I Wanted Just the Right Party Invite. Nano Banana Pro Made It Easy

Some event invites call for a little more effort. While Partiful is fine for an early spring picnic with a group of girlfriends, something like a baby shower after a long, arduous fertility journey deserves a physical card with some storytelling.

While I'm not pregnant yet -- we have multiple normal embryos that have a 95% chance of a live birth this year. So to celebrate, I'm making a start on my summer baby shower invites.

I've had success using AI to create custom gift wrap, generate a photo hugging my younger self, design coloring pages featuring my nephews and even mock up a Valentine's Day card.

With Google's AI image generator Nano Banana Pro recently released, I decided to go with this AI tool for the task.

Getting set up

Head to Gemini's Nano Banana site (and bookmark this link for future image creations). Scroll down to the option to try Nano Banana Pro.

This is the screen you'll create in. Toggle the dropdown to Pro.

Then, click on Create Image. Before you put in your first prompt, ponder on the look, feel and style of the invitation. For example, for my baby shower invite, I wanted a minimal yet meaningful design, with room to touch on the story of their conception. 

I even asked ChatGPT (in a separate tab) to create my prompt for Nano Banana:

This is a good starting point to feed into Nano Banana. 

Here's what it generated off the bat:

What's interesting is that I bought my first baby outfit in this exact color. I'll take that as a good sign.

Before I went in to change the text, I wanted to finalize the look. For my second attempt, I did a quick Google search for inspiration and found a couple I liked. 

I uploaded the images with the prompt: "Redesign it with these two images as inspiration." 

It copied the second image's graphics and then added the name from the first one. I liked the look, but wondered if I could've just used the template from the website I sourced it from.

To push AI's capabilities, I followed up with a prompt to create the other side, where I could put our little story. First, I asked it to fill in our name and a mock date and address, and it nailed it:

Now, for the back, I wrote this prompt: "I want to be able to turn this invite over and have some text about our fertility journey. What should the design look like? Keep it minimal and complement the front."

Next, I updated this placeholder text with my own words and then asked Nano Banana to add it.

It formatted it right, but I asked it to add a line break to make it easier on the eye. I prompted it a couple of times, but it didn't add the line break, so I left it as is. 

Here are the final designs, front and back:

Finally, I asked how to get this ready for print on a double-sided flat card. The model gave me detailed instructions on how to do so, which was very helpful.

You can easily take these designs into another AI tool, such as Adobe Firefly, to make final edits. Set aside an hour or two for the creation, and you'll end up with a really thoughtful, well-designed event invite.