November 28, 2023
Don: Okay. Hello!
Kris: Hello, everybody.
Don: ooh this is a fun one!
Kris: It is! we wanted to do this episode not only to help you to get a handle on using ChatGPT, but we also want to give you some really good prompts that are going to actually be helpful in your business.
Don: We see ChatGPT as a brainstorming buddy, you know, why not? An extra person in the business.It’s really, really exciting, it can be seen that way.
Kris: Yeah, because we always feel like, you know, as and many of you are solopreneurs, you feel like you’re sort of bouncing around in a bit of an echo chamber. And it’s like, I just need to run this by somebody, well, now you’ve got a little buddy.
Don: Yes, you do!
Kris: Yeah, and it’s so fun and and it is so good for conceptual thinking. And coming up with ideas.
Don: Expanding on ideas.
Kris: Yes.
Don: Yes. And if you have an idea, really solidifying that idea, really elevating that idea and transcending where you’ve been with an idea. So it’s not about ChatGPT giving you all the answers, but it’s about really expanding and enhancing your thoughts, which is what you would do with a brainstorming buddy, right? So yeah, it’s exciting.
Kris: So the aim with these prompts is to save you lots of time and to help you create even better results for your clients You know, to actually help you and assist you with getting clients and all the things like we are, we are covering lots of different categories, which we’ll get into in a little bit. But yeah, you’re gonna wanna use these. We promise you’re gonna wanna use them.
Don: yeah, we’re excited by it, you know, and if you are out there a little bit sceptical, and so far you haven’t been getting really good results with ChatGPT, and ChatGPT doesn’t sound like you, we suspect it’s all about the quality of the instructions you’re giving to ChatGPT, and we have to say context. is everything. Context, context, context. Cannot have enough. You really cannot. So, yeah.
Kris: Overload with context.
Don: yeah, yeah. yeah.
Kris: And we’ll show you what we mean by that in a little bit. Your main job moving forward is to get really, really good at giving ChatGPT Exactly the right instructions, right? And that’s why we put together this episode as well, so that you can start zeroing in on this. What are good instructions? What kind of chats can you have with this? It’s basically a chatbot, right?
But it’s got all this incredible intelligence. And you literally, when you get into the swing of it, you can have some really interesting conversations that are actually helpful.
Don: Really helpful. Really powerful. Yeah. But again, we we’re going to be talking about context all the way through this episode and the next episode, it is in two parts, because we can’t tell you how important that aspect is to get that level of engagement that Kris was just talking about, to get that highlevel creative, that highly intelligent on point response. You really do need to be inputting the right level of context and asking the right questions. So, we’re going to get into it, but we are solely focused on ChatGPT 3. 5 not the visual AI generators.
Kris: Yeah, so we’re not talking about creating visual works, we’re talking about content creation, your creative process, your conceptual process, communication, business efficiency, that sort of thing.
Don: It’s all about business efficiency. It’s all about conceptual efficiency. It’s all about just really fast tracking your day and creating lots of space and lots of time and having a tool as powerful as this in your back pocket. And at the moment it’s for free. It’s insane. It’s insane to have such a high level tool to be playing with.
Kris: And how to streamline your process. So we were going to, um, well, our aim was 20 really good, solid chat GPT instructions for this episode, but in the end, there are 60.
Don: Yeah, because why not?
Kris: Hands up, my fault. Like I just went down such a rabbit hole with this and you know, I see that as kind of my role as well and almost my responsibility in this community. Like I’m going to do the research I’m going to do. the rabbit hole digging for you. So you don’t have to.
Don: Yeah,
Kris: So I’ve done that.
Don: Thank you, Kris. We bow down to you. And there’s a little bit of ChatGPT helping out as well, which made it easy, right? It made it easy to turn, I’m going to do 20 into 60 because ChatGPT was your partner in this. You know, it’s, it’s incredible.
Kris: We had a goal of let’s put together a list of 20, but at last count at 60, there’s possibly more. We haven’t actually counted them properly, but there’s possibly more.
So we’ve split it up into two weeks as we said earlier. So the first week, so this is part one, we’re doing The basics, so fundamentals, the foundations. So we want to get ChatGPT to understand who you are. That’s the first step,
Don: Yeah.
Kris: Then we’re going to look at using chat GPT for brand strategy, then for design process and then for critiquing your work. All right. So then part two next week, we’re going to look at writing content.
We’re going to look at marketing and lead generation. We’re going to look at time management and efficiency. And lastly, we’re going to look at business strategy. So looking at using chat GPT for business strategy.
Don: Love it! So get a pen and paper ready and let’s go. Seriously, you’re going to want to take this down.
Kris:You need to take notes for this one. Of course. We’ll, we’ll have everything in our, full blog posts for this. We’ll have a list of all the, the instructions that we’re recommending today. So, foundation. Step one, you’ve got to get ChatGPT to understand who you are none of this is going to work unless you know your brand voice, inside and out. You need to be crystal clear on your unique way of communicating, your personality, what you stand for, like your values, before asking ChatGPT to help you out with anything.
