When agency life meets horror cinema
Last week during our Creative Department workshop, we dove into the eerie world of horror movie posters with a twist. Using A.I. art and design tools like MidJourney, ChatGPT, and Firefly, our goal was to have fun, get creative, flex our A.I. muscles, and collaborate, all while parodying classic horror tropes through the lens of agency life.
The result? A collection of chillingly clever (and hilariously accurate) horror-inspired posters that capture the chaos, charm, and occasional creepiness of working in a creative agency. Take a look at some of the posters we created as a team… if you dare. 🩸
Behind the screams: How the posters came to life
Eric, Mila, and Rob’s team kicked things off by diving deep into inspiration, exploring dozens of vintage and modern horror posters to spark ideas for their poster, “The Hovering.”
Their first approach was to upload reference images into ChatGPT to use as a creative base, but the results were a bit unpredictable (in true horror fashion). So, they shifted gears, turning instead to text-based prompts and refining them until ChatGPT started producing visuals that matched their concept.
Once they nailed the look, the team moved their creations into Photoshop to expand and polish the images, and then into InDesign to overlay the typography and finalize the poster.
What emerged was a hauntingly good blend of A.I. experimentation and human craftsmanship—eerie, funny, and uniquely Grafik.
Meanwhile, Karla and Jason took a distinctly cinematic approach for their poster, “Night of the Living Brief.” Drawing inspiration from their favorite classic horror films, the duo set out to create a concept that captured the day-to-day hustle and occasional terror of being a designer.
They began by brainstorming the story, envisioning the chaos of agency life through the lens of a late-night creative trapped in an endless cycle of revisions. After nailing down their main character illustration, a nod to the perpetually exhausted creative, they started crafting a zombie-meets-Alfred-Hitchcock inspired composition, complete with tongue-in-cheek reviews like “Soul-sucking” and “Horrifically draining.”
Once the imagery was generated in ChatGPT, Karla and Jason moved the layout into Figma, allowing them to collaborate seamlessly in real time and fine-tune every detail together. Their final design paired a graphic yet minimal palette with gory, stylized typography, creating a poster that was both bold and eerily beautiful.
The outcome was a perfect blend of satire, storytelling, and visual craft with a hauntingly clever homage to the horror and humor of creative life.
Katie and David were instantly hooked by their chosen horror movie title, “The Pitch Witch.” From there, the creative cauldron started bubbling.
They immediately began collaborating on the visual direction, agreeing that their poster had to feature a witch hovering over a conference table, looming menacingly above a terrified audience of clients and creatives.
Using ChatGPT, they refined their prompts until they achieved the perfect vintage horror vibe with something that felt straight out of a 1970s movie theater. They even generated a tagline and comical movie credits, transforming the concept into something that truly felt like a real film: equal parts spooky and hilarious.
Jeff and Johnny’s team had a blast with their project, “Revenge of the Midnight Revision” and “Dead-Line,” proving that sometimes a lack of time can actually free the mind from overthinking.
Their biggest challenge was landing on a movie title. After sifting through a long list of ideas, they zeroed in on the concept of the looming deadline and all the agency-fueled stresses that can come with it. But their creative juices were flowing so much that they decided to divide and conquer. While Jeff jumped into ChatGPT and started generating images, Johnny’s creativity kept going and he ended up coming up with a whole secondary concept.
The duo experimented with multiple A.I. tools, even incorporating motion through Google’s Flow to blend print design with cinematic animation in a playful airport setting. This gave the project a sense of depth and variety. It was cool to see how they both approached this overarching idea of the “deadline” differently. Jeff used ChatGPT to generate more classic 50’s imagery, while Johnny went for more illustrative realism. Using A.I. to create the images was quick, easy, and pretty spot-on. However, typography proved more challenging; ChatGPT wasn’t quite ready for type design. It was really interesting to see the difference in how great image generation can be, but how lacking type/logo generation is. So they had to create their titles “the old-fashioned way,” utilizing design programs.
As the clock ticked down, their ambitious “billing block” credits didn’t make the cut, but the finished product turned out to be a creative success that perfectly captured the fun and frenzy of life on a deadline. They say “time is the enemy of perfection.” In this case, it suited the situation just fine. Great posters were created, and a good time was had by all!
The takeaway
This workshop wasn’t just about creating cool posters (though, mission accomplished). It was about exploring how A.I. can inspire collaboration and creativity in new, unexpected ways.
By treating A.I. like a creative partner, not a replacement, we discovered fresh ways to brainstorm, iterate, and push ideas further, faster. And most importantly, we had a lot of laughs along the way.
Creative exploration is in Grafik’s DNA. Whether we’re designing for clients or for ourselves, we believe experimentation fuels innovation, and sometimes, a little weirdness sparks the best ideas.
The results
Shout out to our Creatives and their awards!
Eric, Mila, Rob: Most Humorous
Karla and Jason: Best Overall Design
Katie and David: Scariest Agency Horror
Jeff and JV: Most Horrifying Design
JV: Creepiest Use of A.I.
