Image and layout generators have made the first draft almost free. That changes where a designer's time goes, not whether it's needed. The work moves from producing options to choosing, editing and explaining them.
Start with a brief the model can't write for you
Before you prompt anything, write three sentences: who this is for, what it must make them feel or do, and what it must never look like. That last line matters most. Generators drift toward the average of everything they have seen, and your brief is the only thing pulling them away from it.
Generate wide, then stop early
Use AI where breadth is cheap: moodboards, colour directions, rough compositions, copy variants. Give yourself a hard limit, such as twenty images, then close the tab. Endless generation feels productive but mostly delays the decision.
Edit like it's someone else's work
Treat every output as a junior designer's first pass. Redraw the type, rebuild the grid, repaint the parts that look like everyone else's. If you can't point to at least three changes you made and why, the piece isn't yours yet.
Keep a record of taste
- Save the outputs you rejected and write one line on why.
- Build a small library of your own references that you reuse in prompts.
- Review the pile monthly. Patterns in what you reject are your style, written down.
Used this way, AI speeds up the boring middle of a project and leaves the beginning and the end, where taste lives, to you.