Saul Plastik

Editorial & Advertising Diffusion Designer

AI for speed - hand crafted for taste.
Fast, story-driven imagery from napkin scribbles to production‑ready finals.

I'm Saul Plastik, a freelance diffusion designer specialising in editorial and advertising visuals that merge AI and hand crafted design to create compelling story driven images and video.

Editorial

Sequenced, narrative-supporting visuals that carry rhythm and factual purpose.

Advertising Fluency

Concepts that communicate with clarity, heart, and story worth remembering.

Hybrid Workflow

LLMs & Diffusion for exploration; Traditional design tools for control, polish, and nuance.

Production Ready

Clean layers, smart objects, color management, painless handoff to in-house editorial and marketing teams.

Process

From brief to final artwork: I provde a transparent, hybrid workflow balancing AI exploration with human craft.

  1. Initial Brief & Discovery

    • Client supplies goals, specs, references (tone, format, audience, deadlines).
    • I send through a quick project breakdown to ensure deliverables are clearly defined:
      • Editorial vs. advertising intent
      • Deliverables (single, series, variants)
      • Brand guardrails & constraints
      • Quick moodboard to energize direction
    Notebook and pinned reference thumbnails gathered during initial project briefing.
    Brief Materials

  2. Concept Development (LLM + Human Insight)

    • LLMs surface metaphors, narrative angles, stylistic frames.
    • Draft 2-3 conceptual directions + rough visual notes.
    • Share, refine lightly, lock direction pre-synthesis.
    Collage of sketched concept thumbnails and prompt fragments.
    Concept Frames

  3. Image Synthesis (Stable Diffusion)

    • Generate studies tuned for composition, light, mood.
    • Align style (painterly, photoreal, surreal, hybrid).
    • Refine prompt logic / model parameters.
    • Curate strongest candidates for decision.
    Grid of diffusion-generated visual variations for selection.
    Synthesis Grid

  4. Refinement & Compositing (Adobe + Krita)

    • Cleanup, masking, precise layer separation.
    • Generative fill / canvas extensions for layout agility.
    • Color grading & fidelity checks (print / digital).
    • Add typography / layout elements as required.
    Layered editing workspace showing masks and adjustment layers during refinement.
    Layer Refinement

  5. Final Delivery

    • Export production‑ready assets:
      • Layered PSD / TIFF (editorial)
      • Flattened hi‑res JPEG / PNG (ads)
      • Optional web / social variants
    • Include metadata, licensing & usage guidance.
    • Handoff via preferred method (cloud / email / DAM).
    Folder of exported asset thumbnails and delivery checklist.
    Export Set

  6. Optional Revisions & Support

    • One round of minor tweaks (color, crop, overlay) included.
    • Further revisions billed hourly or per scope.
    • Ongoing support for campaigns or serialized editorial.
    Before and after comparison showing subtle color and composition adjustments.
    Revision Pass

Capabilities

A diffusion designer combines art direction, narrative strategy, and automation‑first image synthesis to deliver brand‑faithful visuals at speed. Drawing on an MFA in Digital Media (RISD) and a PgDip in Creative Writing (Birkbeck), this practice unites rigorous visual R&D with clear, persuasive communication—equally comfortable in editorial, advertising, and experiential contexts.

Collage of concept sketches, tonal studies, and styled visual frames

Core Creative Capabilities

  • Concept development & narrative strategy:
    Translates briefs into coherent story worlds, themes, and stylistic guardrails; frames concepts with treatments, loglines, and visual metaphors aligned to brand voice & campaign objectives.
  • Visual R&D with diffusion systems:
    Explores composition, light, color, and material language via controlled promptcraft, seed mapping, and parameter sweeps; builds variant matrices that chart range without idea drift.
  • Art direction & stylistic fidelity:
    Creates reference‑informed lookbooks & style bibles; enforces consistency through controlled inputs (prompts, negatives, samplers) & curated model selections.
  • Editorial & campaign fluency:
    Designs covers, feature spreads, OOH & social variants with hierarchy, pacing, legibility; integrates copy / CTA placements without diluting visual intent.
  • Advanced compositing & finishing:
    Precise masking, plate cleanup, generative extension, relighting, nuanced grading; balances painterly and photoreal modes & preserves edge integrity at large formats.
  • Color management & output fidelity:
    Calibrated workflows, ICC soft‑proofing, optimized web/sRGB delivery; predictable color across substrates & devices.
  • Writing for clarity & persuasion:
    Briefs, rationales, proposals, and user docs; injects narrative coherence so teams execute with confidence.

Creative

Workflow graph nodes and batch generation panels representing automation pipeline

Automation‑First Pipeline Engineering

  • Modular workflows:
    Reusable, parameterized Stable Diffusion / ComfyUI graphs enabling rapid branching & controlled randomness.
  • Reproducibility & audit trails:
    Captures seeds, prompts, model hashes & metadata directly in assets; layered PSDs with smart objects & non‑destructive adjustments.
  • Batch production & coverage:
    Automated aspect adaptations, padding, generative fill; permutation tests maximize market / language / placement coverage.
  • Toolchain integration:
    Bridges Photoshop scripting, AutoHotkey & metadata utilities; aligns with Figma / Adobe CC libraries & CMS needs.
  • Performance & reliability:
    Anticipates edge cases, designs graceful degradation & recovery; automated quality checks (resolution, color space, safe areas).

Pipelines

Export panels and layered file thumbnails illustrating packaged deliverables

Deliverables & Outcomes

  • Creative strategy artifacts:
    Briefs, visual territories, style guides & reference boards that align stakeholders early, reducing churn.
  • Exploration assets:
    Variant grids, seed maps & promptbooks documenting decision paths and enabling fast pivots.
  • Production‑ready files:
    Layered PSD/PSB, vector assets, export‑ready crops for print, web & social.
  • Automation assets:
    Scripts, actions & portable node graphs empowering internal scaling.
  • Documentation & training:
    User‑focused playbooks, concise release notes, clear change rationale.
  • Quality & speed gains:
    Reduced time‑to‑first‑visual, higher variants/hour, improved brand consistency (tracked KPIs).

Outcomes

Team review session mockup with annotated frames and shared notes

Process & Collaboration

  • Discovery:
    Align on goals, constraints, brand voice, risk tolerance & success metrics; surface narrative/visual opportunity intersections.
  • R&D sprints:
    Build look tests, stress edge cases (odd aspect ratios, extreme crops), lock guardrails with stakeholders.
  • Production:
    Iterate in short cycles with milestone reviews; maintain lineage so approvals remain stable.
  • Finishing & proofing:
    Compositing, grading, typographic integration; soft‑proof, device test, run accessibility & legibility checks.
  • Handover & support:
    Package assets, automation, docs; onboard teams & remain on‑call for optimization.

Collaboration

Checklist and shield icon montage representing quality, ethics and risk controls

Quality, Ethics & Risk

  • IP diligence & licensing:
    Uses sources & models respecting creator rights and client policy; maintains provenance records.
  • Bias & representation checks:
    Reviews outputs for stereotyping; ensures inclusive, contextually appropriate depiction.
  • Accessibility & legibility:
    Validates color contrast, type sizing & layout clarity across placements.
  • Security & privacy:
    Supports controlled / on‑prem environments; minimizes sensitive prompt/reference exposure.
  • Traceability & compliance:
    Preserves reproducible pipelines & audit logs for governance needs.

Standards

Social