# Newsletter visuals Human Guide

## What This Is For
Analyze a newsletter draft, identify the highest-impact opportunities for visual enhancement, and generate on-brand visual assets. It gives the agent a clearer input/output frame for email marketing: what context to ask for, what decisions to make, and what usable artifact to return.

Use this as a human-readable version of the Newsletter visuals agent skill. It is meant for marketers, operators, founders, and other non-coders who want the workflow without reading agent-specific implementation instructions.

## When To Use This
- Use this when you need a repeatable process for newsletter visuals.
- Use this when the task needs judgment, examples, constraints, or a clear output format rather than a one-off prompt.
- Use this when you want to hand an AI assistant enough context to produce a usable marketing artifact.

## When Not To Use This
- Do not use this when you only need a quick factual answer.
- Do not use this when the work depends on private data you cannot share with the assistant.
- Do not use this as a replacement for legal, compliance, financial, or medical review.

## What You Need Before Starting
- The goal or business outcome you want.
- The audience, customer segment, or market context.
- Any source material the assistant should respect, such as notes, briefs, examples, URLs, or brand guidance.
- Constraints such as tone, length, channel, deadline, region, or approval requirements.
- A clear definition of what a good final answer should look like.

## Step-By-Step Workflow
1. State the job clearly: "Use the Newsletter visuals guide to help me with..."
2. Add context: audience, goal, offer, channel, source material, and constraints.
3. Ask the assistant to identify missing inputs before producing the final output.
4. Have the assistant follow the skill-specific guidance below.
5. Review the result against the final checklist and ask for revisions where needed.

## Skill-Specific Guidance
- Enhancing a newsletter draft with visual assets
- A draft contains `[screenshot]` placeholders that need strategic evaluation
- The user asks to "add visuals", "create images", or "make this more visual"
- A newsletter draft is text-heavy and could benefit from visual breaks
- **If none exists**: Inform the user and offer to invoke `creator-stack:design-system` to create one. Do not generate visuals without a design system — the results will be inconsistent and off-brand.
- **If one exists**: Verify its Application Guidelines cover newsletter/website assets. If they don't, note this to the user and proceed with the closest available style guidance.
- **Existing visuals** — Does it already have a `[screenshot]` placeholder, code block, table, or other visual element? Note what it covers and whether it's sufficient.
- **Complexity** — Is the concept hard to explain in text alone? (process flows, architectures, comparisons, data)
- **Engagement risk** — Is this a point where readers are likely to disengage? (long text-only stretches, dense technical explanations)
- **Persuasion opportunity** — Could a visual make a claim more believable? (cost data, performance comparisons, before/after scenarios)
- Only visuals scoring 10+ make the shortlist
- Maximum 5 visuals per newsletter issue (fewer is often better)

## Decision Points And Nuance
The original skill emphasizes: When to Use, Prerequisites, Content Type Resolution, Workflow, Step 1: Audit the Draft, Step 2: Score and Rank Opportunities, Step 3: Select Visual Types, Step 4: Present the Visual Brief, Step 5: Generate Visual Assets, Step 6: Write Captions and Alt Text.

Use these questions to steer the work:
- What is the intended audience or buyer?
- What source material must be preserved?
- What should the assistant optimize for: clarity, persuasion, accuracy, speed, creativity, or conversion?
- What examples represent the desired quality bar?
- What should the assistant avoid?

## Common Mistakes
- Analyze a newsletter draft, identify the highest-impact opportunities for visual enhancement, and generate on-brand visual assets. Every visual must **clarify, persuade, or engage** — never decorate.
- A design system must exist before generating any visuals — without one, generated images won't have consistent colors, typography, or style. Check `~/.claude/.context/design-systems/` for available design systems.
- **If none exists**: Inform the user and offer to invoke `creator-stack:design-system` to create one. Do not generate visuals without a design system — the results will be inconsistent and off-brand.
- **If one exists**: Verify its Application Guidelines cover newsletter/website assets. If they don't, note this to the user and proceed with the closest available style guidance.
- Never add a visual within 150 words of another (visual fatigue)
- Visuals scoring below 8 are never included
- Never use illustrations when a diagram would be more informative. Illustrations are for engagement; diagrams are for clarity. When in doubt, choose the one that teaches.
- Do NOT generate prompts or images until the user approves the brief.