Don: absolutely, that’s essential for giving ChatGPT the right inputs. Otherwise, it’ll just go random. It’ll go out there, it’ll go rogue on you. But, it’s also essential for being able to see when ChatGPT is off. So if you don’t understand all of those things that Kris just listed, then you won’t know when chat GPT gives you an off answer.
Yeah. You’ll be like, oh yeah, that sounds great. And it might not be who you are. It might not be the way that you would say these things. Now we know that there’s going to be intuition that kicks in and you know yourself. But what we’re saying is get really clear on that stuff. Have it written, be really, really strategic about what you tell chatGPT so that it is as accurate as possible.
Kris: Yeah you’ll know, you’ll know if you are across your brand strategy, you’re across your brand voice, values, personality, all that sort of thing. You’ll know if it’s off, you’ll know if it doesn’t resonate. Or you’ll know if it doesn’t resonate with your client’s brands. If you’re using ChatGPT to help with their work as well, which is a really interesting idea as well, using it for client work.
Don: We love that there’s a lot of you out there who are loving writing for their clients as well. And we hope that you’re writing as a separate offering and being paid appropriately for that. Um, but for those of you who do love offering writing as a service to your clients, it’s absolutely a fabulous way to have another buffer zone in your, in your business to have ChatGPT in your back pocket and brainstorm for them. But again, you need to know who they are as well. You need to have that information about them as well, which does come from the briefing process, but make sure you are asking all the right questions to be able to put in all the right inputs.
Kris: Yeah. So what you need to do is set up your custom instructions. So this is a really important pre step when you’re working with chat GPT so that you get most relevant responses possible. So to do that, you’re in the chat GPT interface. You just go down to your little where it says your name, there’s three dots. You click on that and then there’s an option to select custom instructions. And that’s where you’re going to fill in just those two questions that chat GPT asks and you’re going to fill those in. So what happens when you do custom instructions, it acts like sticky context in your content. And what I mean by that is that every time you have a chat, it’ll remember those instructions. It’ll be sticky. So rather than every time you start a chat, having to put these instructions in at the beginning, because that’s what we were doing before we were like, every time we started a chat, this is who we are. We are design and prosper. We’re, we’re Kris and Donna. We like this. This is our values. This is our tone of voice. We’re putting all this stuff into every single chat, but now. When you put this into custom instructions, it’s brilliant because even plugins and different softwares that you are using that are connected to chat GPT, they will recognize it and understand it as well. And it’s like across the board, like every time I’m using some sort of AI thing, it’s like, Hey, Kris and Donna. And I’m like, Oh, you’re so cute. You know, you remember who I am, but. It’s, um, it’s just really important that we don’t give this thing too much freedom. You want to be specific.
Don: You’ve gotta be boss. You’ve gotta be boss. You have to be as specific as possible. Like we’ve said before, all caps, context. So custom instructions, question number one. This is across the board, this is the first question that you’ll come across. What would you like chatGPT to know about you to provide better responses?
Kris: And we put so much stuff in here because you can have up to 1,500 characters, so use them.
Don: Use them. Absolutely use them.
Kris: So here’s what we have here. So just feel free to be inspired by this, adjust this.
First of all, we have a section for our profession, our role. A general business description really, so we speak to what we are. So we are graphic design business educators, we’re creating content and educational resources to help graphic design business owners to grow profitable, sustainable, and successful businesses.
We go into our clients there. We talk about the specifics of our ideal client avatar and what they’re doing and the problems they’re facing. So that’s what you can put first. The next thing that we have is we talk about what our focus is, what is our focus? What are we trying to achieve with this business?
What are our goals? What is challenging about our goal? What pain points are we trying to focus on? What are we trying to help people with in their businesses? So, you need to swap out that with your situation, so your dream audience, your dream client. What are their problems? What do you want to help them with? What are they struggling with?
Don: Yeah, yeah. So all of the things that Kris is mentioning here, these are all still in question one. We’re, we’re padding out question one.
Kris: Yeah. Tell or chat GPT about you. Like what, what is your experience? What have you been doing for clients? What are your goals? What are your goals moving forward? You could even put in your ultimate business goal. You could put in your financial goals. You could put in all sorts of things that you’re willing to share to help ChatGPT really get on board with who you are and what you want to achieve and so that all the content that you’re creating is going to be aligned to that.
Don: Yeah, love it. And, and how simple it is for chatGPT to know this in this one little area. And you can come and modify it. Come back and modify it. You know, we’re ebbing and flowing with this information. So you can go back in and you can add to it. Like we said, there’s 1500 characters. Use them all. Give it as much information as you possibly can.
Kris: So that’s custom instructions question one. Then there is custom instructions question two and for both of these chat GPT does have a little suggestions like it does if you open it up. It’ll say here’s some ideas for what to put in here.
