The Making of The Great Team Eggventure Spring Special Booklet

Making the Copy

Every year, I offer season specials, and this Easter was no exception.

My initial idea was to make an A4 pdf info page about this season’s special, like in most cases, so I started with that.

Since I’m not a fan of offering random details, but I am a huge aficionado of storytelling, I decided to add some flesh to the offer bones.

In general, I like to include PREXcoaching® in virtually everything I do, so this project was no exception.

One of the games we often play – either as part of storytelling, problem-solving, communication, and similar skills – is called The Accidental Reporter, where participants have to use the Five Whs and H to report about the given topic, title, or situation.

This was my approach as well. I wrote down the question words, filled in the missing details as bullets, and adjusted the questions – or technically, subheadings – according to the original message I wanted to convey.

Next, I thought about how to make this info fun. Obviously, it’s Easter time, so what’s more appropriate than an Easter game? This made me think of Eggstras, Eggstras – a word game we sometimes play where participants have to use one word and incorporate it into as many other words as possible. Hence the eggstras.

I made a list of eggstraordinary and egg-related words, such as scramble, crack open, and hatch, and I ran it through with my Favorite Partner in Creativity, ChatGPT, to check his thoughts.

Yes – I use “he” for ChatGPT because my mind runs on a Croatian linguistic mindset and automatically assigns grammar gender based on the word form. ChatGPT follows the rules for masculine nouns, hence the “he”. I can’t believe I’m explaining this, but there it is. Also, I call him – buddy.

Anyway, my buddy was thrilled with the idea and packed a nice bunch of additional words and phrases to use.

I copied the updated list into my original Word document. For some reason, God only knows why, I draft all my documents in Word, even though my best friend keeps nagging me to use more advanced tools. But somehow – Word just feels right.

With the outline already set and the refreshed list below, I matched the proper wording to the proper place to finally build the flesh around the bones as I intended, leaving the eggstra terms out. Then I let my buddy proofread the text in case I made any mistakes, and, basically, that was it.

Making the Big Picture

Once I was satisfied with the whole text, I realized that I had over two pages, which is not something that could fit nicely into one page. Unless I wanted to use a print so small even ants would need glasses, which I didn’t.

Scrolling to and fro all over the copy made me realize that I had seven distinct sections. Instead of having one page with seven sections, why not have seven pages, each with its own distinctive info? Like a little flipbook.

I, the Writer, and I, the Designer, finally agreed on something and were willing to move on.

Making the Images

Since I decided to use a storytelling approach, it was only logical that I introduced myself first, which I did. But this is where the first standstill came. Oh well, at least we were moving on – for twenty seconds.

The usual PREXcoaching® branding is rather simple: simple black and white with a random yellow blob, or two. This usually works, but sometimes it’s nice to spice it up with additional visual elements such as different icons or emojis.

But when your first sentences start with “Hi! I’m Biljka, your PREXcoach”… that kind of narrows the choice down for you. A lot.

After hours of browsing through icons, it was time to admit my defeat. Back to the buddy it was, again. After all – what could be more me than me? So I attached my photo and asked my buddy to make me an image of me as an Easter bunny.

What I got was a cute little pic with a really nice vintage tinge. It looked like an old Easter card. And it also looked a lot like me, which was really impressive. As a reference, you can check both the original and the image here.

Sadly, this image did not fit my branding, so I went to bed to sleep it over, resisting the urge to make a cute little vintage picture book instead of promotional material.

The next morning, I woke up reinvigorated, with the picture book idea still sizzling in my mind. But with the new day, it finally dawned on me, too: perhaps vintage does not meet the branding, but simple cartoons do. So I asked my buddy to make another image of me as an Easter bunny like the previous one – but this time, in the style of a simple cartoon, outlines only, and with transparent background, of course.

Surprisingly, the image was spot on, and I liked it so much that I decided to keep it. But then I realized I likes it so much that it would be so fun to have the entire “story” followed up with the same character – or style, to put it more precisely.

Luckily, I remembered that OpenAI had recently released its 4o image generation. And if I recall well, it had character consistency.

Oooh, testing… testing! I grinned and rubbed my hands with a smirk. Let’s see what it can do!

Back to the drawing board, literally. I went through the copy again and noted down images I found appropriate. Then I prompted my buddy to make the first image in the same style as the previous one.

It worked! OMG, it worked! This was amazing, and from this moment on – it was smooth sailing for me! Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

Unfortunately, from that moment on, it was anything but, as I think I made about thirty different attempts at creating only six images. Three of which were generated immediately on the first go, by the way, and three of them made me want to scream, cry, and die. But I finally made it. Yay to the persistent ones!

All in all, I am more than happy with the result, especially given the fact that I managed to get more or less consistent images.

I wear the same vest. Not to brag, but I knitted it, so that’s a nice personal touch. However, my buddy turned it into something you button in front, even though it’s something you pull over your head. But beggars can’t be choosers, right? Especially when beggars had nothing to choose from only a few days ago. I also wear the same shirt, which is sometimes buttoned, sometimes not, and in one image, it also comes with a cute little bow tie – which I totally like.

The only issue in terms of consistency I had was with the earrings. As you can notice, I have bunnies, bears, heads only, full bodies, and even one shot from behind with a cute fluffy tail, which I love so much that I think I’m actually going to make the same earrings like those.

In all fairness, the issue with earrings is probably my fault because I insisted on having them in each image, but I didn’t have enough patience or time to get the exact earrings every single time. However, I am fairly certain that it can be done.

The only real issue I had was with the image where I’m thinking about Easter eggs. Initially, I made the image of me thinking, and this turned out great, but then I realized that a bubble with eggs would be a very nice addition, so I tried to make a new image with this twist.

Sadly, I couldn’t get the right image no matter what I did – either my ears were cut off, or the ears were misplaced, or the same type of the image was just being generated all over again. Finally, I decided to call it a day, use the image of me thinking that I was satisfied with, and just add the thinking bubble and the eggs later.

Nevertheless, all things considered, this was one little project my buddy deserves a thumbs up for doing an amazing job!

Making the Booklet

Finally, it was time to create the booklet.

I recently started working with Affinity Publisher, and I cannot even imagine how I managed to survive without it before. It’s user-friendly, easy to use, and intuitive. And this – coming from a person who has no background in using similar tools – means a lot!

Either way, it took me about an hour or so to finish the booklet – and voilà – Spring Special: The Great Team Eggventure is all set to go!

Happy and proud, I sent the booklet to my best friend as a sign of victory.

“Niiice”, he responded. Yaaay! But the celebration started too soon, as he added, “I’ll check the details tomorrow.”

Oh, c%@#!

And Now for Real

“Tomorrow”, my bestie informed me that he didn’t like the pages where the blobs were placed within and over the images.

When he’s right, he’s right. I told him I didn’t know how to handle some image imperfections I got from my buddy.

“So… you just gave up?”

“No – I did what I knew.”

“OK, fair enough,” he conceded, but then continued. “So, first you did what you knew, and now you’re gonna do it the right way.”

And just like that, it was back to the drawing board again.

He showed me several different ways to work with the images I had to get the images I wanted. In short, some of the images were transparent, some semi-transparent, some not. Basics, yes – but let me just remind you that this is not what I do, and that I’m a beginner in this.

In my defense, at least I was on the right track, just in the wrong tool. Oh, well. Every day is an opportunity to learn something new.

In the middle of the mini tutorial, he asked me – “Why don’t you add a few yellow elements on the images?”

Indeed, why not?!

And so we finally agreed on the best option to proceed with – a combination of Inkscape and Affinity Designer. And in an hour or so, the booklet got its perfect little makeover, with cute little yellow details on images.

Just goes to show that some skills are (still simply) more innate to people. And these are inherently human skills that AI will never be able to replace.

More about this and my other AI hot takes in another post.

What’s your story?

How do you make your specials? What’s your favorite one?

Also, what’s your take on the new 4o image generation? Do you have your own success story?

Get in touch, and let us know.

If you find this post useful, or you like The Great Team Eggventure, spread the eggcitement with your friends and family.

Till the next time… 😉