The AI Ecommerce Content Workflow

Every AI campaign that looks like "one connected brand" instead of "seven random outputs" traces back to the same discipline: you set the visual direction before you open the tools, you turn that direction into a design system a machine can read, and every prompt from then on references it. Four steps, one connected pipeline.

Step 1 · Build the brand moodboard on Pinterest

Before any AI tool is opened, the visual direction has to exist somewhere real. Pinterest is the fastest way to collect a dataset of taste — not inspiration to scroll past, but assets to analyze.

• Create a new board named after the client or project (e.g. FORME — Visual DNA).
• Pin 20–30 references that feel premium, emotional, and aligned with the brand — product shots, editorial fashion, lighting studies, color palettes, typography.
• Add 5 new pins a day. Treat the board as a living dataset, not a one-time task.
• Zoom in and look for 2–4 repeating patterns: a color palette, a lighting signature, a texture choice, a composition habit.

Turn the board into a prompt-ready style guide

Screenshot 4–6 of the strongest pins and upload them to Claude with the prompt below. This turns a moodboard into a reusable Visual DNA block you can drop into every prompt from here on.

Analyze these reference images as a single moodboard for a brand called
[BRAND NAME]. Identify the repeating patterns across all of them and summarize
as a Visual DNA block with these categories only:

- Color Palette (list 3-5 exact tones)
- Lighting Signature (source, direction, quality)
- Texture & Material (recurring surfaces — leather, fabric, skin, metal)
- Composition Habits (centered, negative space, rule of thirds, etc.)
- Mood (2-3 words)

Keep each category to one tight sentence. End with a short "Aesthetic No-List" —
3 things that would break this style if they appeared in a generated image.
Output in plain text, no preamble.

This Visual DNA block becomes the fixed reference you paste into every prompt in Steps 2–4 — it's what keeps a whole campaign looking like one coherent brand instead of random AI outputs.

Step 2 · Generate the design system in Claude

With the Visual DNA locked, turn it into an actual design system — fonts, colors, brand mark, and component rules — the same way an in-house design team would document a brand.

What to ask Claude Design for

• Identity — a mark/logo concept, primary + reversed color variants, minimum clear-space rules.
• Typography scale — heading font, body font, tracking and weight rules.
• Color system — primary palette in hex, plus reversed and special variants for dark backgrounds and accent moments.
• Reusable components — buttons, tags, price/sale badges — styled to match the palette and type system.

Using this Visual DNA as the foundation: [PASTE VISUAL DNA BLOCK FROM STEP 1].

Build a complete brand design system for [BRAND NAME], a [CATEGORY] brand.
Include:

1) Identity — a simple geometric or line-based brand mark concept described in
   words, plus wordmark font pairing.
2) Color — a primary palette of 4-5 hex colors (cream/neutral base, one deep
   anchor tone, one accent), plus a reversed dark variant.
3) Typography — one serif display font for headlines, one clean sans for
   body/UI, with suggested tracking.
4) Components — button style, tag/badge style, and card style rules consistent
   with the palette.

Present it as a structured style guide, section by section, the way an
in-house brand book would be organized.

Tip: ask Claude Design to render this as an actual visual style-guide page (not just text) so you have a shareable artifact — this becomes the reference you screen-record for the Reel's "design system reveal" scene.

Step 3 · Prompt the shop-ready images

Now the Visual DNA and design system get applied to actual product content — hero shots, lifestyle images, and macro detail shots — built with Nano Banana Pro, GPT Image 2, Midjourney, or Flux, locked to the same character and product DNA across every generation.

The formula

Subject & Action → Camera & Lens → Lighting → Material & Texture → Composition → Style Reference. Every prompt below follows this order — nothing is skipped, even when a shot feels simple.

Master prompt — product hero shot

Medium shot of a woman holding a [PRODUCT — e.g. deep espresso-brown leather
tote bag] at her side, captured with an 85mm lens at f/2, soft directional
daylight from camera-left at a warm 3200K temperature. Visible leather grain
and natural sheen on the bag, authentic skin texture with visible pores on any
exposed skin, no plastic smoothing. Composition uses negative space on the
right third of the frame, subject positioned along the left third line. Styled
like a minimalist editorial fashion campaign, neutral cream studio background,
premium commercial mood. Shot on [CAMERA — e.g. Sony A1], raw photo,
unretouched texture.

Negative prompt: plastic skin, over-retouching, exaggerated expression, CGI
quality, distorted hands, extra fingers, warped leather, cartoon rendering.

Master prompt — lifestyle / in-motion shot

Full shot of a woman adjusting the strap of a [PRODUCT] on her shoulder while
turning slightly toward camera, captured on a 35mm lens, natural window light
from the side creating soft directional shadow. Environment is a minimal
interior with warm neutral tones — [LOCATION, e.g. a studio with a metal
stool]. Fabric and material textures rendered with realistic weight and drape,
no stiffness. Composition follows rule of thirds, subject off-center with
environment visible in the background for context. Styled like a contemporary
fashion lookbook, candid but composed.

Negative prompt: static rigid pose, flat lighting, plastic texture, blurry
face, distorted proportions.

Master prompt — macro detail shot

Extreme close-up of the [PRODUCT DETAIL — e.g. stitching and hardware on a
bag strap], captured on a 100mm macro lens at f/4, soft diffused studio light
revealing fine texture and material grain without harsh reflections.
Composition is centered, tight crop with shallow depth of field isolating the
detail from a softly blurred background. Styled like a luxury product catalog
macro shot, clean and tactile.

Negative prompt: motion blur, dust artifacts, overexposed highlights, plastic
sheen.

Always paste the Visual DNA block from Step 1 at the top of these prompts when generating a character-led shot — it's what keeps the same model consistent across every image in the set.

Step 4 · Generate promo & sale graphics

The final layer applies the design system's colors, type, and components to actual sale banners and ad creative — so every promo graphic looks like it came from the same brand as the product photography, not a separate template pack.

Design system → promo banner

Using this design system: [PASTE DESIGN SYSTEM SUMMARY FROM STEP 2].

Create a promotional sale banner for [BRAND NAME] announcing [OFFER — e.g.
"End of Season — 20% off"]. Use the primary color palette and typography
exactly as defined. Layout: product image on one side, headline and price/CTA
on the other, generous negative space, no clutter. Include a clear call-to-
action button styled with the system's button component. Keep the composition
editorial and minimal — this should look like a page from the brand's own
lookbook, not a generic discount ad.

Design system → ad campaign set

Using the same design system, generate 3 variations of a square (1:1) ad
creative for [BRAND NAME]'s [PRODUCT/COLLECTION]:

1) One dark/reversed-palette version for high-contrast placements
2) One light/cream version for feed placements
3) One text-forward version using only the wordmark and a bold headline with
   no product image

All three must share identical typography, spacing rules, and color values
from the system — differences should come from layout and palette variant
only, not from a new visual language.

Because every prompt in this step references the same design system, the whole promo set stays visually identical to the design system's own presentation page — even though it's generated across separate sessions.

That's the full workflow

Moodboard → Design System → Product Photography → Promo Graphics — one connected pipeline, built entirely in Claude and your image model of choice, with every asset tracing back to the same Visual DNA.