Start with the job to be done

The working assignment is to develop an original campaign key visual from a rights-cleared creative brief for a design team choosing a concept, not a machine choosing taste. That sentence is narrower than “use Creative AI tools.” It identifies a deliverable and a reviewer. Write a definition of done with three layers: the output must satisfy the audience's need; factual or functional claims must be traceable; and a named person must own the final decision. AI can expand options, but art direction decides what deserves refinement. Keep typography and factual copy under deterministic human control, and document provenance.

Start by separating tasks. The model may draft, classify, transform, compare, or suggest. It may not silently approve, publish, grade, deploy, cite, or consent on someone's behalf. For this assignment the authoritative material is communication goal, audience, mood board rights, composition, medium, palette, copy space, brand constraints, and rejection criteria. Anything absent from those inputs is either an explicit assumption or an unanswered question.

Use this prompt as a realistic starting contract:

Create three concept directions for a neighborhood night-market poster. Goal: communicate handmade food and evening community. Medium: bold paper-cut collage; palette: indigo, coral, cream; leave top third clear for approved copy. No logos, readable generated text, named living-artist imitation, copyrighted characters, or identifiable people.

Notice what the prompt does: it states the setting, limits the output, names forbidden behavior, and requests evidence that can be reviewed. It does not ask the model to “make it amazing.” If a constraint matters, make it testable. Replace “be accurate” with a source boundary, formula check, test command, rights ledger, or approval step.

A useful response would look like this: Three distinct, art-directable concepts described by composition, focal point, palette, texture, and intended audience response. That description is intentionally observable. “Looks good” is not acceptance. The operator must compare against the brief, inspect hands/faces/text, check brand fit and accessibility, run a reverse-image similarity check when appropriate, and confirm asset licenses. Keep the source material beside the draft so review means comparison, not memory.

Run the work through brief → diverge → select → generate → edit → rights review → deliver. Stop when an authoritative input is missing, a high-risk claim lacks evidence, private material cannot be safely removed, or the proposed action exceeds the permission granted. Escalation is successful workflow behavior, not model failure.

Common framing mistakes are style-name imitation; generic mood words; accidental trademarks; generated gibberish text; endless variation without selection criteria; hidden reference rights. Prevent them by writing a one-paragraph job card: user, decision, deliverable, source of truth, constraints, reviewer, and stop condition. This card becomes the anchor for every later prompt.