## Copy-And-Paste Prompt
```text
Use the Newsletter visuals human guide.

My goal:
[Describe the business outcome]

Audience:
[Describe who this is for]

Context and source material:
[Paste notes, examples, links, or existing copy]

Constraints:
[Tone, length, channel, timeline, must-include items, must-avoid items]

Before producing the final output, ask me for any missing information that would materially improve the result.
```

## Final Checklist
- [ ] The output matches the original goal.
- [ ] The audience and context are reflected in the answer.
- [ ] Important constraints and source material were preserved.
- [ ] The assistant made the relevant decisions explicit.
- [ ] The final artifact is ready to use, review, or hand to the next person.

## Source
This guide was generated from the kenneth-liao/ai-launchpad-marketplace skill entry for `newsletter-visuals`.

## Source Skill Notes
These notes preserve the nuance from the original skill. Use them as supporting reference when the workflow above feels too generic.

# Newsletter Visual Assets

Analyze a newsletter draft, identify the highest-impact opportunities for visual enhancement, and generate on-brand visual assets. Every visual must **clarify, persuade, or engage** — never decorate.

**Core Principle**: Visuals earn their place through measurable impact on clarity, engagement, or persuasion. A newsletter with zero visuals is better than one with decorative filler.

## When to Use

Use this skill when:
- Enhancing a newsletter draft with visual assets
- A draft contains `[screenshot]` placeholders that need strategic evaluation
- The user asks to "add visuals", "create images", or "make this more visual"
- A newsletter draft is text-heavy and could benefit from visual breaks

## Prerequisites

A design system must exist before generating any visuals — without one, generated images won't have consistent colors, typography, or style. Check `~/.claude/.context/design-systems/` for available design systems.

- **If none exists**: Inform the user and offer to invoke `creator-stack:design-system` to create one. Do not generate visuals without a design system — the results will be inconsistent and off-brand.
- **If one exists**: Verify its Application Guidelines cover newsletter/website assets. If they don't, note this to the user and proceed with the closest available style guidance.

## Content Type Resolution

| Content Type | Reference File | Key Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Substack newsletter | `references/substack-constraints.md` | Aspect ratios, email rendering, resolution |

Read the relevant reference file before generating any assets — it contains platform-specific constraints (aspect ratios, resolution, email rendering limits) that affect every prompt.

## Workflow

### Step 1: Audit the Draft

Read the full draft and catalog every section. For each section, evaluate:

1. **Existing visuals** — Does it already have a `[screenshot]` placeholder, code block, table, or other visual element? Note what it covers and whether it's sufficient.
2. **Complexity** — Is the concept hard to explain in text alone? (process flows, architectures, comparisons, data)
3. **Engagement risk** — Is this a point where readers are likely to disengage? (long text-only stretches, dense technical explanations)
4. **Persuasion opportunity** — Could a visual make a claim more believable? (cost data, performance comparisons, before/after scenarios)

**Existing `[screenshot]` placeholders**: These represent real UI captures the author will provide. Treat them as existing visuals. Only recommend replacing one if the concept would be better served by a diagram or illustration — and explicitly flag this to the user with justification.

### Step 2: Score and Rank Opportunities

For each potential visual opportunity, score on three dimensions (1-5 each):

| Dimension | 1 (Low) | 5 (High) |
|-----------|---------|----------|
| **Clarity lift** | Text explains it fine | Text alone is confusing or requires re-reading |
| **Engagement lift** | Section is already engaging | Long text-only stretch, reader likely to skim past |
| **Uniqueness** | Generic/decorative visual | Visual reveals structure or data text can't convey |

**Total score = Clarity + Engagement + Uniqueness** (max 15)

**Hard rules:**
- Only visuals scoring 10+ make the shortlist
- Maximum 5 visuals per newsletter issue (fewer is often better)
- At least one visual in the first half of the newsletter
- Never add a visual within 150 words of another (visual fatigue)
- Visuals scoring below 8 are never included

### Step 3: Select Visual Types

Choose the type based on what the visual needs to accomplish:

| Visual Type | Use When | Examples |
|-------------|----------|---------|
| **Conceptual diagram** | Explaining a process, architecture, or flow | Flowcharts, swimlane diagrams, network diagrams |
| **Comparison visual** | Showing differences between two or more things | Side-by-side layouts, before/after |
| **Data visualization** | Making numbers or ratios tangible | Bar charts, token cost comparisons |
| **Custom illustration** | Engaging the reader emotionally or setting context | Hero images, conceptual metaphors |
| **Annotated screenshot** | Adding context to an existing UI capture | Callout boxes, arrows, numbered annotations |

Never use illustrations when a diagram would be more informative. Illustrations are for engagement; diagrams are for clarity. When in doubt, choose the one that teaches.

### Step 4: Present the Visual Brief

Before generating anything, present the brief to the user for approval:

For each recommended visual: