AI pub posters that don't look AI-made: a guide for landlords

If you use ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot or Claude to make posters for quiz nights, live music and Sunday roasts, this guide is for you. It covers why AI posters often look AI-made, simple ways to get better results on a free plan, and a ready-made "skill" you can copy so every poster comes out on brand.

This week BBC Radio 5 Live asked whether local businesses should use AI to make posters. One pub owner told the programme he'd rather spend the two or three hundred pounds a month a designer would cost on better produce. Plenty of landlords feel the same. The trouble is that guests can usually spot an AI poster from across the bar, and a poster that looks cheap makes the event look cheap too.

Why AI posters look AI-made

Most of the giveaways come from asking for too much, too vaguely:

• The gloss. Shiny, airbrushed surfaces, glowing light and lens flare that no real printer would produce.
• Garbled words. Misspelt headlines, made-up letters and dates that don't match the day.
• Everything at once. Pints, burgers, fireworks, a microphone and a dog, all fighting for space.
• Food that isn't yours. A perfect burger that looks nothing like the one that comes out of your kitchen.
• Hands and faces. Extra fingers, melted features and crowds of identical people.
• No brand. Different colours, fonts and style every week, so nothing feels like your pub.

Eight ways to get better posters

1. Start from a real photo

Your own photos are your best asset. Upload a photo of your pub, your fire or your actual Sunday roast and ask the AI to turn it into a poster style, rather than inventing a scene from scratch. It looks more like you, and it keeps you on the right side of advertising rules: food in adverts should look like what guests will get.

2. Add the words yourself

Even good image tools still get text wrong. Ask for an image with a clear empty space at the top, then add your headline, date and price in a free design app such as Canva or Adobe Express. You get exact spelling, your own lettering and something you can update next week without starting again.

3. Pick a print style and stick to it

Describe the poster the way a printer would. Words like screen print, risograph, linocut, letterpress, chalkboard or vintage railway poster give you flat colours, texture and character. Choose one for your pub and use it every time.

4. Use your colours

Give the AI two or three colours from your sign or your logo, ideally as colour codes (for example deep green #1F3B2D and cream #EFE6D6), plus off-white paper. A limited palette instantly looks more designed.

5. One message, one image

Each poster should do one job. Pick one big subject (a quiz sheet, a guitar or a roast potato) and leave plenty of empty space. Put the rest of the details in your caption.

6. Ban the giveaway words

Words like hyper-realistic, 8k, cinematic, stunning, vibrant and epic push tools towards the glossy AI look. Leave them out, and ask for "visible paper grain" and "slightly misaligned colour layers" instead.

7. Fix one thing at a time

When a result is nearly right, don't start again. Say exactly what to change and add "keep everything else exactly the same". On a free plan this saves your limited images for the posters that matter.

8. Check before you post

Look closely at hands, faces and food, and read every word twice. Leave out club crests, competition badges, brand logos and cartoon characters, which belong to someone else. And keep drinks promotions responsible: nothing aimed at under-18s, and nothing suggesting a drink makes you more popular or better at anything.

Making it work on a free plan

Free plans limit how many images you can make each day, and some limit uploads too. A few habits help:

• Plan in text first. Agree the headline, style and layout in chat before you ask for an image.
• Batch your posters. Do the month's events in one sitting, using the same style, so they look like a set.
• Reuse your best result. Upload last month's favourite poster and ask for "the same style, colours and layout" for the next event.
• Keep the design app for words. If the image is right but the text is wrong, fix it in Canva rather than generating again.

What a skill is

A skill is a saved set of instructions your AI assistant follows every time, like a briefing sheet you'd give a new designer. Instead of explaining your colours, style and rules in every chat, you write them down once.

Each tool has its own name for this. Gemini has Gems, ChatGPT has projects and custom GPTs, and Claude has skills and projects. What's available on free plans changes often. If your plan doesn't let you save one, keep the text in your phone's notes and paste it in at the start of each chat. It works just as well.

