1Write your briefLunch break 1Done
2Pick your colorsLunch break 2Done
3Pick 2 typefacesLunch break 3Open
AI can make a logo in seconds, and most of what it makes looks like every other AI-made brand. Developed by a professional designer, this workbook teaches the design basics behind each choice, gives you the prompts to make options fast and checks your work against a designer’s taste checklist. You finish with a logo, your colors and type, templates for your posts, slides and emails, and a homepage in your brand.
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Made by a human designer
Stella Guan is a designer who has won more than 6 international design awards. She taught design as Adjunct Faculty of Design at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the Fashion Institute of Technology, and was a senior instructor of user experience design at General Assembly. She also founded Path Unbound, a design school for adults.
This workbook teaches you what she teaches designers: how to direct AI with a designer’s eye, so your brand looks like a professional made it.
Award-winning human designerAsk an AI tool for a logo for a coaching business and you get something clean, competent and forgettable. With no idea to commit to, it fills the gap with the average of everything it has seen, and buyers can tell at a glance.
This workbook starts each lunch break with a 5-minute design lesson on the choice you’re about to make, then gives you the prompt to make options fast. You decide which option fits your business, and say why in 1 sentence.
Gradients, glossy images, too many fonts and part of every heading in italics. Each choice looks fine on its own, and together they look like every other AI-made brand.
A 1-page brief, 1 job for each color and 2 typefaces give AI something specific to work from, so the options it makes fit your business.
The workbook ends with the signs of a homemade or AI-made design and the fix for each, plus good and bad examples side by side for color, type, layout and your website.
You don’t have to be a designer to brand your business beautifully with AI, but you do need to learn how to direct AI correctly to get the results a human designer can give you.
AI fills any gap you leave with the average of everything it has seen. A 1-page brief gives it an idea to commit to.
Every color gets a job: main, neutral, accent, background or text. Then every text pairing goes through the contrast checker.
A whole brand needs only 2 typefaces. Size and weight do the rest of the work.
A solo business logo has to read at the size of a profile picture, so you make 6 to 10 options and test each one small.
The details that make a logo look finished are small: even spacing, aligned edges and 1 weight. Then you export every version you’ll need.
Contrast, repetition, alignment and proximity are the 4 principles that keep a post clean. You build 3 templates on them.
Your slides, proposals and emails should look like they came from the same business as your posts.
You set your colors, type and button style once, and every page follows them. Your homepage gets 5 sections and 1 clear next step.
A few habits give away a design made in a hurry or taken straight from AI, such as italics in every heading. You check every piece for them.
The examples put generic AI design next to what a designer does instead, so you can see the difference before you fix your own.
Everything you type saves to your account, and your logo and template files stay in the design tool you make them in.
It holds a 5-minute design lesson and every step for all 9 lunch breaks, and saves your answers as you type.
It gives you every AI prompt in the workbook, from your creative brief to your homepage plan, each with a copy button.
It checks each text and background pairing against the 4.5 to 1 standard for body text as you type the codes.
It puts generic AI design next to a designer’s version, for color, typography, layout and your website.
It takes you through 3 social post templates, a slide template, a document template and an email header.
It lists the signs of a homemade or AI-made design, including italics in every heading, and the fix for each.
It puts your colors, typefaces, sizes, logo versions and links on 1 page.
You will have a creative brief, a checked color palette, 2 typefaces, a logo in 3 versions, templates for your posts, slides, documents and emails, a homepage in your brand and a 1-page brand sheet that keeps it all consistent.
Counts toward Plan A, our launch program, if you join within 60 days of buying.
Instant access, so the sale is final. Your workbook opens in your customer dashboard as soon as you pay.
It sits under Lunch Break Founder in your dashboard, with 1 chapter for each lunch break. Your answers save as you type, so you can stop and pick up where you left off.
Type the codes for your text and its background, and the checker gives you the contrast ratio and whether it reaches 4.5 to 1, the standard for body text. You use it in lunch break 2 and again on your homepage.
The examples at the end of the workbook put generic AI design next to what a designer does instead, for color, typography, layout and the user experience of a website.
Every prompt in the workbook has a copy button, from your creative brief to your homepage plan. You fill in the parts in brackets with your own answers.
It does 1 job: giving your business a brand you can use on every channel. If you don’t know what you’re selling yet, start with a step that comes before it.
Lunch Break Founder is a series of 3 workbooks, each sold on its own. Each one fills 1 gap on the way from idea to launch, next to the free tools, the 6 Uncommon Toolkits and Plan A.
Lunch Break Founder workbooksFind the Hidden TalentValidate Your OfferBrand with AI
The complete set · 6 toolkits + 3 workbooks
$849
for the complete set, $607 less than buying everything separately
All 3 Lunch Break Founder workbooks come free with the set. We are also throwing in a free live business mentoring session to use within 6 months of your purchase.
Plan A is our 8-week business launch program: 16 hours of live 1:1 time with a successful solo business owner to build and launch your own. Lunch Break Founder workbooks and Uncommon Toolkits share 1 credit. Join Plan A within 60 days of your first purchase, and everything you paid for either comes off the program fee, up to $849 in total.
Workbooks and toolkits count toward the same $849. This workbook plus 2 toolkits is $445, and all $445 comes off.
Buy this workbook, another workbook or any toolkit. Your 60 days start on your first purchase.
Apply to Plan A. Applying takes about 10 minutes.
Join within the 60 days. Your checkout link takes off what you paid, up to $849.
At 18, I moved from China, on a full scholarship, to the US with 3 suitcases, on my own. By my mid 20s, I was making over 6 figures at a Fortune 500 company in New York City and owned a home. I was winning in life, or so it seemed.
Deep down, I wanted to build my own dream, not someone else’s. So I self-petitioned my EB-1A green card, planned my business on my lunch breaks, and within months quit to start a profitable-from-Day-1 education tech company as a first-time solo founder. Today, I run several solo expertise businesses while traveling the world.
This Uncommon Life is how I help you start yours: build your Plan A on your lunch breaks, so you never have to ask anyone’s permission to take a vacation again.
Follow Stella
My session with Stella was exceptionally informative and truly inspiring. She offered plenty of go-to-market strategies and tactics.
Highly recommend if you’re looking for a no-bullshit, warm, and all-in mentor for your startup.
Working with Stella Guan was eye-opening for our up-skilling platform.
A business with an offer, an AI chat assistant such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, and a design tool with templates such as Canva or Figma. An AI image tool helps with a logo symbol, and you can finish without one.
No. Each lunch break opens with a 5-minute design lesson on the choice you’re about to make, so you learn why something works before you make it.
9 lunch breaks of about 30 minutes each. You can take them on back-to-back days or spread them out, because your answers save as you go.
Any AI chat assistant that takes a written prompt. Every prompt is plain text with a copy button, and you fill in the parts in brackets.
Your brief gives AI a specific idea to work from, and the taste check in lunch break 9 lists the signs of an AI-made design, such as italics in every heading, with the fix for each. The good and bad examples show what a designer would do instead.
You make them yourself in your design tool, and the workbook takes you through each one: your logo in 3 versions and 3 colorways, your post, slide, document and email templates, and your homepage. The files stay in your own tools.
A brand designer makes the choices for you. This workbook teaches you to make them yourself, with AI doing the fast part, so you can keep your brand consistent as your business grows. For a custom identity with packaging and print, hire a designer.
Yes. If you join Plan A within 60 days of buying, the $47 you paid comes off the program fee.
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