Home Made Posters

Dearest Rachel –

For all that they were (to a certain extent: we met there, we were young there, and while it may have been challenging at times, it’s hard to deny how much those first two obviate the third item) arguably the best days of our lives, I don’t think I talk all that much about college days in these letters. It’s probably because they’ve been so long ago that the specific details escape me; the best I can do are vague memories or certain generalizations about that time in anyone’s life. And yet, here I am with the second straight reference to those days; yesterday being about the former situation, and today being, obliquely, about the latter.

I say ‘obliquely’ because today’s thoughts were brought on by something that wasn’t remotely available to us back then; artificial intelligence-generated artwork. I’ve been working on this thing and that lately (one of which I’ll have to go into in greater detail later on, as it involves assembling four separate elements into a single whole, and I’m not sure how well it will actually work. Until and unless it does, I don’t want to jinx it by telling you about it in particular), and in the process, got to thinking about how I would have killed to have had this technology back in the day. Not literally, of course, but that’s a separate subject.

The thing is – and I don’t know if it’s the case anymore in college dorm rooms – it used to be customary to have posters covering the walls in order to give one’s room one’s own identity. Most people would have movie posters or rock stars on their walls, which could be found at the Spencer Gifts or similar such place at the local mall. It occurs to me that, with the general demise of the shopping mall, this might not be so common, leading me to wonder how kids these days (gaw, I hate using that expression; it makes me sound so old) customize their rooms.

You might remember how my room had a few touches that were unique to me, as they were handmade items. For the year I was planning to travel to Asia, I’d made posters of some of the places we were scheduled to visit. I was particularly proud of the one with a red curtain covering half the page vertically, with a crescent moon and five stars in its penumbra at the top of the curtain, pointing toward the base of the poster, and a lion’s (or rather, a merlion’s paw) reaching out from behind it as if to begin to push it aside – all of which was meant to represent how I was planning to visit the nation-state of Singapore. For the most part, though, the posters and banners that I decorated my half of the room (as, unlike you, I never had the dorm to myself) were just abstract stuff (since that was the extent of my artistic ability) that I thought complemented various quotes and saying that I gathered along the way – no unlike that collection of buttons that adorned that one jacket of mine.

What does this have to do with AI art? Well, as I said, I wasn’t – and still am not – particularly gifted when it comes to artistic draftsmanship. I have ideas in my head from time to time, but drawing things on paper – or even putting them into digital form, which is somewhat easier, but wasn’t available to me back then – has always been beyond my capabilities and patience. But these days…

Yeah, it’s just that easy; the only challenge these days is getting them printed and hung on one’s wall, especially if you’re wanting a typical 18″x24″ or 24″x36″ size poster. The things I could have done with this.

Just as an example, there’s this guy at the gym who often wears a T-shirt reading “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot,” which is the military alphabet term for, uh…

Now, while I’m not a whiskey drinker – or a drinker at all, by and large – as you know better than most, I couldn’t help thinking of what some distillery could do with that concept. As it so happened, when I mentioned it to Daniel, he actually looked it up, and there are apparently several brewing companies that offer a whiskey by this name. One of them is even in your Aunt Ellie’s old home, in Toledo. However, since it’s a commonly-used military acronym, it apparently can’t be trademarked, and as such, it will never be able to be used as some nationally-famous brand. Still, I thought I’d see what I could do with the concept, asking the computer to draw a bottle and a glass of the stuff while chaos erupts outside.

I should mention that this didn’t even involve using some specific LoRA to draw the bottle, the glass or the riot; just a vague description of it all, and the specifics for the “brand name” on the bottle. Of course, these were the best out of some four hundred and fifty attempts – that’s what happens when you just let the computer run and generate this picture and that – and there were some hiccups along the way, which is kind of appropriate for what basically amounts to a mock liquor ad. Too often, the bottle would still have its seal on, which didn’t make sense when a glass of the stuff had been poured on the table. And for all its ability to ‘understand’ words, the system isn’t perfect; too often, one or another would be misspelled or even absent. Granted, when the last word reads “Foxtriot,” that almost seems appropriate, and “Foxtroit” suggests “Detroit” to me which, at the risk of insulting what used to be a fine city once upon a time, isn’t far wrong either, having been a joke for the better (or rather, worse) part of our lifetimes. Still, the point is to have the brand spelled correctly, and there were more than enough to allow me to reject those misspellings outright.

Finally, I came up with a line or two of ad copy to go with the scene, so it isn’t entirely done by artificial intelligence…

I can’t speak for you, but having created this myself (well, with a lot of help from Flux-Dev and ComfyUI, but come on), I would have been pleased to have this hanging in my room. Granted, I don’t know what an R.A. on a dry campus like ours would say about it, but hopefully he would at least get the joke.

I can’t say that it’s suitable as a T-shirt design, though, so if I want to get one done this week (like I’ve resolved to do at least once every week), I’ll have to try and get that other project together that I referenced earlier. To that end, I’ll have to ask you to keep an eye on me, and wish me luck, honey. I’m going to need it.