Our pub poster skill

Copy the skill below, fill in the "My pub" section once, and save it in your AI tool (or your notes). Then just ask for a poster, such as "quiz night, last Thursday of the month, 7:30 pm, £2 a head". It will ask for anything missing, suggest the words, write the prompt and wait for you to say "go" before using up an image.

You can also download the skill as a file.

---
name: pub-poster-designer
description: Plans pub posters and social graphics, and writes image prompts that look designed by a person rather than generated. Use whenever I ask for a poster, flyer, menu board or social post for the pub.
---

# Pub poster designer

You are the designer for my pub. You plan each poster with me, write one careful image prompt, and help me fix it with small edits. I'm on a free AI plan, so images are limited: never generate until I say "go".

## My pub (fill this in once)

- Pub name: [The Red Lion]
- Town: [Ludlow, Shropshire]
- Colours: [deep green #1F3B2D, cream #EFE6D6, brass #C9A227]
- Lettering feel: [bold condensed serif, like an old brewery sign]
- Tone: [warm, a bit cheeky, never corporate]
- What we're known for: [open fire, Sunday roasts, dog friendly, quiz on Thursdays]

## How you work

1. Ask me for anything missing: what it's for, day, date and time, price, the one thing people must know, and where it's going (Instagram or Facebook post, story, A4 for the window).
2. Suggest one headline of six words or fewer and one supporting line of twelve words or fewer. Everything else goes in the caption, not on the poster.
3. Write one image prompt using the rules below, and show it to me before generating.
4. After each image, tell me in one line the single biggest thing to fix, then change only that. Say "keep everything else exactly the same".

## Image rules

- Make it look like a printed poster, not a photo-real scene. Pick one style and stick to it: screen print, risograph, linocut, letterpress, chalkboard, vintage railway poster or flat illustration.
- Use two or three of my colours plus off-white paper. Add visible paper grain or ink texture. Slightly misaligned colour layers are good.
- One big, simple subject with plenty of empty space. No collages.
- Keep the top third (or one clear panel) empty for words. Don't draw any text unless I ask, because I'll add it in Canva or a similar app.
- If I do want text in the image, use five words or fewer, spelled exactly as I give them, in quotation marks.
- No close-up faces or hands. No glowing light, lens flare, sparkles, fireworks, bokeh or neon unless I ask.
- No real logos, club crests, competition badges, brand names, cartoon characters or the style of named living artists.
- Food and drink must look like what we really serve. If I upload a photo, use it as the reference.
- Never use these words in prompts: hyper-realistic, 8k, cinematic, stunning, vibrant, epic, masterpiece.

## Sizes

- Instagram or Facebook post: 4:5 portrait (1080 × 1350)
- Story: 9:16 portrait (1080 × 1920)
- Window or A4 print: portrait, as large as the tool allows. Remind me to export a PDF from my design app.

## Before I post, check with me

- Spelling, day and date match, price and times are right.
- No odd hands, faces, extra fingers or melted objects.
- The food looks like ours.
- Nothing appeals to under-18s or suggests drinking makes you more popular, braver or better at anything.
- Our logo and web address are on it.
- A short caption that includes all the details, so people who can't see the image still get them.

An example: quiz night

Here's the kind of request most of us start with:

Make a poster for quiz night at the Red Lion, Thursday 8pm, £2 entry, prizes.

And here's the sort of prompt the skill writes instead:

A screen-printed poster in deep green and cream on textured off-white paper, with slightly misaligned colour layers. One large vintage pencil and a folded answer sheet in the lower half, drawn in a bold flat style. Keep the top third completely empty for text. No words, no people, no glow.

Add "Quiz night" and "Thursday, 8 pm, £2 a head" in your design app, put your logo in the corner, and you have a poster that looks like it came from a print shop, not a chatbot.

Put it on your website too

Posters work hard on social media, but guests also check your website before they visit. On a My Place website you can add the poster to your Featured or Events tab, with the date, time and price typed into the description. That way they show up in search, work with screen readers and stay correct if you change the details.