/newsletter-visuals

name: newsletter-visuals
description: "Audit a newsletter draft for visual opportunities and generate on-brand visual assets. Use when enhancing a newsletter draft with visuals, when a draft has [screenshot] placeholders, or when the user says 'add visuals', 'create images for this issue', 'make this more visual', or 'add diagrams to the newsletter'."

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: 1. **Location** — Exact section and paragraph 2. **Type** — Which visual type 3. **Purpose** — What it clarifies, persuades, or engages (one sentence) 4. **Description** — What the visual shows (the concept, not the generation prompt) 5. **Score** — The three dimension scores and total

Also include:

• Sections where you did NOT recommend visuals and why
• Any `[screenshot]` placeholders you recommend replacing (with justification)

**Do NOT generate prompts or images until the user approves the brief.**

Step 5: Generate Visual Assets

After approval, generate each visual using `creator-stack:nanobanana`.

**Design system integration**: Load the design system from `~/.claude/.context/design-systems/` and apply it to every prompt — colors, typography, illustration style, brand constraints.

**Prompt construction**:

[SUBJECT]: What the visual depicts
[COMPOSITION]: Layout, arrangement, spatial relationships
[STYLE]: From the design system — colors, typography, illustration style
[CONSTRAINTS]: What to avoid, what NO