MBD129: I Made the Ugliest AI Visual I Could. On Purpose.

3 August 2026 | Issue #129

In this issue:

I Made the Ugliest AI Visual I Could. On Purpose.
Is it Time to Update Your Brand Graphics? Not so Fast
How to Prevent Good Ideas from Getting Killed Internally
Time Tracking and Product Management – Now on the Web and Chrome
Design Quote of the Week

I Made the Ugliest AI Visual I Could. On Purpose.

Recently I built an infographic so bad it should come with a warning label. Glowy gradients everywhere, zero hierarchy, no focal point, and enough competing colors to give you a headache. I made it as badly as I possibly could, on purpose, and posted it to LinkedIn without an apology.

Here's why I made it: I'd just wrapped a conversation on CM Live with The Content Marketing Institute's Amanda Subler and JK Kalinowski about the single biggest mistake marketers make with AI visuals, and I couldn't find words for it that didn't sound like an insult. So I decided to show it instead.

The Slop You Don't Notice

The frustrating part is that some people look at these and think they're good. They're unable to see AI slop. These Sloppers think the visuals AI produces are high quality.

In our conversation, I outline how I can easily tell when AI produces an image. Lighting, shadows, perfect alignment, and cramming ten pounds of design into a five-pound layout.

After you put in your prompt, if you just pick the best option, it doesn't mean you're picking a good option. I bet you're not looking for "good enough" visuals.

So, how do you keep from drifting into "good enough" without noticing? It starts with how much control you hand the tool in the first place.

Don't Ask One Tool to Do Everything

I recently moved my Marketing by Design image creation to ChatGPT from Midjourney. I built a custom GPT to create visuals that fit the style I use (it took a long time).

One of the last things I asked it was to add the Marketing by Design branding (the drawn lines and logo). ChatGPT said I should use Photoshop or Canva, because it can't be trusted not to modify those brand elements as time went on.

It's a good reminder that AI is a strong creative partner, but it shouldn't do the whole thing. You still need a human in the loop, not as a rubber stamp at the end, but as the person driving the whole way through.

I know you probably hear this 10x a day, but I see what people post on LinkedIn and Threads. It's ... not always good.

Learn to Say What You Actually Mean

One gap I had to overcome in the early days of using AI for visuals was verbalizing what I wanted. I spent a good chunk of my career being the one people asked to create their visuals. They told me what they wanted, I interpreted it, and generated a visual that I thought they wanted.

Since I've always had the ability to visualize something in my mind and then make it, I hadn't fully developed the vocabulary to express what I wanted. I know how to talk to other designers and let them know what I'm looking for, but I hadn't done it with machines. I had to learn that.

These days, if you're stuck, you can ask the AI to help yo uget unstuck. I do this constantly with Claude: I describe roughly what I'm looking for, and Claude helps me write the prompt. Or if I don't have anything in mind, I'll just write something general and see what AI spits out. That will take me in a direction that I hadn't expected.

When you see a visual in this newsletter, I provide the final prompt, but I haven't told you about dozens of previous attempts that didn't work as I refined my prompt.

Refinement is one of the ways to separate good marketers and people putting out AI slop. Refinement forces you to apply your own taste to get to something that is more than a first draft.

Knowing the Tool Isn't the Same as Knowing Design

Here's the trap: Once you can operate the tool and write a decent prompt, it feels like you've become a designer. You haven't. There's even a name for the blind spot: It's called The IKEA Effect. It's where you put in some of the work assembling something, so you overvalue its value.

Knowing how to use AI (or Photoshop, or Canva, or any of these tools) it totally different than knowing how to design.

That skillset was never bundled with the software. I shared this recently when talking about why designers hate Canva (I don't), and it applies to AI as well.

So, Where Do You Land?

If that infographic stung a little, good. Now ask the harder question: where does your work actually sit on the spectrum between AI slop and professional output?

Are you sure?

Most people can't answer honestly on their own. That's the conversation worth having before your next campaign goes out.

IS IT TIME TO UPDATE YOUR SOCIAL IMAGES? NOT SO FAST

Ready to update your LinkedIn header images? Great, Neal Schaffer outlines what you need, but he includes a quote from me about why now might not be the right time.

HOW TO PRESERVE GOOD IDEAS

We've all had good ideas get killed. We know what we have to do to help customers, but at some point, the project gets whittled down and what is released doesn't really solve the problems you were trying to solve.

Matt Wilkinson, PhD MBA, knows that many marketing teams understand buyer personas, but they aren't used. He wrote The Buyer in the Loop for teams that can create synthetic buyers to better understand how real buyers will react.

The book is a quick read and outlines why organizational gravity kills great ideas.

I also designed the cover and book, and drew the illustrations for each chapter. If you're writing a book and need help, let me know. The writing is the easy part.

The Buyer in the Loop book and interior spread

PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND TIME TRACKING FOR FREELANCERS

I've been using Aeto for a few months now, and I can't live without it. It keeps track of all of my tasks, deadlines, invoices, and payments.

Between the Mac app, the web app, and the Chrome extension, I can track my time on every task from anywhere.

If you need to track time on your tasks and projects, check out Aeto.app. If you want to be a beta tester, let me know!

DESIGN QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Design is thinking made visual.” – Saul Bass

(we have had some absolute bangers for design quotes lately)

My AI disclaimer: Based on an article I wrote and the CMI article, I asked Claude to write up and outline, and then I wrote the rest of the main article.

ChatGPT image prompt: Here are a few of the process shots for this week's newsletter image. I had to retrain my custom GPT on what the illustration style was supposed to look like (the first batch looked like Robert Crumb drawings). Once I had the concept set (image 1 below), then it was about fine-tuning the style.