Slots before prompts
You're in the campaign studio. What you're doing this lesson: list every asset the Fieldnote fall relaunch needs — where it lives, how many versions, and the words on the image — before anyone opens an image tool. That list is the batch plan. You do not need the voice-pack lesson to start.
The amateur move with image models is opening the tool and typing "cozy coffee vibes autumn." Forty regenerations later there's a folder called final-final-v3 and nothing that fits the story format. The variable that was never pinned down: where does this asset live?
Professionals plan the batch backwards from the slots (the destinations: email header, story frame, feed square, ad banner). The relaunch needs those four slots, four sizes, four different jobs. Write them as a list of records before you generate anything. Every record answers the questions that otherwise surface as rework:
- Slot and size — the destination, named before generation starts. A tall story crop is not a wide banner with ambitions. Composition depends on the frame; the frame comes from the slot.
- Variants — how many candidates to generate per slot. You generate several and select, because selection with a checklist beats regenerate-until-pretty on both cost and sanity. More variants for the ad banner (it carries the budget) than the email header (it's decorative).
- Text on the asset — the exact words, or the explicit value "none." This field earns its keep in the next step, so clock it now: it's either precise copy — already checked against the brand voice — or a deliberate "no text."
Fieldnote's plan for this relaunch, in English: six email-header candidates with no text on the image; eight story frames carrying "Fall tier. Same beans, better math."; eight feed squares with no text; ten ad banners carrying "Skip a week anytime." That's 32 generations, costed before anyone hits generate.
Why the counts are in the plan
Because counts are what turn "make some assets" into something you can cost and defend. At your image tool's per-image rate, 32 is a number — and a number means you can walk into the budget conversation with "the relaunch creative costs this much at this batch depth" instead of a shrug. When someone wants more ad variants, the plan shows exactly what the extra depth costs. You'll write that calculation two steps from now.
The plan is also the review sheet's spine. When the batch comes back, every variant gets scored against its slot's brief — fits the frame, brand constraints met, text legible at target size, nothing weird in the corners. Same checks for every variant in the slot. A batch where everything passes review is a checklist that checks nothing; expect to reject, and keep the rejects scored so the next brief learns from them.
One thing the plan deliberately does not contain: model names. Tools churn monthly; slots, sizes, variant counts, and text-on-asset are the stable layer. Write the plan against the work, point it at whatever generator you're using this quarter.
First, though — a drill on the field people forget, and what forgetting it costs.