So Yeah, they have some thought starter prompts For example, they say, how formal or casual should chat GPT be? How long or short should responses generally be? So this is about the tone, how you want to be addressed, you know, do you want chat GPT to be opinionated? Do you want them to be controversial? Do you want them to be, friendly, conversational, like, how do you want them to respond?
Don: Yeah, yeah.
Kris: So you can really put your tone of voice in here, like a bit more about your personality, um, even reiterate your values here if you want as well. But you can also set something called temperature in this section. Have you come across temperature, Don? Yeah, yeah. So temperature is really interesting and you can add it into individual chats. If you prefer, you don’t have to put it into the custom instructions here. It’s between 0.1 or zero and one, right? ,
Don: Ours would be 1, wouldn’t it, if that’s really warm?
Kris: it’s not warmth. You would think it was,
Don: Right? Yeah. Okay.
Kris: So if it was zero or 0. 1, you would be getting a very direct, less creative, like a more expected kind of answer, like a straight down the line answer.
Don: Factual.
Kris: Factual. Yeah. But if you want a more creative response where ChatGPT is going a little bit like…
Don: Going rogue a little
Kris: a little bit rogue, you know, like, yeah, you set the temperature higher. So it might be 0. 7 or 0. 8.
So it’s about finding that right balance. So for straight up answers, you would have zero. But if you’re brainstorming concepts or you want left of field creative responses, you would set the temperature higher.
Don: So you’re saying we can set the temperature at the beginning of every prompt we give chat GPT.
So great. So you can pop it in here, but you can then also. Redefine it. So say for example, if, if we pop it in here as our overall thing is, we generally want to have a little bit more of a creative response or has to be completely factual. There might be a specific area of our business, like let’s say design process, where we’re like, you know what, be divergent, go for it, go a little bit more creative, then we can for that specific request up the temperature without, without going into settings and changing it.
Kris: Well it will go for what the custom instructions are but you can override them. So in future chats you can say ’please disregard all previous instructions regarding temperature in this following chat’.
Don: Okay, so that’s the instruction. That’s a really good note to take everyone. So if you’re wanting to override these two incredibly important points, then you have to actually tell ChatGPT to do that. So that’s an important note to make.
Kris: Yeah, and so this is all based in the free version, right? So the 3.5. With the ChatGPT4, I’m really curious about it. We don’t have it yet, but with the 4 you can set up all these almost personas and they’re all custom instructions, but you can set up your copywriter persona, you can set up your business strategist persona. You can set up your marketing, social media expert persona. You can set up your, design brainstormer persona. So it’s like they’ve all got their own little custom instructions and it’s like, well, I’m using this particular one for this custom instruction, which is really helpful and I’m very tempted to upgrade because you do want those different aspects, but with what we’re going to run through today this is really set up for you and your business and to get the instructions that you need for your business but if you were creating copy and needing to brainstorm things for a specific client. Maybe then you might want to consider upgrading and going to that so that you could step into like a completely different kind of zone. But I think for now the 3.5 is fine. You just tell it to forget it when you need to.
Don: Yeah, that’s really great. And like any, investment in software or tools or hardware for our businesses, make sure you do a forecast. Make sure you can afford it. If you, if you decide to go from a free version of anything into a paid version of anything, make sure that you have done your forecasting and you understand the cost implication of that and that your business can afford to do that. And by the sounds of it, that would be an incredible investment that would be really powerful for client work.
So it seems like it would be a good investment. You’ve got to weigh all of those things up, but for now. This playground is, is ample. And having that little, um, tweak that Kris just explained, that’s awesome. Okay, we can turn it off when we need to and we can, we can play wherever we need to play.
Kris: I think you’ll know once you’re ready for four. Like you, you would have, you’d be in it all the time. You’re thinking, I really want to tap into these different custom instructions rather than just having this one all the time.
Don: You’d be annoyed at having to do it manually. You’d be like, I want, I want this to be easier. You know, Kris and I are always seeking ease. So, or you’d be like, okay, I am ready, I’m ready for this to be easier.
Kris: Yeah, so in this second question, just back to, what to include in it. So we mentioned, you know, brand voice and all that sort of thing. You can say I want responses that mimic the natural flow of conversation and the. Spoken language and I want it to be engaging and I still want it to grab attention. You can tell it if you like long answers or short answers, you can tell it, how to address you. That can be nice as well. Like, please address me as Sir.
Don: Hahahaha
Kris: Please address me as Queen Kristine, whatever name you like for yourself, but you know, so we just say, please call us Kris and Donna cause I’m always just writing on behalf of the two of us. So that’s how it is.
Don: yeah, absolutely.
Kris: And you can tell it if you like emojis, you can tell it if you like a bit of humour. There’s so many things that you can tell it to do. You can also include an example of your writing style here, and say ’this is an example of my writing style’.
Don: Like your best email that you’ve ever written or the best blog or the best post you’ve ever written. So these examples will really help to inform ChatGPT. It’s really, really great.
Kris: Yeah, I would only include an example that you’re really happy with that really sums up like you go, yep, that’s me.
Don: I wish I could say variations of this all the time.
