This week’s covers are in honor of my great friend John Bayalis, who is an incredible painter, photographer, and New Order fanatic. A few years ago, John decided to paint all 64 official Joy Division and New Order releases on 3×3 inch canvases. I’m thankful to be the caretaker of more than one.
John’s been following along with my attempts to get o3 to create rubrics for one-word prompts that blossom into cover images. From the successful Far Side series, decent fictitious boy band albums, to the mediocre Met Gala black dandyism theme…
The main cover this week is New Order’s Republic with the Figure O1 robot swapped in for the people and the London Recordings logo across its chest. The cover was generated using Open AI’s multimodal image diffusion tool, simply by giving the engine the album, the robot, and the logo. I added the title text with Photoshop using the Handel Gothic font.
For the cover of this post I used GPT-Image-1. If you use Photoshop, this will blow your mind. I gave GPT the original cover of New Order “Confusion” and this prompt…
“Take this image and make the 9 and the 3 a capital A and I. Keep the same colors. In the computer terminal style font, the image I shared has a cluttered looking grey text reading NEW ORDER written beneath a colorful text that reads CONFUSION. Because they are on top of each other, it looks garbled. In the new image I’d like the word to use the colorful text in the same computer terminal font, but simply write the word DIFFUSION on top of the large purple letters A and I. Does that make sense? Thanks!”
This week I asked o3 to create a rubric that would allow me to give it 43 one-word category names. From 43 single words, the API would return 43 New Order inspired cover images via API, using a rubric and prompt system that captured the spirit of each category theme.
Because I keep things “one shot” (aka no revisions), the result is a bit of a train wreck. o3 decided to only use a handful of New Order albums and repeat them. The model was also too literal. Because I asked for a rubric using the album covers. o3 used the actual album cover names in the prompts and unfortunately the engine generated replica covers instead of theme-based derivatives. This could’ve been avoided by modifying the rubric, but I let it go just to see how well the system would do. Refining the prompt is still incredibly important if you’re going for high quality.
I’ll share the rubric below. But first, here are my favorite six of the covers: Qwen is a Chinese model, and by coincidence or not, o3 used “Republic” as the cover and cool simple icons to reflect the fire and beach. For the business cover, I appreciate the color and shadow depth of cupid’s “arrow” and the word Growth. Amazon is a bit of a blunder that is artistic by accident with poetic words from the prompt written at the bottom of the image, “Planetary logistics and retail AI rivers“. The image for Alibaba says “e-commerce in china” and amazingly, the phrase is also written in Chinese. The Accounting and Finance category has subtle numbers. The Google category includes a magnifying glass search icon.
This is the first pass at a rubric from OpenAI’s o3 model (this table is directly from o3 – nothing is mine):
| Rubric Section | What we decide here | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Semantic Pulse | 2-to-3 key meanings & emotions packed inside the category word. | Gives the visual its narrative core. |
| 2. AI/Tech Angle | A short phrase that links the word to a current or timeless AI concept (e.g., “Vision → computer vision & perception”). | Grounds the piece in your newsletter’s theme. |
| 3. Saville Reference | Which New Order sleeve or Factory artifact the design spirit should echo (grid of “Movement,” floral insert of “Power, Corruption & Lies,” pastel plastic of “Technique,” steel-wool texture of “Brotherhood,” the color code bars on 12″ singles, etc.). | Keeps the series visually cohesive and instantly recognizable to music/design nerds. |
| 4. Color-Code Palette | 3–4 swatches (hex or simple descriptors) with one dominant, one accent, one neutral. Optional: tie each palette to the category (e.g., “Security” → CCTV-grey, alarm-red). | Saville loved disciplined palette systems. Color is the quickest wink to insiders. |
| 5. Geometry / Motif | Shapes, grids, lines, or single pictorial element that drives the layout (e.g., concentric circle, offset 2 × 5 grid, numeric barcode, rose cluster, pixel noise strip). | Adds that stripped-back modernism. |
| 6. Typography Treatment | – Whether the category word appears at all (many NO sleeves omit text).- If shown: typeface style (Grotesk, slab, serif), placement, size ratio.- If omitted: how we signal the name (color bars, catalogue number device, etc.). | Balances mystery vs clarity; respects Saville’s “less-but-sharper” ethos. |
| 7. Composition Notes | Orientation, negative-space balance, alignment rules, subtle texture, any photographic or 3-D element. | Translates the idea into a prompt-ready frame. |
| 8. Prompt Skeleton | A ready-to-fill Mad-Libs line for your image-gen tool:"[geometry/motif], [brief color cue], [one evocative texture], minimalist layout inspired by New Order's '[reference]', [AI/tech angle phrase], studio lighting, 3:2 aspect, soft grain, high resolution" | Speeds up production and keeps wording consistent. |
| 9. QC Checklist | ✔ Minimal clutter ✔ Flat color blocks or gentle gradients ✔ No obvious stock-photo vibe ✔ Emotion matches Semantic Pulse ✔ Looks great cropped square for thumbnails | Ensures every cover lands with the same authority. |
This is the second pass, after I gave it some feedback. It’s a dramatic improvement!
