Why I Don't AI Generate My Blog Images
And probably never will
Welcome back to another Articles by Victoria, the place where I randomly write things I’m curious about. Over the weekend, one of my readers emailed me a question:
“Victoria, do you use AI to generate your cover images? If yes, how do you keep the style so consistent?”
This question was fascinating and it got me wondering if my cover images seem AI-generated. So I took a quick look at my Recent Posts. What do you think?
The short answer is No, and here’s why…
I guess from the title of the post, you would know that the short answer is no, none of my cover images are generated. In fact, this is me every week using Photoshop to create them.
This is probably a TMI but I literally have a folder called Lines where I draw every line you see for the grid background in some posts’ cover images like this one above. Reused it many times so I guess it was worth the effort haha.
By the time I publish this article, this would be my 242nd post, which means it is my 242nd time creating a cover image like this, which means 242 intentional moments where I chose colour, placement, style, and layout.
I have a routine now, a rhythm. And I think it’s part of why the covers feel coherent. My cover image creation process has not changed since I first hit ‘publish’ in 2020. It was such a simple question from a reader, but it opened up something deeper about why I do what I do here.
It’s the ritual and identity
When I open up Photoshop to make a cover, I’m not thinking about optimisation. I’m thinking about how the words I choose to write this week feel to me. I am thinking about the article’s tone, my mood, and what images in my head I was carrying around while writing the piece.
In full disclosure, I don’t draw everything from scratch. I often use freepik’s illustration library (not the AI-generated ones) and undraw for the illustrations.
The process after that is just another day of me moving text around, looking at layout, colors, style and the overall vibe of the cover image. I do this while asking myself one simple question over and over again: “Does this image actually capture what the article is trying to say?”
And just like the rest of the blog, I’ve kept things consistent. Same font, same general style, for 6 years now. Font is Agency FB if you’re curious by the way. I never really questioned it once since I clicked the ‘publish’ button. It was simply the way it is. A font I chose 6 years ago without much thought becomes the font I’m choosing every week when I publish a post. Needless to say, it has becomes a part of my blog’s identity.
The more serious but important reason
I know people talk about AI energy consumption and environmental impact a lot. My research into this suggests that generating AI images does consume a varying amounts of energy depending on the model, hardware, and infrastructure behind it. Some studies such as this one by Ratiftech indicate generating an AI image can require a measurable amount of electricity, roughly comparable to charging a smartphone or more
Sure, you can argue that there isn’t a definitive calculation that equates generating 1 AI image for a blog cover image to charging a smartphone, but the point remains: these systems use real energy in data centres around the world. And every time we ask a machine to generate something, there’s energy being consumed for something I could have done myself.
At least for me, I try to be thoughtful about the small ways I can help the environment. Like how I don’t use toner pads in my skincare routine because of environmental reasons. That choice, like my decision to avoid AI image generation, isn’t about “making a difference”. It’s about intention. It’s about doing small things in the real world that align with the values I believe in.
It is art, I guess
I know this might sound a little dramatic for something as simple as a blog cover image. Realistically, most people probably don’t stop to look at my cover images (unless you’re the reader who emailed me haha). They scroll past, read the headline, maybe skim the article, and move on. There was a stat from Wix that says people typically spend about around 37-52 seconds skimming a blog post. This most likely means the cover image is just a 0.1-second skim, which is honestly fine.
But to me, this is still a form of the way I want to express my blog’s identity.
When I look back at 6 years of cover images lined up together, I don’t just see visuals. I see time. I see ideas that made it out of the draft log. I see weeks where I was tired, weeks where I was excited, weeks where I was clearly overthinking every single line of text. It’s a very unglamorous kind of art, created between meetings and life and everything else, but it’s mine (and some freepik’s or undraw’s, thank you).
Actually, I laughed at myself calling these art. Yet, I’m also quietly proud of it because it represents 6 years of creating something consistently, even when no one was asking for it, even when it would have been easier to automate it with AI.
And maybe that’s where consistency really comes from. From treating even the small, forgettable parts of your work with care. When you do that long enough, patterns emerge.
It had become part of the system
We all read those self-help books on developing better habits to be consistent with something. The funny thing I realized about consistency is that it doesn’t come from over planning with a habit tracker. It’s not like I set goals on when I’m creating these cover images and how many is my target per week, etc.
James Clear talks about this in Atomic Habits. How real change doesn’t come from goals, but from systems. His famous line from the book is: You don’t rise to the level of your motivation, you fall to the level of your habits.
So creating these cover images simply become part of the system for me. I didn’t wake up one day in 2020 deciding that this would be my aesthetic and style I am going to stick to for next 6 years. I just opened Photoshop every week, used the same font, asked the same question and published another article. Over time, those tiny decisions stacked up. Not because I was disciplined, but because it became part of who I was: Someone who writes. Someone who finishes (mostly). Someone who cares about the details even when they’re only a 0.1-second skim to most.
And maybe that’s the most relatable part of all this. Consistency isn’t about doing something perfectly. It’s about making it familiar enough that you don’t have to think too hard to do it again next week.
Conclusion
So after all that yapping from me, the answer to my reader’s question is: no, I don’t use AI to generate my blog images. And if the next question is “Why?”, then TLDR:
It’s about connection, a small environmental principle and the result of repeated habits.
If someone thought my cover images were made by a machine, I’ll take that as a compliment. It means my personal touch has matured into something visually consistent, yay. And for me, that is far more meaningful than the fastest, most efficient way to do it.
Thanks for reading! I’m curious to know your own personal thoughts and experiences on this topic! Feel free to connect, send me an email (my inbox is always open) or let me know in the comments! Cheers!