Kris: This expresses who I am I’m really proud of how it’s written it represents my business with integrity it feels right.
Don: The thing is, don’t be all perfectionistic about it though, because I know when Kris and I write emails and things, we labour over our email communication, and we labour over everything that it says, rarely will we ever say, that’s an ideal email. That’s the best thing I’ve ever written, that’s the best blog I’ve ever written. Although I have said it a couple times, I’m like, this email’s a cracker, or this one’s a cracker. But, the thing is, it doesn’t have to be perfect to put it in there. Remember you can modify. You can go in and change it later. Experiment.
Kris: Keep experimenting. We are still doing it. We’re still experimenting. We’re changing it all the time and trying this and trying that and you know, it is still, it’s far from perfect. Yeah.
Don: I love that you said that, Kris. I want to really sort of underscore that underline, all capital letters, it’s far from perfect, and that’s okay. Just use it for what it is, and play with it.
Kris: Yeah, whenever we ask ChatGPT to write for us, like, to say we ask it to write an email or something like that, it always uses really funny phrases like, like, let’s address the elephant in the room, or like, it always refers to our audiences like, hey, they’re design geniuses, or something like that, and it’s like, we would never say that.
Don: It’s actually a little bit of a giggle fest sometimes.
Kris: You can tell it not to use certain words if it keeps using them as well, because they do seem to keep coming up on repeat.
Don: Yes, yeah, they do. And so when you see those and you’re like, I would never use that word. You can say that. I would never use that phrase. I would never use that word. You know, whatever it is.
Kris: And it will keep learning. Yeah. You really should give it feedback.
Don: Yeah. You could just have one sentence in the instructions as, I don’t like words like, pop them in there. I don’t like phrases like, you know, and give an example of a phrase. See how we’re building a real personality, we’re building a real understanding of who we are, or who you are. Just this exercise alone is an invaluable CEO exercise to actually sit down and do this work, right?
Because you are diving in to all of that information about you. What’s right for you? What’s right for your business? What is the right storytelling? What are the right words? What’s the right tone? And if you’ve never considered that in your business, this is going to be a fun, fun exercise for you to do.
Kris: Yeah it is.
Don: Have fun with it. Yeah.
Kris: All right, let’s get into the prompts!
Don: Oh, this is so exciting.
Kris: Okay. Yeah, it is so good for brainstorming.
Don: On behalf of the design community in world. Kris, I just wanna say thank you for going beyond the 20. You and your brainstorming buddy chat, GPT, I can see you’ve had a ball And we are also grateful.
Kris: I won’t confess how long I’ve spent on this. Okay.
Don: No, don’t say that.
Kris: All right, so brand strategy. Right. This is the first category so first prompt, what are 10 brands that have a unique brand voice?
Don: Boom.
Kris: ChatGPT will go boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, and then you can ask a follow up question. Tell me more about X brand voice.
Don: Yeah
Kris: Oh, I didn’t mean to say X. That’s funny. Like, because I’m always using X as insert here, but like, that’s actually, you know, as we know,
Don: yeah.
Kris: Twitter has turned to X, but I was not referring to that one, but it might be really interesting to unpack their brand voice.
Don: That was deliberate, that was deliberate of X to name them. Everybody uses X, like X Y, pop an X here. Yeah, yeah, insert X.
That’s a powerful question. And we’re only at question number one.
Kris: And some of it might be subjective, some of it might be biased, but it’s still really interesting food for thought. For example, this next prompt is can you please describe the brand voice of, and then you insert company name, for example, you could say Ben and Jerry’s, or you could say Apple, or you could even say a person.
What is the brand voice of Oprah Winfrey? Describe it for me. And then that’s really interesting and it’s going to be a bit subjective, right? But then it’s like, wow, I didn’t think to describe a brand voice in that way. And that’s so true. And it’ll give you insights into the whole world of how people communicate, how people tell stories, how businesses tell stories.
Don: Yeah, it’s all about how story telling isn’t it?
Kris: The next one, or the next whole cluster, really, what I want you to do is insert the brief that you’ve been working on for a client. So you could say, I’m creating a brand for a client with the following brief and then insert it. And then you can ask questions. So the first question is, if this brand was a movie, what genre would it fall into and who would play the lead role?
Don: Love it. If this brand had a signature scent, what would it be? How does it contribute to the overall brand experience? Love that little extra question.
Kris: Yeah. Help me brainstorm taglines that capture the essence of this brand. Play with words and don’t be afraid to get a little cheeky. If you want that instruction, or don’t be afraid to be bold, don’t be afraid to be fun insert the adjective there depending on the brief. But remember, ChatGPT is working off the brief that you’ve taken, which is really exciting.
Don: Yeah, absolutely. If this brand had a theme song, what would it sound like? Describe the melody, the lyrics, and the feelings it evokes. Now this is tapping into divergent research, which Kris and I are massive fans of, and we love it. You may never have the time to actually go and do this type of research, this type of divergent research for yourself, ChatGPT will collapse that time for you in seconds.
