🎙️ This week on How I AI: Mastering Midjourney: How to create consistent, beautiful brand imagery without complex prompts

Your weekly listens from How I AI, part of the Lenny’s Podcast Network

Every Monday, host Claire Vo shares a 30- to 45-minute episode with a new guest demoing a practical, impactful way they’ve learned to use AI in their work or life. No pontificating—just specific and actionable advice.

Mastering Midjourney: How to create consistent, beautiful brand imagery without complex prompts

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• Vanta—Automate compliance and simplify security

• Lovable—Build apps by simply chatting with AI

Jamey Gannon is an AI creative director who has spent thousands of hours working inside Midjourney. In this episode, she walks through the system she uses to generate consistent, high-quality brand imagery using mood boards, style references, and personalization codes. She and Claire cover her full workflow for turning loose inspiration into a scalable visual system, how to avoid the biggest mistakes people make with AI image tools, and why a single image reference can often outperform a paragraph of prompting.

Detailed workflow walkthroughs from this episode:

• How I AI: Jamey Gannon’s Workflow for Consistent Brand Imagery in Midjourney: https://www.chatprd.ai/how-i-ai/consistent-brand-imagery-in-midjourney

• How to Generate Realistic AI Self-Portraits for Content: https://www.chatprd.ai/how-i-ai/workflows/how-to-generate-realistic-ai-self-portraits-for-content

• How to Fix and Refine AI-Generated Images: https://www.chatprd.ai/how-i-ai/workflows/how-to-fix-and-refine-ai-generated-images

• How to Create a Consistent Brand Aesthetic in Midjourney: https://www.chatprd.ai/how-i-ai/workflows/how-to-create-a-consistent-brand-aesthetic-in-midjourney

Biggest takeaways:

1. Avoid prompting. Jamey’s entire workflow is designed to minimize text prompting: “I try to avoid prompting at all costs in my process.” Instead of writing complex JSON prompts or detailed descriptions, she relies on style references, image references, and personalization codes to communicate visually with AI.

2. Style references (SREFs) often outperform mood boards. While mood boards are a good starting point, using SREFs as the mood board can give much better results. This is because mood boards with varied styles can cause Midjourney to “average things out,” while SREFs provide more direct style guidance.

3. Personalization codes create your unique aesthetic. By carefully rating images during the personalization process, you can create codes that consistently deliver your preferred style. Jamey recommends “only picking things that I would like if I generated it” and being mindful of potential “style bleeding” from consistently selecting certain elements.

4. Editorial and camera references are prompting shortcuts. Instead of describing complex aesthetics, simply reference known publications or camera models: “When you just say ‘Dazed editorial,’ depending on how famous the publication is, Midjourney’s gonna know what you’re talking about.” This communicates lighting, composition, and style instantly.

5. When something’s not working, remove it completely. Rather than trying to fix problematic elements through prompting, Jamey takes a more direct approach: “If you’re getting too much green, just boot the thing that is so obvious and overwhelming.” This might mean removing an image from your references or cropping out distracting elements.

6. Use AI routing to get the best from each model. Jamey uses different tools for different purposes: Midjourney for initial creation, Nano Banana for editing specific elements, and Flora for packaging and delivering brand imagery to clients. Each tool has strengths that complement the others.

7. See things from the AI’s perspective. When troubleshooting, try to understand what the AI is “seeing” in your references: “I think where a lot of people get tripped up is trying to make AI work the way you want it to work instead of actually understanding how it works.” This perspective shift often leads to better results.

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Catch you next week,
Lenny

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