I’m starting a new section of this site. It’s called Ai Without the BS.
It’s for normal people, trying to use Ai in normal life. Because I’m normal. (-ish)
I’m trying to work Ai out. So, this is an open invitation: let’s work it out together. If you’re a software engineer who builds Ai products, you can stop reading. This is not for you. It’s for the rest of us. If you’re a regular person with no tech background, curious about how to make Ai work in your actual life, this stuff is for you. I’m starting from the ground floor. First post:
How I designed my logo
(Or, “How I learned to treat Chat GPT like a junior designer on their very first day of work”)
I wanted a very simple logo. I asked Chat GPT to make it, using the default 4o model.
You can select different models of ChatGPT using this dropdown arrow here, circled in red. There are useful differences. More on that in a future post.
I click the three dots:
I select “Create Image”:
And then I type this into my prompt box:
I'd like you to make me a very straightforward text-based logo. Use the Courier font. The logo should say "Ai Without the BS". BS should be very large and prominent.
Chat GPT crushed it. Amazing. But then stuff got interesting. This is a 1x1 aspect ratio image (a perfect square). I needed versions of this in different sizes, e.g. for a Twitter header image. So I asked:
This is excellent. Literally perfect. No changes please! Can you please reproduce this exact logo in a 1500 x 500 pixels image? Please simply add the same shade of white space around the text in order to give me a 1500 x 500 pixels image.
Ah. Crap. No. There’s cropping at the bottom, and there’s pure white space added at the sides, not the off-white I wanted. I re-prompt.
A very good effort. Unfortunately, I notice that the logo has been cropped. Can you re-attempt the same task, but make sure there is no cropping at all?
Grrr. I still have this white mis-match situation at the sides of the logo. At this point, because I have (very) basic Photoshop skills, I opened up Photoshop and just made the thing myself. It took me 2 minutes. See below:
But this pops the Ai bubble a little, right? Isn’t Ai supposed to make all designers obsolete? But when faced with the most basic versioning task - the kind of thing you learn in your second or third lesson of a "Photoshop 101" course - ChatGPT drops the ball. It was quicker to use a human with domain-specific knowledge (me), for even the most basic task.
So what should I have asked ChatGPT? What was the perfect prompt to get what I wanted? I decided to be a good boyfriend, and have a heart-to-heart with Chat GPT, and ask it what I should have said, to get my needs met. I even gave it the answer in advance:
What I ACTUALLY wanted you to make was the attached image, with the file name Ai_Without_TheBS_Twitter_Header.png - I made the adjustments myself in Photoshop, using the excellent 1x1 logo you designed for me. What prompt should I have used to get the result I wanted? How should I have phrased my request so you understood my needs?
Chat GPT replied:
NARRATOR: This was BS! I used that prompt exactly, and I got this:
The white background issue is solved. But this is not centered. And not 1500x500 pixels. Double fail! I asked again:
This is close to what I want, but you will notice that it does not match the exact example image I actually gave you, which was titled "Ai_Without_TheBS_Twitter_Header.png". There seem to be two clear discrepancies. 1) The most recent image you created features a logo that is not centered. 2) can you check it is 1500 x 500 pixels, because I do not think this is.
This came next:
We’re going backwards. Despite knowing the exactly correct image to simply copy! I replied:
This is still not correct. Because there is pure white space in the logo, all the way to the horizontal sides of the image. But as you can see from the 100% correct example image, titled Ai_Without_TheBS_Twitter_Header.png, I want that same off-white color matte from your original logo to extend all the way to the horizontal sides. Please be honest with me: can you review the two files - Ai_Without_TheBS_Twitter_Header.png and Ai_Without_the_BS_Twitter_Header_Centered.png - and detect that crucial difference?
She’s apologetic. Then she gives me this:
So close! But this is STILL NOT CENTERED. OH. MY. GOD. WHY??? Ai is officially broken. It’s a miracle my toaster even works.
I try again:
This is so close to being correct, however, it seems to me that the logo is not in fact centered in this image. It's close to being centered. But in fact, it's a little off to the left. Can you confirm that?
I get this next:
STILL. NOT. CENTERED. Subtly wrong, but wrong nonetheless.