You will have a response to that very powerful question that would have taken literally hours and hours and hours for you to do that for yourself. This is what’s so exciting for us, for Kris and I as designers who are passionate divergent researchers to know that these questions are questions that might have floated into our brains when we’re doing our divergent research, but we just don’t have quite enough time to follow that little rabbit hole or we just we just haven’t quoted enough for us to actually go down that path and that path so we objectively stick to the strongest path if you like.
With this tool we can ask these questions and go down many divergent research holes and have answers that will really maximize our output as designers. So we’re so excited for this tool in this way.
Kris: And from a brand strategy perspective, you’re getting language cues and you’re getting storytelling cues and metaphors and just analogies.
And if for example it comes up with say the Beatles, let it be, it says this, this business is like that and then you go, Oh, I’ll have a look at the let it be cover. And then it’s like, Oh wow, I’m really inspired by this in terms of the design as well. Like it’s just so I’m getting goosebumps, because I get so excited about this stuff is this is what brings design to life.
Don: Yeah, it honestly, it’s created like 10 of us. More! Thousands of us. It’s just so exciting because we have to be strategic and we have to be discerning about the avenues that we seek to go down when we are researching for a client.
And we’re massive researchers, I certainly am. And I know that I could get lost in a lot of rabbit holes and I have to stop myself, perpetually stop myself and be very strategic and balanced about how much time I spend. But this tool, it just opens up so many doors.
Kris: And with all of these, ask follow up questions. It’s like, I don’t get why you chose ’Let it be’. Please explain. I think you’re off there. Try again. Give me another example. Ask follow up questions.
Don: Ask why. I love asking ChatGPT why. Oh, why do you say that? And then they’ll elaborate.
Kris: This one’s a good prompt for pulling out language. Imagine this brand as a person’s best friend. What advice would it give? And what kind of support does it offer during tough times?
Don: Love that one.
Kris: So good.
Don: Love it. Another one is, condense this brand’s essence into a snappy Instagram bio. Now how many of you out there are going to use that one straight away?
Kris: What emoji’s would suit this brand? And once again, you may not agree. And you can argue. Argue the point.
Don: That’s a really good point. I really want to make sure that you are questioning, really please do question. It is not perfect. We’ve said that at the beginning. not only is it not going to be perfect, there are times when chatGPT is actually going to flat out get it wrong.
Kris: And if you’ve got the temperature set high, it could really be out there.
Don: It’s going to be out there. So please make sure that you are in control, that you understand exactly The brief, you understand the brief, But allow these other beautiful ideas to fall in, yeah, just to drop in, yeah.
Kris: So, what is the most fitting brand archetype? How do I align the identity with a powerful archetype? So, if you’re interested in archetypes, just ask ChatGPT as well. Talk to me about the archetypes. But I just love the fact that you’ve already put the brief in and then it’s like, can you help me decipher and get clues as to what the brand archetype is and can we unpack it a bit further? It’s so powerful.
Don: It’s so powerful. And then you, with the archetypes, we’ve got so many designers who are really excited about archetypes, all the different types of archetypes. You can then go down into all of those paths if you wanted to as well. Again, it’s just collapsing time. It’s like, wow, this is so powerful.
Kris: If your brand could collaborate with any other brand or personality, who would it be and why? So it might be, like, Beyonce. It might be in your dreams, well it would be in most brand’s dreams, but asking ChatGPT why? It would be just really interesting for ChatGPT to unpack that. Why, Beyonce?
Don: Absolutely. If this brand had a color palette, this is a great question. What emotions or associations would each color evoke? Helping us with our color strategy, helping us with our color theory. That’s really, really exciting.
Kris: If your brand were a superhero, what would it’s unique superpower be in the market?
Don: Imagine the brand’s Instagram feed. What kind of content would it share and how would it engage with followers? How powerful is that one? That’s a good one, Kris. Well done.
Kris: Another one. Please describe the brand story of this business.
Don: Mmm. That’s it. And again, if that temperature’s up…It could be a cracking story. It could be so fun.
Kris: It could be really wackadoodle as well.
Don: Yeah, it could be. I love that Wackadoodle. And the last one you could say, Hey ChatGPT, I’m struggling to find the unique selling proposition for this brand. What strategies can I employ to highlight what sets them apart in a crowded market? Here’s the info I have so far. And then you would insert that info. So not only does ChatGPT have the brief, you’ve asked this question, and you’ve given more information. So information is compounding, compounding. So, yeah. Mind blows what would come from that.
Kris: Just in the one chat. It’s so Cool.
Don: Yep.
Kris: Alright, so that’s part of your process now, people, when you’ve got a new design project, you need a chat going for that client.
Don: Yeah, absolutely.
Kris: So there are so many more questions, of course, that you can ask around brand strategy. Like there’s questions for days.
And we ask a lot of questions as part of our brand strategy process. And we put all of those together into a really logical, easy to digest format that just makes so much sense for designers in the Academy. because you might be thinking, well, how am I going to put all this into like something relevant, like how can I present it to the client or how can I use it with my work?
