Assessment prompt: Write a creative brief for a Stable Diffusion image campaign
Scene-setter
The city is a rain-slicked mirror just past dusk, sodium lamps breathing amber into puddles while a salt-kissed wind carries hints of citrus and incense. Down at the waterfront, a pop-up night festival unfurls—lanterns blink like new constellations, stalls hum with music and chatter, and a hush of bioluminescent glow threads the air like spilled stardust. The client wants imagery that feels like stepping into warm mist: sensory, cinematic, and human—faces lit by neon, textiles fluttering like tide foam, metal and glass beaded with rain. The work will anchor a launch campaign for “Lumen Tide,” a coastal culture festival celebrating food, craft, and sustainability.
Your task
Write a professional creative brief that will guide a team using Stable Diffusion to generate a coherent set of hero and supporting visuals. Your brief should be as clear as a blueprint and as evocative as a story, translating brand intent into promptable, reproducible directions.
What your brief must include
- Purpose and KPIs
- Describe the marketing objective in one sentence, then set measurable goals (e.g., poster recall, social engagement, event sign-ups, CTR). State how success will be measured and in what timeframe.
- Audience insight
- Define primary and secondary audiences with 1–2 motivating insights each. Evoke context—what they see, hear, smell, crave at night by the water—and why this imagery compels them.
- Core message and emotional arc
- Distill the single-minded proposition and the feeling arc you want: anticipation → immersion → belonging (or your chosen arc). Identify 3 sensory motifs to carry through all assets (e.g., “lantern-amber skin tone,” “sea-glass teal reflections,” “bioluminescent threadlines”).
- Visual strategy
- Subject focus, environments, time-of-day, weather, and lensing. Specify lighting language (e.g., wet speculars, soft rim light from lanterns, deep indigo shadows), color palette boundaries (primary/secondary/neutral), depth, and texture cues (porous stone, lacquered wood, rippled water).
- Composition guidance for negative space and copy-safe areas (avoid relying on baked-in text; reserve space for typeset overlays).
- Style references
- Reference styles via movements, materials, and descriptive attributes rather than living artist names (e.g., “neon noir,” “cinematic night photography,” “bioluminescent marine macro,” “hand-poured resin gloss”). If citing public-domain influences, note them as conceptual anchors.
- Brand and ethics guardrails
- Inclusivity guidelines, no stereotyping, no depiction of real private individuals without consent, avoid IP-infringing motifs, and avoid unsafe content. Accessibility notes (contrast targets, legibility, color-blind-friendly palette).
- Deliverables and specs
- Key visual poster, 3840×2160, landscape, print-safe and digital-ready.
- Social story triptych, 1080×1920 each, vertical; panel-to-panel continuity.
- Square social teaser, 1080×1080; thumbnail-first clarity.
- Seamless pattern tile, 1024×1024, for banners and merch.
- Optional product/food close-up, 2048×2048, macro texture emphasis.
- Stable Diffusion production plan
- Model: recommend Stable Diffusion XL 1.0 for composition and detail (note: if constrained to SD 1.5, call out limitations and compensations).
- Sampler and steps: recommend a high-quality sampler (e.g., DPM++ 2M Karras or DPM++ SDE Karras). Typical steps 25–40 for base renders; document chosen step count.
- CFG scale: propose a range (e.g., 4.5–7.0) and when to adjust for fidelity vs. freedom.
- Resolution: per deliverable above; specify whether to render native or upscale. If upscaling, note tool/method (e.g., high-res fix or external 2× upscaler) and denoise strength.
- Seed strategy: assign fixed seeds for each “scene” to ensure reproducibility; use variation seeds for alternates. Note: reproducibility requires same model, VAE (if applicable), sampler, steps, CFG, and resolution.
- Prompt structure template: define a consistent slot order to reduce drift, e.g.:
Subject + Environment + Time/Weather + Lighting + Color Palette + Mood + Composition + Camera/Lens + Material/Texture + Style Descriptors + Quality Tags + Negative Prompt
- Negative prompts: specify common artifact filters (e.g., low quality, blurry, extra limbs, distorted hands, text, watermark, logo, signature, jpeg artifacts) plus any scene-specific exclusions.
- Consistency tools: define if/when to use ControlNet (Canny for layout, Depth for scene coherence, OpenPose for human pose), reference image adapters, or a custom brand-motif LoRA (only with cleared training data). Include weights/strength ranges and when to lower/raise for diversity.
- Post pipeline: optional SDXL Refiner pass for detail, targeted inpainting for hands or faces, color match to brand palette, final grain/halation pass for cohesion.
- Shot list
- 5–8 scene briefs, each a few lines: the who/what/where, sensory goal, composition, and technical parameters (AR, seed, sampler, steps, CFG). Ensure a throughline motif appears in all shots.
- File and metadata hygiene
- Naming convention, versioning, and embedded PNG info (prompt, negative prompt, seed, model, sampler, steps, CFG). Note source and rights for any references.
- Risk and mitigation
- Identify likely failure modes (e.g., text artifacts, hand anatomy, rain-bokeh overpowering faces, poster mudding at small sizes) and your plan (e.g., tighter negative prompts, pose control, inpainting, manual type set).
- Feasibility and timeline
- A pragmatic mini-schedule from concept test renders to final selects, including iteration checkpoints and approval gates.
Include one example prompt
Provide exactly one fully written Stable Diffusion prompt (plus negative prompt and parameters) for the key visual poster to demonstrate how your brief translates to generation. Use your template and include: model, sampler, steps, CFG, resolution, seed, and any ControlNet/LoRA notes. Keep it within the constraints you set.
Scenario constraints you must honor
- Mood: rain-wet night; lantern/LED warmth vs. deep indigo/cyan; bioluminescent hint, not sci-fi overpowering.
- People: diverse, candid, joyful calm. No celebrities, no minors as primary subjects.
- Text: do not rely on the model to render legible typography. Leave obvious negative space for later typesetting.
- IP and safety: no copyrighted logos or brand marks, no imitation of living artists’ unique styles, no unsafe or sensitive content.
- Platforms: ensure the key visual can crop cleanly to 1:1 and 9:16 without losing the subject.
Evaluation criteria
- Clarity: Is the brief actionable by a prompt artist without a meeting?
- Consistency: Do directives ensure visual coherence across deliverables?
- Specificity: Are sensory and technical details concrete enough to prompt?
- Feasibility: Are model and parameter choices realistic for SDXL-era workflows?
- Originality: Does the creative direction feel fresh yet on-brand for a coastal night festival?
- Rigor: Are risks anticipated with credible mitigation plans?
- Translation: Does the example prompt reflect the brief’s intent and constraints?
Tone and length
- Aim for 900–1,400 words. Write with sensory precision—let the reader smell the rain on warm stone, see the amber halo on skin, hear the soft hiss of lanterns—while staying operationally exact.