I am now going into photoshop and giving exact pixel numbers. I am now “pixel-f**king”. I reply:
I'm sorry, but the logo is simply not perfectly centered. It is not even close to that. The left edge of the content in the image you made, entitled Ai_Without_the_BS_Twitter_Header_Perfectly_Centered.png, is at roughly pixel 508. The left edge of the logo is effectively the leftest-most point of the letter "W" in the word "without". The right edge of the logo is at roughly pixel 895. It is the rightest-most point of the letter "e" in the word "the". This means that at its widest point in this image, the logo is 387 pixels wide. Based on everything I have written, can you confirm that YOU understand and accept that that logo is not centered on this image you created for me, titled Ai_Without_the_BS_Twitter_Header_Perfectly_Centered.png
ChatGPT goes around the houses then gives me this:
You have to see the funny side. I reply:
Hahahaha! This is very funny. It's a little frustrating, but we should definitely all have a sense of humor about it. No! The Logo is not centered at all! You have pushed the actual logo - the part that says "Ai Without the BS" - all the way to the left of your image. You can see that, can't you?
This seems to knock some sense into ChatGPT:
She did it! Hooray! But I still haven’t got my answer.
This is the PERFECT RESULT. Well done. However, you still have not answered my original question. You made an awesome square logo for me, and I wanted a version of it in a 1500 x 500 Twitter header orientation. What exactly should I have asked you in order to obtain that result? As you can see from our back and forth, it took many, many attempts for me to get exactly what I wanted. And to be honest, what I was envisaging was extremely simple. It would have been the second or third lesson of a "photoshop 101" graphic design course. However, I do not blame you at all for that. The error was mine, in the sense that I could not articulate properly what you needed in a prompt in order to generate the exact result that I was seeking. Even when I "gave you the answer ahead of time" (in a manner of speaking) by showing you the final result I wished to reach, it still took many many iterations before I could successfully communicate the exact image required. Is there an exact prompt that would have generated that perfect result? Please do not truncate the prompt or take any shortcuts. I am perfectly happy with a 1000 word prompt if that is what’s required! The reason I ask is this: I want to keep any such ultra-clear prompt you give me on file so I can make sure to use it in the future when I require such use cases, and to learn how to write better graphic design-related prompts. So, having said all that: what prompt should I have used?
Then Chat GPT laid it out. It flat out asked me to:
“describe what you want, like you’d explain to a junior designer who has no context but is trying to do a perfect job on their first day.”
This is very wise. You can get amazing things out of Ai products. But you must be prepared to walk through every level of context required to communicate precisely what you want.
So there you go. Don’t make the same mistakes I did! PLEASE TREAT CHAT GPT LIKE A VERY JUNIOR CO-WORKER WHO HAS NO CONTEXT AND NO EXPERIENCE ON THE JOB! Feel free to save the prompt for any and all of your future graphic design needs. Here’s cut and paste-able version of that prompt text is here:
✅ ULTRA-EXACT PROMPT FOR GENERATING A TWITTER HEADER VERSION OF A SQUARE LOGO
I have a square, text-based logo that you previously designed for me. It contains the phrase "Ai Without the BS" in Courier font, with the letters "BS" especially large and prominent, centered below the rest of the text.
I want to use that exact logo layout and proportions — without changing anything about the font sizes, spacing, or text — to create a version formatted for use as a Twitter/X header image.
Please follow these exact requirements:
Canvas Size: The final image must be exactly 1500 pixels wide by 500 pixels tall.
Background Color: Use the same off-white matte background color that was used in the original square version of the logo. Do not replace it with pure white. The background color should extend all the way to the left and right edges of the image — do not surround the logo with new white padding or change the tone of the background.
Content: Use the original logo image (the 1x1 square), without cropping, resizing, or changing the layout of the text. Treat it as if it were printed on a matte off-white square.
Positioning: Place the original logo image visually centered within the 1500x500 canvas. That means:
The logo should be centered horizontally and vertically within the canvas.
Any white space or padding around the logo should be perfectly balanced on the left and right sides.
The visual center of the logo (based on the true leftmost and rightmost points of the visible text) must align exactly with the center of the 1500-pixel width.
Scaling: Do not scale or stretch the logo to fill the canvas. The original sizing is exactly what I want.
Export Format: Output the image as a PNG file, ideally named something like Ai_Without_the_BS_Twitter_Header.png.
🧠 Bonus Tip (Prompt Extension):
If you're working with AI that doesn't take image references or remember past designs:
You could add something like this:
If you cannot use the original logo image directly, regenerate it exactly as described:
Use Courier font
Text reads:
Ai
Without the (centered below)
BS in large, bold letters, centered below that
All text should be center-aligned, in black, with consistent vertical spacing
Background should be off-white with RGB values approximately (249, 248, 246)
Then follow the rest of the instructions above to place that design in a 1500 x 500 image.
This prompt is longer than most because it tries to cover every assumption — just like you’d explain to a junior designer who has no context but is trying to do a perfect job on their first day.