How Thankful Should We Be for Generative AI?

 I thought I'd like to generate a picture of Jane Austen in context of an American Thanksgiving celebration for a holiday greeting post on the social media accounts I have associated with my Totally Jane Austen brand. I opted to use Google Gemini. 

Here's how it went: 

First prompt: Can you generate an image of Jane Austen celebrating an American Thanksgiving

Here's what it delivered with this message: 

"Here is an image of Jane Austen celebrating American Thanksgiving."

Second prompt included the portrait of Jane Austen that I referenced: Let's have fewer people, no signs, and a woman who is dressed like Jane Austen is in her portrait 

Second iteration came back with this: "Here is a Thanksgiving celebration with fewer people, no signs, and a woman dressed like Jane Austen in her portrait."

I attached the Jane Austen portrait again and wrote: "Nope you didn't do it. That's almost the same picture. Try doing it with Jane Austen herself looking like this."

Gemini then delivered this with the note, "My apologies, I misunderstood the previous request. Here is an image of Jane Austen herself, looking like in her portrait, celebrating Thanksgiving with fewer people and no signs." 

My response was to again attach the portrait with this prompt:  "That's the same picture again. Delete that and just put this picture of Jane Austen in a context of a table with turkey, etc."

Gemini then offered this monstrosity with this phrase "You are absolutely right, I apologize for the repeated image. I will generate a new image for you, placing Jane Austen from the provided portrait into a Thanksgiving setting. "

I then wrote:  "She's out of proportion to the people. Just take them out and get the proportions right."

Gemini responded with "My apologies for the scale issue. Let me correct that for you. Here is Jane Austen, in proper proportion, at a Thanksgiving table by herself." and delivered this: 

I wasn't thrilled with the results for several reasons but was tired of the back-and-forth, so I said, "It'll have to do."

Gemini's response: "I understand. I apologize that the image generations were not meeting your expectations and appreciate your patience with the process.

Is there anything else I can help you generate or create today?"

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Conversation with Gemini

can you generate an image of Jane Austen celebrating an American Thanksgiving

Let's have fewer people, no signs, and a woman who is dressed like Jane Austen is in her portrait

Nope you didn't do it. That's almost the same picture. Try doing it with Jane Austen herself looking like this

That's the same picture again. Delete that and just put this picture of Jane Austen in a context of a table with turkey, etc.

She's out of proportion to the people. Just take them out and get the proportions right.

It'll have to do.

Fresh content sold here

This week on LinkedIn, someone posted a picture of a sign for a store urging customers to place holiday orders now. The poster said she would cut out some of the words. That reminded me of an old joke. How old is it? I looked it up and discovered that it was printed as early as 1890. Here's how it goes:

A man opened a fish store and put up sign, “Fresh Fish Sold Here.” A friend told him there is no need to say here. The owner took out that word, leaving “Fresh Fish Sold.” Another friend said there's no need to say “fresh”—no one expects to be sold old fish. The owner took out that word, making the new sign, “Fish Sold.” Another friend said there's no need to say “sold”—no one expects him to give it away. That left just “Fish.” But another friend said it was not necessary to say that because it could be seen and smelled. The owner took out that word and the new sign was blank.

The punchline of the original story was that the business failed due to lack of advertising. But I would suggest two key takeaways.

One is that whenever you seek to satisfy everyone, you end up satisfying no one. Those of us who have had to satisfy committees with copy know all-too-well how true that is. One wants a more playful tone, while the other insists on something that's all business. One wants simple language, while another mistakes jargon for proof of expertise. Satisfying them all renders the final copy bland and forgettable.

The other is that while cutting out unnecessary words is the essence of editing, you have to really know what you're doing. Otherwise, you are throwing out the baby with the bathwater -- or should we say fish with the saltwater in this case?

To illustrate this post, I found that life truly does imitate life and that you can purchase a sign inspired by this story on Amazon for as little as $9.99.

This blog's CTA

While it's possible to eliminate a word or two from your statements, knowing which ones to keep in order to capture the attention of your target audience is the key. That's what people who take the time to learn about your business and who buys from you have to know.  

That level of tailored insight instead of a forced one-size-fits-all mold is what I deliver for my customers and clients. It's why they find the content I produce for them continues to draw people in -- even a decade after it was produced.

