the DataCamp color palette featuring Neon Green, Navy Blue, and White. The hex codes for these colors are added on screen. Then, we want include the tag line "Accelerate your marketing workflows with AI". We need to include subtle design elements that evoke AI and technology. Finally, we want the image to not include any icons related to marketing workflows, as I want only icons generated to evoke data and AI.

5. The outcome

Not bad right? We can easily use this to ideate with our design team on what the final product should look like.

6. Understanding the limits

Now for the reality check. AI image generation is powerful, but it's not perfect yet. You'll encounter limitations that are important to understand. Text within images is still challenging; AI often produces garbled or misspelled text. So potentially plan to add text overlays in post-production. Complex compositions with multiple subjects or specific spatial relationships can be hit-or-miss. Brand consistency isn't automatic, even with context, you may need multiple iterations to match your exact brand guidelines. Different image generation models support different dimensions, so make sure to understand their limitations.

7. The limits in action

You can see this in the image we generated, the m on the DataCamp logo is not brand-aligned, and the imagery added can be better. Let's see how you can mitigate some of these limitations.

8. Iteration and improvement

First, iterate on your prompt, and constantly try new approaches. Don't be surprised if for the same prompt, you get different results. So adopting an experimental mindset is key.

9. Try different models

Second, try different models. Image generation models have different qualities to them. The best models are constantly evolving, so make sure to follow up on the latest releases and their enhanced capabilities.

10. Human review is non-negotiable

Finally, human review is non-negotiable. AI can misrepresent your brand and can make mistakes, so it's essential to review the images you've generated.

11. Let's practice!

Now it's your turn to put these concepts into practice and start accelerating your marketing design workflow with AI!

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