| Section | What we capture | Notes for New-Order-fluence |
|---|---|---|
| 1 · Semantic Pulse | 2-3 distilled emotions / ideas inside the word. | Unchanged. |
| 2 · AI/Tech Angle | Quick link to an AI concept. | Unchanged. |
| 3 · Album Anchor | Exact sleeve we’re riffing on (e.g., Substance ’87, Republic, Power, Corruption & Lies). | Drives palette & overall mood. |
| 4 · Color Palette | Pull colors only from the chosen sleeve (hex or simple names). | Keeps it instantly recognizable. |
| 5 · Geometry / Motif | Key shapes, grid, photo fragment, or coded symbol. | Borrow or invert what Saville used. |
| 6 · Word Visibility | • show / • hide / • abstract (glyph, barcode, catalog number). | Decided case-by-case. |
| 7 · Landscape Composition | Aspect ratio (default 16:9 unless you say otherwise), negative-space rules, focal alignment. | Adapts square originals to widescreen. |
| 8 · Prompt Skeleton | Single line formatted for gpt-image-1; variables in {curly braces}. Example:{motif}, {palette cue}, minimalist layout inspired by New Order’s '{album}', {AI angle}, studio photography, 16:9, flat color, subtle grain, high-res | We’ll swap in real values per category. |
| 9 · QC Checklist | ✔ Palette matches sleeve✔ Clean widescreen crop✔ Saville minimalism intact✔ Emotion hits Semantic Pulse | Final gut check. |
The only thing that really stinks is that I didn’t realize that the rubric only grabbed a handful of cover images to choose from… I should have included a reasoning step that thought about the theme, and then selected a New Order cover based on semantics or context. This would have crushed the assignment. However, because I didn’t realize it, the bummer here is that there are only a few covers and a TON of repetition.
The final results get a D- [frowny face 🙁 ]
Clearly with some effort, a great image is possible (like the main cover image of Republic with the robots)… but out of the box without refinement, this missed a lot of incredible opportunity. I also should have forced it to title the albums with the category names (as I usually do).
Here are some of the better images, along with their prompts (generated by the rubric). They are still fun to skim through….
rose cluster centre with thin color-code strip footer, PCL muted floral palette, minimalist graphic design inspired by New Order’s ‘Power, Corruption & Lies’, metaphor for e-commerce megastructure and cloud AI in China, flat color, subtle texture, 1980s Saville typography style
fragmented marble cherub statue in neon pink and teal, Technique pastel palette, minimalist graphic design inspired by New Order’s ‘Technique’, metaphor for planetary logistics and retail AI rivers, flat color, subtle texture, 1980s Saville typography style
fragmented marble cherub statue in neon pink and teal, Technique pastel palette, minimalist graphic design inspired by New Order’s ‘Technique’, metaphor for boardroom KPIs and growth vectors, flat color, subtle texture, 1980s Saville typography style
brushed metallic wool texture with subtle grey ripples, Brotherhood steel-wool palette, minimalist graphic design inspired by New Order’s ‘Brotherhood’, metaphor for colored search lens spanning data, flat color, subtle texture, 1980s Saville typography style
split-screen collage of burnt-orange blaze and cobalt surf, Republic split-color palette, minimalist graphic design inspired by New Order’s ‘Republic’, metaphor for bilingual ribbon language models, flat color, subtle texture, 1980s Saville typography style
stark white plane with fine black baseline rule, Substance monochrome palette, minimalist graphic design inspired by New Order’s ‘Substance’, metaphor for walled-garden AI ecosystems and devices, flat color, subtle texture, 1980s Saville typography style
offset cyan grid on midnight-blue field, Movement cyan/blue palette, minimalist graphic design inspired by New Order’s ‘Movement’, metaphor for self-driving distributed networks, flat color, subtle texture, 1980s Saville typography style
split-screen collage of burnt-orange blaze and cobalt surf, Republic split-color palette, minimalist graphic design inspired by New Order’s ‘Republic’, metaphor for embeddings weaving semantic threads, flat color, subtle texture, 1980s Saville typography style
brushed metallic wool texture with subtle grey ripples, Brotherhood steel-wool palette, minimalist graphic design inspired by New Order’s ‘Brotherhood’, metaphor for alignment research branching like roots, flat color, subtle texture, 1980s Saville typography style
high-contrast monochrome portrait silhouette on cream backdrop, Low-Life monochrome palette, minimalist graphic design inspired by New Order’s ‘Low-Life’, metaphor for generative audio waveforms, flat color, subtle texture, 1980s Saville typography style
