Here we are again to explore the best and weirdest outtakes from the process of creating cover art for “Thank You for Approving of My Coffee” with AI. Check out Part 1 here.
Cool Crowds
As I mentioned in Part 1, I liked the concept of a large crowd of people enjoying coffee, so I kept exploring that. Since there were so many creepy cross-eyed faces in other versions, I thought I’d have everyone wearing sunglasses to just cover up the eyes, with the added bonus that it would make everyone look cool. 😎
I felt like I was getting warmer and these became my top two, but some of the faces were still freaking me out a little bit if I looked closer. It also felt like something was missing…
An Office I’d Leave Immediately
The sunglasses were working for me in terms of reducing creepy cross-eyes, but I wondered if the crowd was too big–what about a smaller group with a “main character” up front?
The results were a little too ridiculously happy, and in some cases included levitating mugs.
Dogs and Cats Living Together, Mass Hysteria
I felt like I was closing in on what I liked and didn’t like. I liked the crowd of sunglassed business folk but it felt a little too plain. So what if it wasn’t a single-species crowd, but instead included animals who were equally enjoying the caffeinated goodness?
Ultimately I decided these were too busy and the working professionals plus pets wasn’t the right vibe.
Thankyoutopia
The quest for the perfect cover art continued with an exploration of Zootopia-style business professionals enjoying a coffee…or five.
At the time, each of these almost made the cut, but the more I stared at them, the less uniform the animals looked. Some were super-cartoonish and others looked photorealistic.
But there are a few highlights that deserve a little extra attention:
Check out the “Wolf of Wall Street” who just closed the most important deal of his life, with a random wildebeest standing on a table behind him. Is the wildebeest “naked” as it’s surrounded by clothed “tamebeests”?
So many big smiles in this one. I love the bear-husky-bear group in the front row and wish I had that much fun at work. There’s also that dog in the upper right with a bionic arm of some kind, and near the front, a tiger head on a fox-like body.
The star here is clearly Mr. Frog, whose winning smile and suit and tie perfectly match his complexion. It’s not easy being green, but he sure makes it look that way.
Bears and Dogs
I’m not sure why I was drawn to the idea, but I also tried a round of prompts requesting only bears and dogs dressed for work and with coffees in hand.
Here are two of my favorites from that exploration, both of which were strongly considered.
The critters in this one look like they’re about to draft their own Declaration of Independence so they can just focus on manufacturing high-quality, farm-to-table honey and celebrate the freedom to bark loudly at anyone trying to infringe upon their God-given right to have tax-free zoomies.
The hand-drawn style of the second is what really spoke to me. There’s almost a “Where’s Waldo” feel to it.
Take Me to Your Liter
Another direction I tried was bringing back the humans in sunglasses, but I thought it would be hilarious if they were so elated with their coffee that they were oblivious to an alien invasion happening behind them.
I didn’t know it at the time, but this wound up being a key element that seemed to make everything work in the final design…
The Final Version
In my final round of AI prompting, I decided to go big and incorporate almost everything I tried previously all at once. I requested businesspeople and creatures all mirthfully enjoying a cup of joe, having the time of their lives to the extent that they were oblivious to not only an alien invasion but also dinosaurs that were somehow roaming the earth once again.
And honestly, I really could have picked any of these.
I can’t tell if that’s a gorilla, lion, or hybrid who’s having the time of its life in the first pic, but I love it so much. This one also has the most overt dinosaurs-plus-alien-invasion which made it a strong contender.
The second one’s alien invasion is a bit more subtle, but I did like how cohesive it all felt. The human/wildlife mix felt less like a collage and more intentional than most of my other attempts.
Ultimately, I obviously went with this one, which doesn’t include a lot of animals, but I fell in love with the single blue-green guy. Is it one of the dinosaurs I requested the crowd not to notice? Is it a really big animal friend like a hippo or something? Is that a single, super sharp fang sticking out of its mouth? I also adore the retro sci-fi take on the “alien invasion”–are those spaceships off in the distance or are we at a 1940s World’s Fair?
This was it.
I never would’ve imagined something like this being the winner but it somehow landed with the right amount of absurdity and seriousness to match the song.
So that’s where the cover art came from. A collaboration between human imagination and artificial imagination.
All I did was add a carefully proportional amount of the prompts of my choice.
And then all I did was…I pushed “generate.”