Well, we show that in the Academy module eight and nine are all about that. It’s all about conceptual development, inspiration gathering, brand strategy boards, how to put it all together in a way that makes logical sense, but also is so powerful and helpful for you to get the best results for your clients.
Don: Every single time. Yeah, absolutely. All right, the next section we’ve got here in this juicy little podcast. Oh, honestly, and I have had goosebumps for a lot of this podcast. So, design process is the next little section. Kick us off, Kris.
Kris: Alright, One prompt that you could use, which would be very helpful for many of you I know, would be to create a summary of the following brief.
So maybe you’ve got a really long brief or you’ve just done questions and answers and it’s all just like big long brief and you need a summary. You need a really concise summary. So pop that in there and say, I want it maximum 250 words, please.
Don: Yep, done. Beautiful. The next one could be, help me brainstorm ideas for symbols and icons based on the following brief and then insert the brief.
Kris: Yep, and that could be the brief summary, or it could be the whole kit and caboodle. It’s up to you. You can experiment with these things and see what kind of results you get.
Don: I think that’s the point, isn’t it? That once you start, just like Kris did, you start and then it’s, it opens up, the world will open up to you. The questions will open up to you. Like I’m going through this with Kris today, seeing so many questions that I would want to add on and I want to add on and I want to add on.
It’s really, really exciting. You’ll get a process from this that is just your process and you will have key questions. This is how I would tackle it anyway. I would have questions that I ask without a doubt every briefing process. I’d be like, okay, going to my brainstorming buddy and I’m definitely going to ask these and I’d have it as a checklist. I’ve asked that, I’ve asked that, and I’ve asked that. And this is the information I’ve got and this is where I’m going with that information.
Kris: Yeah, becomes a system.
Don: See there’s my brain. My brain’s like straight, okay, how can we systemize this puppy?
Kris: Well you have to. Otherwise, it’s too much. And there’s too many prompts. And you have to structure them in a logical way that makes sense for you and have them on hand, ready to go.
Don: We’ve used certain ones that are in these lists. And you’ll find that there are certain ones that are more powerful than others for you, for the type of process that you employ. So that will be very telling. You’ll use a prompt and you’ll go, well, that didn’t unearth what I really wanted it to, or that didn’t give me any fresh insights because.
It’s probably fresh insight that you’re after, right? And so then that would be one that you would shelve. But just shelve it because it could come into light further down the track. And then there’ll be others that are giving you specific, elevated responses every single time. And that then would become a part of your system.
Kris: And a lot of them would need a follow up response to really dig deeper.
Don: Or three or four follow up responses.
Kris: Yeah, because all these prompts aren’t one and done, you know, it’s like, it’s a full on conversation that you can have.
Don: That’s the key.
Kris: Yeah. Keep it interesting. So another question you could ask to do with design process is can you think of any symbols or metaphors that could be incorporated into a logo for this business? And then insert the business description or insert the brief. What symbols are associated with the following keywords? So you could just put the keywords in. For example, if you want to go quite abstract and you don’t even want to give them a clue about who the business is. So keywords could be something like, authenticity it could be trust, it could be quality it could be, minimalism, or it could be modern, and all these keywords that you’ve gathered with your brief. You could then see what comes up with symbols. So it’s quite abstract. Might be completely off the mark, but then you could ask follow up questions. And just, what we want to do is get your creative brain flowing as well. And you never know will come up.
Don: Yeah. That’s the point. The point is that you the human is being paid to come up with creative ideas. So the point is for your creativity to be heightened. And I think coming back to what we were just saying before, it’s, they’re not one and done. So. You’ll have ideas that get sparked with these questions and then the creative in you then needs to ask the next question and the next question.
It’s called chat GPT for a reason. You need to have a chat. You need to have that conversation and talk. Talk it through if you like, so that you get more and more and more from it.
Kris: So another one, I have chosen the colors and then insert the colors and I would have a good description for them. Like if it’s dusty pink or if it’s like terracotta orange or burnt orange or whatever it is give it a bit of a description. So, because this is words based ChatGPT3.5 cannot analyze images yet. That would be fun if we could actually pop them in and say, look, these are the colors I’m choosing. So here’s the prompt. So I have chosen the colors for a brand based on the following brief. So you enter the brief summary using color theory. Describe why these colors are appropriate and answer the brief.
What emotions are expressed with the colors? So it’s like, I’ve chosen these colors. I think they’re pretty good. You could even say, I think they’re good because of this. I think they’re appropriate because of this, but please expand, expand.
Don: Expand, Expand, yep. Tell me more, tell me more, that’s it. Another question might be tech support.
What is the key command for kerning in the latest version of InDesign? For a Mac, or for a PC, or for whatever. You could literally get tech support from ChatGPT.
Kris: Like I want to do this thing in Photoshop. I need to get something print ready or I need to like do this pagination thing and I don’t understand it. Help me. How do I do this? How do I set it up? So you can ask for tech help!
