Work a full example

The project is to take one poster concept from brief through thumbnail selection, generation, human edit, copy placement, rights review, and export. The user is a design team choosing a concept, not a machine choosing taste. Definition of done: the intended action is clear, the candidate uses approved evidence, blocking safety checks pass, and another person can reproduce the key result.

Stage 1: prepare

Create the job card and collect communication goal, audience, mood board rights, composition, medium, palette, copy space, brand constraints, and rejection criteria. Remove or replace prohibited material: use only owned or licensed references; secure model releases for identifiable people; do not upload confidential client boards or unreleased brand assets. Add one ordinary case, one boundary case, and one hostile or misleading case. Record unknowns instead of filling them with plausible guesses.

Stage 2: draft

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.

The first candidate should be Three distinct, art-directable concepts described by composition, focal point, palette, texture, and intended audience response. In this worked run, imagine it also exhibits one realistic defect from this set: style-name imitation; generic mood words; accidental trademarks; generated gibberish text; endless variation without selection criteria; hidden reference rights. Do not hide the defect. Mark the exact criterion it violates and decide whether the cause belongs to context, instruction, model capability, or the surrounding process.

Stage 3: repair narrowly

Issue a targeted revision:

Revise only the failed criterion identified below.
Preserve all verified content and the original output contract.
Do not add facts or assets.
Return the corrected artifact plus a one-line change note.
Failed criterion: [paste criterion and evidence]

A narrow repair keeps the review surface understandable. If the model cannot repair without new authoritative information, pause and obtain that information.

Stage 4: verify and release

Now 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. Record pass/fail evidence for each criterion and have the named reviewer make the release decision. AI can expand options, but art direction decides what deserves refinement. Keep typography and factual copy under deterministic human control, and document provenance. Save limitations in language the audience can understand.

The durable deliverable is not only the final result. It is a creative case file with brief, rights ledger, prompt iterations, contact sheet, selection rationale, edit log, accessibility check, and disclosure. Write what surprised you, which check found it, what you changed, and which control should become the default. A clean retrospective distinguishes a prompt improvement from a data, tool, or policy change.