How to create a unique visual identity - The Sublime
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How to create a unique visual identity<br>8 steps to building a visual world with Lucas Crespo
Sublime<br>Jul 11, 2026<br>∙ Paid
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Visuals have always been a big part of how we think, communicate, and build. But most AI visuals feel generic because we don’t know how to communicate the texture of our imagination, and so we tend to start at the end: “make me a cool logo,” “make me a brand identity,” “make this look premium.”<br>This guide, adapted from a Sublime Session with Lucas Crespo, designer at OpenAI and formerly Head of Design at Every, is for brands, small businesses, and creators who want a more distinct and cohesive visual identity.
In the session, Lucas used a hypothetical product called “Instead of Doomscrolling” (an antidote to mindless scrolling built around digital gardens, intentional browsing, curiosity, and wandering with purpose, h/t Mapu) to show how he turned a messy collection of inspiration into a visual world with a point of view.<br>Enjoy ;)
Note: Sublime Sessions are free for Premium+ members. Upgrade to access the full archive of past sessions--including recordings and materials--with Emmett Shine on how to teach machines your taste, Zara Zhang on code as a medium for storytelling, Carly Valancy on how to write an unignorable email, and more. This week only, you can use code INSTEADOFDOOMSCROLLING for 20% off.
Step 1: Gather references
Start wide. Lucas began by collecting references in a Sublime collection (he made it collaborative and we added some references too).
Nature images, restaurant menus, t-shirts, typography, sculptures, posters, Photoshop art, botanical illustrations, textures, layouts, and anything else that felt interesting.<br>He laid the references out on a Sublime Canvas along with some insight on the project for a spatial macro view.
Your job at this stage is to capture what you’re drawn to before you know why — the references do not need to make sense. They just needed to carry some kind of signal.
✴︎ Sublime is especially useful in this step because good reference-gathering rarely happens in one sitting. Create a Sublime collection for the project and save anything from the browser extension, the iOS app while you’re on the go, or things you discover inside Sublime. ✴︎
Step 2: Export your references
Lucas then exported the Sublime collection as a ZIP file to his computer.
This folder became the raw material to work with Claude (see step 3).
Exported collection from Sublime (also has Links and Tweets).
Step 3: Give Claude access to the reference folder
Lucas used Claude Cowork to work directly with files and folders in his computer.
Instead of pasting images one by one into a chat, he pointed Claude to the folder of references he exported from Sublime.<br>From there, Claude could look through the images, describe what was inside them, create new folders, and group references by visual direction.
Step 4: Ask Claude to analyze the material
Once you’ve exported your Sublime collection and pointed Claude to the folder on your computer, ask it to help you understand what you’ve collected.<br>This step gives you the vocabulary you’ll use later in Midjourney, Nano Banana or anywhere else you generate visuals.<br>Lucas used Monologue, a dictation tool, to ramble context into Claude.<br>Here’s the prompt he used:<br>Hey, co-work, I am developing a brand identity for instead of doomscrolling. I have attached a screenshot of the general thinking around the project and what we’re trying to achieve with it, and it’s basically a product or experience that’s supposed to be the antidote to the mindless scrolling. Think about digital gardens, intentional browsing, and curiosity over consumption.<br>I have a folder of references that I attached here that you have access to, called references, and basically, I want you to go through it. All of these images are super raw right now. I haven’t organized them yet at all. They represent vibes, textures, feelings, visual directions that are all over the place, and I really like them, I’m really drawn to them, but I can’t yet articulate why. what I need your help with right now, is specifically to help me make sense of all of this material, and help me develop some sort of visual language around it.<br>Let’s go step by step. The first thing that I want you to do is to review all of the images in this folder. for each one make a note about what it is, what each individual one is contributing, what are the vibes and moods of each one, like the color palettes, let’s just try to start categorizing things and, like, starting to make sense of what’s inside of this specific folder. Everything from texture, materials, layout, compositions, typography, colors, etc. any specific details that we might want to preserve, what we don’t, etc. Just go through all of that, and help me describe what’s in all of these images. And then, after we are done with that, we’ll jump...