As we all know, the creative process is messy and nonlinear. While the chaos of conceptualizing is necessary for novelty, it doesn’t hurt to streamline it just a bit. Enter DALL·E 3, a powerful co-pilot in the conceptualization phase of any project. DALL·E 3 will roll out in ChatGPT for Plus and Enterprise users in the beginning of October 2023. Today, I'm giving you a workflow to ignite your creative spark no matter what challenge you’re faced with.  It all starts with a brief Every masterpiece starts with its canvas: the brief. If you don't have a brief and want to practice using DALL·E 3, you can create one by asking yourself what problem you're attempting to solve: For this demo, I made up a fake brief from a fake financial institution that wants to solve a problem for Gen-Z (unsurprisingly). Pro Tip: If your company signs up for ChatGPT Enterprise or Azure OpenAI Enterprise, then your personal data will be protected and you don't have to worry about entering confidential information. Prompt 1: Assigning the Task Here's a prompt you can start with: "I'd like you to act as my creative co-pilot. I'll be brainstorming ideas for the following [insert brief] Your role is not to generate the final idea but to assist me in the creative process, helping me develop insights and a "what if" statement. Along the way you will provide images to inspire me, defaulting to photographs unless I specify a style. I might return to this brainstorming over multiple sessions, so let's keep our discussions adaptable and iterative. Your primary task is to amplify my creativity, offering diverse perspectives and visual stimuli." Prompt 2: Getting organized Market Research PromptsPro Tip: For authentic insights, use Bing Chat or the Bing Browsing Plugin to access links to surveys and real-world data. What are some studies that have been done around what makes first-time business owners successful, especially if they are young. Are there any insights around mindset, behavior, support, mentorship, resources, etc? What tone and messaging resonates most with Gen Z when discussing entrepreneurship? What mediums/formats would be most useful for delivering actionable startup resources to Gen Z (video, workbooks, courses, etc.)? What have been some successful creative financial institution campaigns?
 Audience Insight Prompts An effective approach is to have GPT roleplay as your target audience. While it doesn't exactly mirror real human sentiments, the hypothetical feedback can inspire a path towards your solution. GPT developed a persona named Mia, and provided some insightful responses to the prompt below: "Assume the role of a Gen-Z individual (born between late 1990s and early 2000s) aspiring to start a business on a budget. Craft a persona for this chat and answer the following questions: What questions are you asking yourself before getting started? What platforms do you use for research? Who inspires you? Who do you go to for advice?"
Go down the Rabbit Hole    In this early stage, GPT-4 and DALL·E 3 were giving me pretty generic resources that could be in a starter kit. But looking at individual suggestions sparked some interesting thoughts and I wanted to push beyond what would be expected. So I went down a back-and-forth rabbit hole. Some of the questions I asked were: What if the starter kit, was less about generic resources and more about giving that young aspiring business owner access to money in some interesting way? What are some physical objects that are useful for business owners that they typically need to re-up on every month? What if the starter kit was a take on a first-aid kit. What are some items that would be an a budding entrepreneurs first aid kit? What if each month's kit is a simple item with a QR code that takes them to all of the resources digitally. But the physical item is one that they always need to re-up on and is packaged in a sustainable, re-usable way. What do you think about that?
Putting it all together After about 20 minutes of asking questions to poke holes in my logic and creative thinking, I came up with a thought starter. Because I'm not a copywriter, I asked GPT-4 to help me more succinctly describe my idea and help me craft a narrative for it. Then I iterated the overall thought into a one-liner. Writing is not my strong suit, so it's incredibly useful for someone who lacks this particular skillset. GPT-4 is not nearly as good as working with a real copywriter, and I do not recommend publishing any content that has not been edited by a human.  Prompt 3: Getting creativeWith your thought starter in mind, you can start to pressure test it and push your thinking even further with DALL·E 3. Below you can see how powerful it is at iterating concept designs. Notice how it can sometimes even write legible copy in the images, maintain that copy through iterations, and apply specific visual instructions in the art direction across multiple objects and iterations. Prompt: Give me some packaging inspo for the kit  Prompt: Make the design feel more connected to the "start your day, start your business" narrative  Prompt: Remove the bottle with liquid and just have the image show dry goods packaging  Prompt: Generate these exact designs onto a kitchen counter  Prompt: Now can you imagine a subway ad leveraging the design?  Prompt: Now I want this exact design to carry through to the digital interface. Can you mockup a laptop screen with the homepage for the resources?  Wrapping It UpI wouldn’t produce anything that looked like this, but it’s a great starting place to create a mood board and work with designers, copywriters, and art directors to strengthen and finalize the concept. DALL·E 3 is a fun co-creator tool that has the power to ignite your creativity throughout the often messy process of ideation. Plus the sheer joy of seeing your abstract ideas come to life is awesome. DALL·E 3: Pro Tips  Sometimes less is more: For concept design, keep it simple. Overloading DALL·E 3 with too many specific changes can lead to inconsistent results. When you find an image you're digging, use it as your base for further iterations. Try to iterate just a few things at a time (color, composition, placement, etc). Apply styles for Inspiration:DALL·E 3 shines when applying styles to a single referenced image in your thread. Though the result may slightly deviate from the original, it's close enough for inspiration. Talk to it like a person: I know this one is weird, but if you communicate with DALL·E 3 as you would with a human creative partner you will likely get better results. Seek feedback, request elaborations, and challenge it to think critically. This isn't about replacing your creativity, but enhancing it. Refine Your original prompts: If you hit a roadblock, revisit your original prompt when things started going sideways and change it. Tweaking the starting point often leads to a clearer, more refined output.
Until Next Time Made with DALL·E 3 and MidjourneyIf you made it this far, thank you for joining me on this deep dive. If you find success, have questions, or experience those "aha!" moments with DALL·E 3 (or any other tool), please don't hesitate to reach out and share. In the meantime, if you haven't hit that subscribe button yet, follow along for regular demos, tutorials, and actionable insights on all things Creative AI. | 
