The covers for the week ending May 23, 2025 celebrate my great friend Mike Bernstein, who introduced me to the Beastie Boys’ album “Paul’s Boutique” many years ago. I asked GPT-o3 to create a rubric I could use for batch producing derivative newsletter covers in the spirit of the Paul’s Boutique album cover.

The original Paul's Boutique album cover
The original Paul’s Boutique album cover
This week's covers celebrate my great friend Mike Bernstein, who introduced me to the Beastie Boys' album "Paul's Boutique". I asked GPT-o3 to create a rubric I could use for batch producing derivative newsletter covers in the spirit of the Paul's Boutique album cover. The main cover is a spin-off with the Figure O1 robot peeking out from amongst the goods for sale. The awning has the Anthropic name and logo. Everything was created with DALL-E other than some color correction in Photoshop and the addition of the Figure logo and the Anthropic logo. It's still easier for me that way, for now.
The main cover image for AI News #86: Week Ending May 23, 2025

Now here we go dropping science, dropping it all over
Like bumping around the town, like when you’re driving a Range Rover
Expanding the horizons and expanding the parameters
Expanding the rhymes of sucka MC amateurs

And Naugels, Isaac Newton, and scientific EZ
Ben Franklin with the kite, gettin’ over with the key
Now rock-shockin’ the mic as many times, times the times tables
Rock well to tell dispel all of the old fables…

Mike Bernstein

Here’s the entire prompt exchange:

ME:
I’d like your help creating a formula that I can use for my artificial intelligence category images. My goal is to use a reference photo of the Beastie Boys album Paul’s Boutique and identify the most important elements that make it recognizable. From there, I would like your help writing image creation prompts that will tie my artificial intelligence category titles into the album cover image. I have about 40-50 one to two word category names that all have to do with artificial intelligence. I’m hoping to work with you to create prompts for each category name that are incorporated into the album cover. I have a text file that has some information about the category names before I share that with you. Perhaps we could work out together what we consider to be the most important elements of the cover image? Let me know if I can help in anyway.

CHAT GPT o3:
Thought for 19 seconds
Absolutely—let’s reverse-engineer what makes the Paul’s Boutique cover instantly recognizable and then turn that into a reusable “prompt recipe” we can fill in with each AI-related category title.

ElementWhy it mattersWhat we’ll reference in prompts
Street-corner composition (building sits on a triangular intersection, camera aimed slightly upward)Gives the scene its lived-in NYC character and dramatic perspective“Lower-East-Side street corner; camera angled up toward a brick tenement”
Brick tenement façade with fire-escapesSets era and neighborhood“weathered red-brick tenement, external fire-escapes”
Two stacked shop signsPaul’s Boutique hanging blade sign (retro script for “Paul’s”, block letters for “BOUTIQUE”)• LEE’S SPORTSWEAR painted board above awningThe most iconic, readable detailWe’ll swap “Paul’s” (or “Lee’s”) with your CATEGORY name while keeping the retro typography cue
Canvas awning & sidewalk racks overflowing with thrift-shop clothes, hats, bric-a-bracConveys “boutique” vibe & visual clutter“canvas awning, racks of vintage clothes spilling onto sidewalk”
Warm late-afternoon light & 35 mm film grainGives it that moody 1989 aesthetic“warm golden hour light, subtle 35 mm grain”
Muted yet slightly saturated 80s color paletteKeeps it rooted in time period“muted but punchy late-80s color grading”

Feel free to add or veto anything, but those six ingredients are what viewers usually latch onto first.

Absolutely—let’s reverse-engineer what makes the Paul’s Boutique cover instantly recognizable and then turn that into a reusable “prompt recipe” we can fill in with each AI-related category title.


1. Key visual signatures of the original cover

ElementWhy it mattersWhat we’ll reference in prompts
Street-corner composition (building sits on a triangular intersection, camera aimed slightly upward)Gives the scene its lived-in NYC character and dramatic perspective“Lower-East-Side street corner; camera angled up toward a brick tenement”
Brick tenement façade with fire-escapesSets era and neighborhood“weathered red-brick tenement, external fire-escapes”
Two stacked shop signsPaul’s Boutique hanging blade sign (retro script for “Paul’s”, block letters for “BOUTIQUE”)• LEE’S SPORTSWEAR painted board above awningThe most iconic, readable detailWe’ll swap “Paul’s” (or “Lee’s”) with your CATEGORY name while keeping the retro typography cue
Canvas awning & sidewalk racks overflowing with thrift-shop clothes, hats, bric-a-bracConveys “boutique” vibe & visual clutter“canvas awning, racks of vintage clothes spilling onto sidewalk”
Warm late-afternoon light & 35 mm film grainGives it that moody 1989 aesthetic“warm golden hour light, subtle 35 mm grain”
Muted yet slightly saturated 80s color paletteKeeps it rooted in time period“muted but punchy late-80s color grading”

Feel free to add or veto anything, but those six ingredients are what viewers usually latch onto first.