Don: And it’s instant. It’s not like when you go Googling this information and then you have to really sort of sift through and then you’ve got to find the right YouTube channel and then you’ve got to fast forward to the right section of that video, da, da, da, da. ChatGPT will fast forward to the right bit in that YouTube video for you if you like and, and get that information. It’s incredible.
Kris: So efficient. Thank you, ChatGPT. This one is for when you are having an absolute brain drought and you’re having one of those hard days where you don’t feel like a creative being. And it’s, I need a font that oozes sophistication. for a luxury brand for this, you know, insert the industry, insert the product, whatever, insert, insert the service.
Suggestions, please. So it’s just like a starting point for ideas. Um, if you’re feeling like, oh, I just don’t know where to start. And it’s like that whole blank piece of paper thing. It’s like, I’m just, I need help,
Don: Yes, yeah, and sometimes you just need a little kickstart, right? So ChatGPT can be that for you. Do that little kickstart. Which, that’s a good segue into the next prompt. Um, when you’ve got a bit of a blank. ChatGPT, throw some design challenges my way. I’m ready to level up my skills, which is super exciting. Surprise me. Now, if you wanted to, you could be specific about where your skills are at.
You could actually be very specific. I am this type of designer. I am this type of illustrator. I use this program for this reason. Or, I’m ready to level up my skills in Adobe Illustrator. I’d like to do this type of thing. So you can really dig deep and then say surprise me and see what comes.
Kris: Yeah, and also, your custom instructions would have given some of those clues to them as well. So hopefully if your custom instructions are right, ChatGPT already knows the kind of work that you want. So we’ll throw a design challenge your way that is in that in that vicinity of your dream client.
Don: Exactly.
Kris: So you’re not just spending all your time doing some sort of design challenge to upskill that isn’t really something you want to share. You want to be able to share it.
Don: Yeah, yeah, that’s a good point actually, Kris, if it’s not on track with your dream client, then go back in and readdress your custom instructions or be very specific about that dream client. I’m looking to upskill. I’m looking to do projects for this industry, for that client. So again, it’s all about context, right? Yeah.
Kris: Could be packaging, for example, and you could get more specific. I want to do beauty packaging or I want to do, you know, fruit and vegetable packaging, whatever it is.
All right. So another prompt, I’m digging into a new project and I want to understand the target audience better. Here’s what I know about them so far, insert (so from your brief) or just like whatever minimal information you have, stick it in there. Can you help me unpack it further? Really helpful.
Don: So helpful. And sometimes you won’t have a lot of information, your clients won’t give you oodles of information. So whatever starting point you have, pop that in there.
Kris: This next one is a variation of getting symbols and ideas for that, but it’s just a different way to say it. So this is what we want you to experiment with too, like, use different ways to say the one thing and see what comes up, what results. You’ll get a different answer every time.
So, I really want this brand I’m creating to evoke a strong emotional connection. Based on the brief below, what direction do you think I should go in for the symbolism? Or what direction do you think I should go for the colour story? Or what direction do you think I should go with the font story?
Don: Or you could focus on a particular design style. You could say, I’d like you to focus on this and what are some common symbols or uncommon symbols within this design genre. I’m always looking for the more uncommon. I think we’ve proven already that it’s really, really endless, endless what you can ask.
Kris: Yeah. All right. Next section. And this is the last bit that we’re going to cover in this part one episode. So this is critique your work. So if you feel like you’re just creating in isolation and it’s just like bouncing around in your head and you just like, can’t see the forest for the trees, you can get some feedback. Feedback and develop a deeper understanding of your existing content or your client’s content or something that you’ve created for a client.
Don: Yeah. absolutely. And this is really wonderful for when you are a really intuitive designer, like I am, and it comes to you and you get into flow and it’s really intuitive and then you have to articulate what’s happening there. Some questions in here are really great for that because then it actually shines a light on the work that you’ve intuitively arrived at and gives you some feedback on that to help you really see it in a, perhaps even in a different perspective.
Kris: Yeah. Okay. So first prompt in this section, you can ask chatGPT to critique this post. So just say you’ve got a social media post. Critique this post from the perspective of a social media specialist and tell me what else I could have included to achieve and then insert your goal to get people to click on this link and go and have a look at my portfolio on my website, whatever is the goal.
Don: Send me a DM, or to encourage people to share, that kind of thing. I think it could also be critique this symbol from the perspective of this target audience and tell me what is missing or tell me what I could have included. So these questions could be about any facet of your work, it could be about anything really.
Kris: So another one, critique this email from the perspective of a sales and marketing expert and tell me what is missing and what needs improving to help me insert your goal because this is mostly writing based, I have been experimenting with popping in links and, you know, there’s different things that chat GPT can analyze, but I find that I get the best result by asking chatGPT can you analyze a published blogpost? Can you analyze this? How would I get that to you? What’s the best way? So you just ask and then it says, yeah, I can do that. Just pop the link in. Or sometimes it says, sorry, I cannot do that right now. Like when I say, can I share images with you? It’s like, sorry, I cannot do that.