brushed metallic wool texture with subtle grey ripples, Brotherhood steel-wool palette, minimalist graphic design inspired by New Order’s ‘Brotherhood’, metaphor for viral short-form algorithms dancing, flat color, subtle texture, 1980s Saville typography style
stark white plane with fine black baseline rule, Substance monochrome palette, minimalist graphic design inspired by New Order’s ‘Substance’, metaphor for silicon wafer lattice and transistor grids, flat color, subtle texture, 1980s Saville typography style
high-contrast monochrome portrait silhouette on cream backdrop, Low-Life monochrome palette, minimalist graphic design inspired by New Order’s ‘Low-Life’, metaphor for personalized purchase funnels, flat color, subtle texture, 1980s Saville typography style
interlaced diagonal rainbow bars, Music Complete polychrome palette, minimalist graphic design inspired by New Order’s ‘Music Complete’, metaphor for deep search probes in knowledge seas, flat color, subtle texture, 1980s Saville typography style
offset cyan grid on midnight-blue field, Movement cyan/blue palette, minimalist graphic design inspired by New Order’s ‘Movement’, metaphor for AI tutors opening luminous books, flat color, subtle texture, 1980s Saville typography style
rose cluster centre with thin color-code strip footer, PCL muted floral palette, minimalist graphic design inspired by New Order’s ‘Power, Corruption & Lies’, metaphor for scales balancing code and conscience, flat color, subtle texture, 1980s Saville typography style
stark white plane with fine black baseline rule, Substance monochrome palette, minimalist graphic design inspired by New Order’s ‘Substance’, metaphor for open-source emoji embracing models, flat color, subtle texture, 1980s Saville typography style
split-screen collage of burnt-orange blaze and cobalt surf, Republic split-color palette, minimalist graphic design inspired by New Order’s ‘Republic’, metaphor for latent diffusion canvases unfolding, flat color, subtle texture, 1980s Saville typography style
offset cyan grid on midnight-blue field, Movement cyan/blue palette, minimalist graphic design inspired by New Order’s ‘Movement’, metaphor for open-weight pack animals ascending peaks, flat color, subtle texture, 1980s Saville typography style
fragmented marble cherub statue in neon pink and teal, Technique pastel palette, minimalist graphic design inspired by New Order’s ‘Technique’, metaphor for social graph threads interweaving, flat color, subtle texture, 1980s Saville typography style
brushed metallic wool texture with subtle grey ripples, Brotherhood steel-wool palette, minimalist graphic design inspired by New Order’s ‘Brotherhood’, metaphor for cloud lattice of azure squares, flat color, subtle texture, 1980s Saville typography style
stark white plane with fine black baseline rule, Substance monochrome palette, minimalist graphic design inspired by New Order’s ‘Substance’, metaphor for fast wind swirl transformer models, flat color, subtle texture, 1980s Saville typography style
split-screen collage of burnt-orange blaze and cobalt surf, Republic split-color palette, minimalist graphic design inspired by New Order’s ‘Republic’, metaphor for handheld neural chips pulsing, flat color, subtle texture, 1980s Saville typography style
brushed metallic wool texture with subtle grey ripples, Brotherhood steel-wool palette, minimalist graphic design inspired by New Order’s ‘Brotherhood’, metaphor for opinion columns set in serif blocks, flat color, subtle texture, 1980s Saville typography style
fragmented marble cherub statue in neon pink and teal, Technique pastel palette, minimalist graphic design inspired by New Order’s ‘Technique’, metaphor for swirling question-mark spirals, flat color, subtle texture, 1980s Saville typography style
stark white plane with fine black baseline rule, Substance monochrome palette, minimalist graphic design inspired by New Order’s ‘Substance’, metaphor for print meets pixels turning pages, flat color, subtle texture, 1980s Saville typography style
high-contrast monochrome portrait silhouette on cream backdrop, Low-Life monochrome palette, minimalist graphic design inspired by New Order’s ‘Low-Life’, metaphor for retrieval arrows looping documents, flat color, subtle texture, 1980s Saville typography style
rose cluster centre with thin color-code strip footer, PCL muted floral palette, minimalist graphic design inspired by New Order’s ‘Power, Corruption & Lies’, metaphor for microscope circuits illuminating data, flat color, subtle texture, 1980s Saville typography style
offset cyan grid on midnight-blue field, Movement cyan/blue palette, minimalist graphic design inspired by New Order’s ‘Movement’, metaphor for sovereign identity cryptographic keys, flat color, subtle texture, 1980s Saville typography style
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