When I started Just Me, I quickly realised that writing the articles was only part of the job. A blog also needs a visual identity. Not necessarily a complicated one, but something that makes the site feel consistent. For me, illustrations are an important part of that.
I could of course use stock photography. There is certainly enough of it available. But I find that stock images often look exactly like what they are: stock images. The same smiling people behind laptops, the same futuristic server rooms and the same glowing AI brains seem to appear everywhere. That is not really what I wanted for Just Me. So I started experimenting with AI-generated illustrations instead.
Finding a style instead of generating random images
The interesting part is that I don’t simply ask AI to create an image for every article. That would be easy, but it would also produce a fairly random collection of pictures. Instead, I use AI to create illustrations within a recognisable style.
Most Just Me illustrations are deliberately cartoon-like. They are fairly simple, friendly and colourful without becoming childish. They should support the article, not compete with it. Sometimes there is a person working behind a laptop. Sometimes it is a data center, a satellite, a cassette player or somebody struggling with a piece of software. The subjects can be completely different, but I try to make the illustrations feel as if they all belong to the same website. That consistency is important.
AI gradually learns what I mean by “Just Me style”
This is also where working with AI becomes interesting. Over time, I have developed a kind of shorthand. I can ask for an illustration “in Just Me style”, while also describing the subject of the article and the scene I have in mind. That doesn’t mean the AI magically understands a formal design manual. There isn’t one.
The style has developed through repetition. I generate an illustration, look at the result and adjust it. Perhaps the image is too realistic. Perhaps the person looks too young. Maybe the background is too busy or the whole thing has that slightly overproduced AI look that I try to avoid. Then I refine the instruction.
After doing that repeatedly, certain elements start returning. The drawing style, the level of detail, the way people are depicted and the overall atmosphere gradually become more consistent. In other words, I am not asking AI to invent a new visual style every time. I am using it to keep working within a visual direction that has already been established.
Sometimes the character is me
There is another small detail. In some illustrations, the person is supposed to represent me. That means I don’t want the standard AI-generated young tech worker with perfect hair sitting behind an impossibly clean laptop. I am somewhat older. I have grey hair. And my desk is probably not quite as perfectly organised either.
Once that character had appeared in a few illustrations, it became another recurring element of the visual language of Just Me. That is something I rather like. The blog is called Just Me, after all.
The AI does the drawing, but I still make the decisions
Using AI for illustrations doesn’t mean pressing a button and accepting whatever comes out. I still decide what I want the illustration to communicate. Should it be serious or slightly humorous? Should the technology itself be visible? Does the illustration need a person at all? What should be happening in the image? There are often several iterations before I use one. In that sense, AI is less of an automatic illustration machine and more of a tool that makes it possible for someone who isn’t an illustrator to develop a reasonably consistent visual identity. And that, for me, is the useful part.
Consistency matters more than perfection
I don’t think every illustration needs to be perfect. In fact, I probably prefer them not to be. Just Me isn’t meant to look like a carefully polished corporate publication. It is a personal website where I write about technology, digital autonomy, sustainability, space, music, personal knowledge management and whatever else catches my attention.
The illustrations should have the same feeling. They make the site more recognisable, add a little personality and help connect articles about very different subjects. AI simply gives me a practical way to create them.
And after generating enough of them, something interesting happens: what started as a few experiments gradually becomes a style of its own. Not because I designed an elaborate visual identity beforehand. Mostly because I kept saying: make it a little more like Just Me.