Past your Primer
Client
Past your primer (personal project)
Type
Packaging design, AI Photo, AI illustration, AI video
Tools
Midjourney, Chat GPT, Photoshop, Nano Banana, Veo, Illustrator
What I’m about to show you is the final outcome of a Generative AI course run by the Nuovo Istituto di Design (NID) in Perugia. I took this course to figure out how Generative AI could be harnessed to build a complete brand from scratch—from product ideation right through to creating complex assets like video adverts.
I created Past Your Primer, a fictional cosmetics brand designed for those who lived the reckless 1980s glam rocker lifestyle and want to keep reliving it today.
For this project, I focused on creating illustrations, product mockups, realistic models with the exact right aesthetic, and a promo video.
The logo
The logo takes its cues from 80s glam rock bands. I messed around with a few different colours and compositions before settling on the white version, which pops brilliantly and is highly legible on brightly coloured packaging.
Moodboarding like there's no tomorrow.
For a project like this, the visual style is absolutely crucial.
That's why I pulled together an exhaustive moodboard featuring examples of 80s bands and products. This moodboard zeroes in on the colours, poses, and compositions of the era.
The products.
I’ll be brutally honest: when I came up with the theme for this project, I completely overlooked the fact that I know absolutely nothing about cosmetics. I mean, I might have used hand cream once or twice, tops. So, designing the product packaging was not only a test of the tech, but a proper trial of my design chops. I wanted to make sure that the packaging alone instantly communicated the target audience and screamed the 80s aesthetic that inspired me.
First things first, I tested out Midjourney to generate the base models, which were then transformed into the final illustrations using Nano Banana.
Using Photoshop, I designed the product packaging, focusing particularly on tweaking the illustration colours to get them even closer to the style I had in my head. Starting from blank product shots, I asked Nano Banana to map my packaging designs onto the photos. The results were a cracking starting point, which I then polished up in Photoshop.
Nailing the style.
I had a crystal-clear idea of the style I was aiming for, but explaining that to Midjourney was a completely different kettle of fish.
With a bit of elbow grease and countless prompts, I managed to nail the right style and—crucially—get people of the right age (convincing Midjourney to generate images of older folks was quite possibly the biggest headache of the whole project).
How do I recreate the same characters?
I put Midjourney and Nano Banana through their paces by generating step-by-step scenes of the products in action. Specifically, I wanted to test Gemini’s accuracy in replicating characters originally generated by Midjourney, whilst throwing my own custom products into the mix.
What about the vinyls?
Curious to see if I could seamlessly blend the products into the Midjourney-generated scenes, I tasked Nano Banana with merging the two photos.
I gave Nano Banana a helping hand by roughly positioning the product onto the background photo, just to make sure the proportions between the objects were spot on.
Old school.
The advert has an ironic, irreverent tone, perfectly in keeping with the brand. I sketched out the main scenes in a very basic storyboard. This helped me figure out exactly how many shots I needed and the type of framing I wanted to use.
Midjourney helped me generate the two hero shots for the video, packed with all the elements I needed. Then I switched over to Nano Banana (which, at this point, I trusted more than my own family) to conjure up the remaining scenes.
The devil's music.
And here is the video I cobbled together to pitch the products. This advert takes a bit of inspiration from We’re Not Gonna Take It by the Scissor Sisters, mixed with a dash of Kickapoo by Tenacious D (both absolutely cracking tunes, by the way). I won’t spoil the twist—you can discover that for yourselves by watching the video!
At the end of the day, did the tutor actually like the project? Here’s what they said:
"A striking project, both for the incredibly high quality of the final result and for an extraordinarily structured workflow, grounded in experimentation and a conscious dialogue between different tools. What strongly shines through is the ability to maintain a robust, recognisable, and cohesive concept from start to finish, demonstrating impeccable design maturity and creative direction."
