Lesson 4 of 7 · 13 min
Brief AI like an art director
Goal:Write prompts that get specific results, and steer them with good follow-ups.
A prompt is a brief. Art directors have briefed designers for decades, and the same five parts work for AI: what it is, who it's for, the constraints, the feel, and the format you want back.
“a poster for Design Night”
“students on a budget”
“readable on a phone”
“bold and playful”
“three different options”
Design a poster for Design Night,a free evening workshop for students on a budget.The date and room must be readable on a phone.Make it bold and playful, not corporate.Give me three very different directions.
- Goal
- Audience
- Constraints
- Feel
- Format
Switch the parts of the brief on and off. Watch the result go from generic to specific.
Design a poster for Design Night.
A simulation: real tools vary, but missing parts always get filled with averages.
→ Paste the full brief into ChatGPT and Claude. Compare what each gives back, then log it in your journal (Lesson 6).
Weak prompt
- "Make a poster for an event."
- No audience, so it guesses.
- No constraints, so the date might be tiny.
- One result, so nothing to compare.
Strong prompt
- "Poster for a free student design workshop…"
- Says who it's for and what they need.
- Names the must-haves: readable date, phone size.
- Asks for three directions to compare.
Five moves that make prompts better
Ask for options, not an answer
"Give me three very different directions" gives you something to compare. Comparing is where your judgment kicks in.
Show, don't only tell
Describe a reference ("like a 1960s Swiss poster: big type, a grid, two colors") or attach an image of something you like.
Set a role
"You are an art director reviewing a student poster" changes the tone and depth of the answer.
Constrain the format
Say exactly what you want back: "a headline under 5 words and a one-line subhead".
Let it ask you
End with "Ask me up to three questions before you start." It will spot gaps in your brief.
The first result is a starting point
Art directors don't throw a result away and start again: they look closely, name what isn't working, and ask for one change at a time. That loop is where the design gets good.
- 1 · Look
Squint at the result. What do you see first?
- 2 · Name it
"The date is too small to find."
- 3 · Ask for one change
"Make the date twice as big; keep everything else."
- 4 · Compare
Put both versions side by side. Better? Log it.
Practice the loop. For each result, pick the follow-up that will actually fix it.
The poster looks good, but you had to search for the date.
All three options look like the same corporate template.
The headline text is too long and wraps onto four lines.
Write your Design Night brief and test it
Write a five-part brief, run it in two tools, and improve the best result with one follow-up.
- 1Write a brief with all five parts. Keep it under 80 words.
- 2Run it in ChatGPT and in Claude (or Claude Design).
- 3Pick the stronger result and name one thing that isn't working.
- 4Send one follow-up that fixes only that thing.
- 5Save the brief and the follow-up on your Prompt library page in Figma.
- 6Share your brief and what you learned in the discussion.
Which part of a brief most often stops AI from giving average results?
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