2. Prompt-recipe template

Below is a skeleton we can reuse. Anywhere you see {CATEGORY} we’ll drop in one of your 40-50 AI themes.

Prompt draft
“Lower-East-Side street-corner photograph reminiscent of a late-80s album cover: weathered red-brick tenement with exterior fire-escapes; canvas awning shading racks of vintage clothes sprawled onto the sidewalk; above the awning, a retro hand-painted shop board reads ‘{CATEGORY} SPORTSWEAR’; a hanging blade sign in cursive script reads ‘{CATEGORY} Boutique’; warm golden-hour sunlight, slight fisheye lens distortion, subtle 35 mm film grain, muted yet punchy color palette, gritty but inviting NYC vibe.”

Why two sign treatments?
Using both the horizontal board and the hanging sign gives us two opportunities to insert short category words (and hedges against long titles—one can go on the board, one on the hanging sign). If a category is just one word, we can duplicate it (“Agents Boutique” + “Agents Sportswear”). If it’s two words (“Generative Media”), we can split them (“Generative Sportswear” / “Media Boutique”). We can tweak that logic once we see your exact list.


3. Next steps

  1. Does the element list look right?
    Anything you’d remove or add?
  2. Do you like the sign-swap strategy?
    We could instead graffiti the word on the brick, paint it on the awning, etc.
  3. Share the category text file.
    Once I have the list, I’ll spin out individual prompts automatically—each one slotting the title(s) into the recipe while watching for length or spacing issues.

Let me know your thoughts, and we’ll refine the template before mass-generating prompts!

ME:
What about another element that we add where the category is integrated into the scene itself? It could be subtle, but perhaps we go on a case by case basis and modify the storefront just enough to give a nuance of the category? So for example, if the category was autonomous people, maybe place a Tesla in front of the store. Some of the categories might be difficult like ethics or DeepSeek. Others are pretty straightforward like Apple or Amazon or Google. I’m happy to help you with this in anyway just let me know. And then when we’re ready, I can share the list of categories.

CHAT GPT o3:
Thought for 10 seconds
Love that idea— a little “Easter-egg” per category will make each image feel bespoke while keeping the overall Paul’s Boutique vibe consistent. Here’s how we can structure it:

LayerWhat it coversFixed language (shared by every prompt)Variable slot(s)
1. Core SceneMakes the image scream “Paul’s Boutique.”“Late-80s Lower-East-Side street-corner photo, weathered red-brick tenement with fire-escapes, canvas awning shading racks of vintage clothes, gritty 35 mm grain, warm golden-hour light.”
2. Category HooksText swap – storefront signage
Prop / cameo – subtle object or alteration that nods to the theme
“Retro shop board reads ‘{CATEGORY} SPORTSWEAR’; hanging blade sign reads ‘{CATEGORY} BOUTIQUE’.”{PROP_DETAIL} sentence that inserts a unique object, mural, or street cameo

Rule of thumb: one prop sentence, ≤ 25 words, placed toward the end of the prompt so the model adds it without overpowering the main scene.

Template in action (example: Autonomous Vehicles)

“Lower-East-Side street-corner photograph reminiscent of a late-80s album cover: weathered red-brick tenement with exterior fire-escapes, canvas awning shading racks of vintage clothes; above the awning, a hand-painted board reads ‘Autonomous SPORTSWEAR’; a hanging blade sign in cursive script reads ‘Autonomous Boutique’; a sleek white Tesla Model 3 is parked at the curb, its glossy surface catching the warm golden-hour light; subtle fisheye perspective, muted yet punchy color palette, fine 35 mm film grain.”

Swap the bold sentence for each category’s prop.

Next steps

  1. Thumbs-up / tweaks – Are you good with the object-per-category approach and the length of the prop sentence?
  2. Send the category list – Once I have it, I’ll draft a table: Category → Prop idea → Full prompt.
  3. Iterate – We can adjust any tricky ones (e.g., “Ethics”) until they feel right.

Ready when you are!

ME:
I like it. Here’s the category list. Can’t wait to see what you cook up. Be sure to include the entire prompt text on each line. No shortcuts or tricks. I have to take exactly what you provide and give it to the API without modification. Make sense?

GPT then gave me a text file with the prompts. I ran my Python script, and here are the images (and prompts) that are the result.

The results were pretty good. I’ll give the output a B-. Especially considering how little I did to guide it. As they say, “this is the worst it will ever be”… Also, “We’re going 120, plowin’ over mailboxes.”

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