The here for me is not a physical store but digital contact. Check out my site: WriteWayPro.weebly.com

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Logo updates are not always improvements

 

Banners outside the New York Historical showing off the rebranded name and logo

I know this is not new, it's just been a while since I have visited the museum formerly known as The New-York Historical Society that now has dropped the hyphen and the last word while adopting a color scheme it considers significant but that is all-too-common in the digital world. And that H just screams modern hospital and not historical to me. 

The above summarizes my point and is a more accurate TL;DR than you're likely to get from an AI overview. Now we'll get more in the context and details associated with why I consider the logo such a disaster. It's not just a question of personal taste but of what the organization and Lippincott (likely a very expensive design agency) claimed they were aiming for with this design and why it fails.

Considering colors and unnecessary hyphens

In their own words, this is what they were after with the colors and the design of the H:

Stemming from the hyphen in “New-York”, the centerpiece of the evolved identity is a bold “H” symbol that reflects the institution’s historical authority and its role in fostering dialogue between different ideas, eras, and individuals. The symbol is paired with a classical name style and historical colors. The orange in the palette is a nod to the state’s origins as a Dutch colony, while the blue references the union of the American flag.

As someone who knows that before New York was named for a place in England, it was called New Amsterdam and that orange was the color associated with the royal family and the House of Orange, I got the color reference even without the explanation. However, it's a bit of stretch to claim the blue as a reference to the American flag, which everyone always refers to as red, white, and blue -- not just blue.

Why drop the red? Obviously, it doesn't go well with orange, which is serving as the warm contrasting color in that color palette -- one you see a lot on websites that seek to convey the combination of blue calmness and dependability with the energy associated with the orange. The colors, however, are the least of their problems.

 The real problem here is the idea of both dropping the hyphen and then claiming to enshrine it in the H by making it stand out in a modern design. That's a contradiction if I ever heard one. There is no reason to memorialize the hyphen in that way. Just let it disappear just like the word "Society." Is there an S to remember that? No, and there shouldn't be. If you rebrand, there's no point in saying we're putting in this feature to remember there used to be a hyphen. That is utterly pointless. 

What the logo should do

Given that the rebrand was about shortening the name to be more inclusive, the logo should have encapsulated that with the new abbreviation of NYH for New York Historical. That would be intuitive and to-the-point. Instead, they opted to the H alone, which with its modern, clean look would be much better-suited to stand for a hospital than a place devoted to recording and exhibiting history. The triple letters would also better match the concept they claim the rebrand is about -- the triple identity of the state as a Native-American then Dutch and then British colony. All that is lost in attempting to convey the brand in a single letter. 

I'm sure many millions of dollars were shelled out for this design and that all the emperor's yes-men had to sing the praises of his new clothes. As the museum draws very small crowds, many of which do not come repeatedly the way I do, they are not likely to face the same kind of backlash retailers like Gap do when their customers really dislike a logo update or the backlash that Cracker Barrel came to experience in August 2025.

Losing the Heart of the Logo and Customers

Marketers often make the mistake of assuming that any modernization of a brand has to be an improvement. There may be some truth to that if your brand is about being innovative. But when your brand is meant to harken back to tradition and nostalgia, you may want to rethink a strategy that may be throwing out the very thing your customers value most.

So how do you know if you've made the right decision? Stock prices plunges are a pretty good indication that you have not, and even with the rate of inflation today, a drop of $94 million in a single day is a significant hit for a business.

Instead of just getting all the yes-men on your marketing and design team to agree that it looks great because it is cleaner and more modern, you need to do research ahead of time about which part of the logo is most appealing to your customers. While I can't claim to be a Cracker Barrel customers myself, my guess is that the picture part that shows the man and the barrel that really represents the "old country store" concept resonates more strongly with them than the color yellow and the name itself.

At least Cracker Barrel finally admitted its mistake. This is what it posted on X on Aug. 26, 2025:

We thank our guests for sharing your voices and love for Cracker Barrel. We said we would listen, and we have. Our new logo is going away and our “Old Timer” will remain.

At Cracker Barrel, it’s always been – and always will be – about serving up delicious food, warm welcomes, and the kind of country hospitality that feels like family. As a proud American institution, our 70,000 hardworking employees look forward to welcoming you to our table soon.