So, another one is following is an example of writing that I use in my business. Please analyze my brand voice.
Don: Fascinating insight into ourselves. These are great questions, Kris. I’m so impressed with them.
Kris: And then the final one in this section, and the final one for this episode is, here is some copy my client has supplied me to use in their brochure. Ahem. And we all know what that can be like.
Don: Haha! Yes.
Kris: Yes, the purpose of the brochure is, and then insert the goal, and they are targeting, insert the audience, who want to achieve this goal, or they have this problem.
Don: Yes.
Kris: Please provide recommendations for improvements.
Don: Love it. Oh my gosh, I can see where your mind went with all of these questions. Ha ha ha, that’s a doozy. But how incredible. So see how Kris has really built in all the context. You know, we started this episode by saying it’s all about context, people, context, context, context.
That last question that we’re ending this episode on has so much context in it. You know, that’s what it’s all about. That’s where you’re going to get the, the most accurate responses. And that’s what we’re after. We’re after that accuracy.
Kris: And what I love about this is when you’re talking about your clients, ChatGPT already knows you have clients because in your custom instructions, you’ve told them you’ve got clients, you’re a graphic designer and you’re trying to achieve this for them. And then it’s going to be like, okay, well, for you to do your best job as a graphic designer, I need to give you this instruction.
Don: Exactly. They’re going to be on your team, right? They’re in your back pocket. Love it, love it. I believe that we will have so many excited designers out there post listening to this episode super excited to get in and give it a go.
Kris: Yeah, well I’m just hoping that it’ll demystify it a bit for everybody and not feel so overwhelming and like, oh god, what is this thing that’s going to take my job?
Don: Yeah.
Kris: No it can be really powerful.
Don: Yeah, and It is really powerful and the research that I’ve done and have seen and read and the people who I’ve been listening to have all said that it will be remiss if we don’t embrace the power of AI if we don’t embrace it in our business if we don’t look for ways that we are using it as a really powerful because we will be left behind. There’s no probably’s in that we will be left behind if we’re not embracing this incredible technology and using it in a way that makes sense for us, makes sense for our business, makes sense for our industry.
Kris: Yeah, and I feel like some people are just going to want to shut it down and like, you know, bury their head in the sand, but it’s so powerful. Like I’m frustrated at the moment because my daughter is in a school system where ChatGPT is blocked by the Wi Fi. And it’s like, are you kidding me? Like, do you not realize the power this has? And then it’s like, well, haha, Canva’s not blocked and Canva has it built in as well. So like, they’re fighting a losing battle. You cannot block every single little AI feature. And I just think it’s super powerful. And if we don’t start teaching ourselves and getting that mindset of using this as an amazing tool, we will fall behind.
Don: Absolutely we will. And I think we’ve said it. We’ve said that many times, chat GPT’s not going to take your job, but someone who understands it and uses it really efficiently and really intelligently is. So you just have to be aware that this tool is on your side. I think that’s the key to go, wow, I can have this incredible business buddy in my back pocket if I use really well. And I think that I’m really sad for your daughter that her school has blocked it because I feel like it’s that generation coming through that need to actually be at the fore of it now. And I feel like they’re really missing an opportunity to, even just to pull out a unit or a subject where they teach it, they teach the power of it, they teach how to use it with authenticity, with respect, so I’m really sad about that. The other thing I’m sad about is that it’s hard to say. I really want ChatGPT to be just called Chatty. Please forgive us. I’m sure Kris and I have stumbled over it as we’ve been talking, but I think we did pretty well actually.
Kris: Yeah, well I hope that was helpful. Like, when I was doing my research on this, there’s a ton of videos out there, right? And there’s tons of people offering prompts but most of the people who were doing them are real kind of like IT people.
Don: Yeah.
Kris: Like, straight up IT types.
Don: And there’s value in that.
Kris: There, is, there is, but it’s very dry. The way they’re using it is really dry. And I just wanted to open up the conversation for designers.
And I thought that you would all appreciate a designer perspective with the prompts. Yeah. Because it’s, otherwise you just got these funny little instructions and funny, like you Yeah. I’m sure some of you have done a bit of a, a little deep dive into it and Yeah, there’s, there’s a lot of, yeah. Not overly helpful prompts and content out there. So hopefully this helps you to cut through the noise.
Don: Definitely. We just, we wanted that for you. We wanted you to have a whole stack of prompts that we would use in our business, that we would use it in any design project, it will just open up. Open up a whole world of newness for you. Because what we want, our deepest desire is that our designers out there are as efficient as they can be, are using the tools in the way that they can. And actually grasping the power of them. That’s what we want. We don’t want you to be afraid. We don’t want you to stick your head in the sand. And we really, really hope this has helped.
Kris: Yeah. All right. Get ready for part two, which we’ll drop next week, we’ll cover content writing, marketing, lead generation, time management and efficiencies and business strategy.
Don: Beautiful.
Kris: Okay. All right. Bye everybody.
Don: Bye!
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