• AI has a ceiling, & it is not a temporary one. Rocky's argument is that a system trained on existing work returns the average of existing work. Better models make average arrive faster. They do not make it above average.
• Using AI and designing with AI are different activities. He runs a dedicated machine for it hours a day, for admin, transcription, strategy, and structure. He will not use it to design, and he will not sell a client a logo they cannot own.
• The honest version of AI in a workflow keeps a person in it.
• Subscription design products are mostly production, not partnership.
• Set-it-and-forget-it is how you become replaceable. Without conversation, a client sees a queue instead of a partner. His longest retainer is coming up on four years, and it exists because of the relationship, not the dashboard.
• Seniority costs you the thing that got you here. Admin, content, and family crowd out personal work. His fix is small and unglamorous. doodle on the days the client work is light.

Part 2 picks up where the Creative South conversation left off, with stickers, which turns out to be the door into Rocky's other company. Slap Stickers became Slaptastic, ran a subscription model years before subscription models were everywhere, hit four hundred subscribers, never paid anybody including him, and sold in 2018. He gave half the proceeds to his mother and used the rest to clear the credit card debt the business had generated.

From there it goes to the thing most senior creatives will not say out loud, which is that the further you get in a career the harder it becomes to make anything for yourself. Rocky's answer when asked if he has found time for personal work is two words: short answer, no.

Then the AI segment, and it is the most specific one we have run on this show. Rocky uses AI for hours a day. He has a dedicated machine for it. He built a system for a client that generates on-brand decks to eighty percent before a designer finishes them. He also refuses to use it for design, will not sell an AI-generated logo, and argues that the ceiling is permanent — that a model trained on what already exists can only ever return the average of what already exists, and average is a losing position for anyone trying to raise money or win a category.

Plus rapid fire: three books, a fifteen-hundred-movie server, and the client from hell who ghosted for three months and then threatened legal action.

• 00:00 Cold Open
• 00:25 Introduction
• 00:58 Part 1 Recap and a Glimpse of Part 2
• 01:50 Slap Stickers becomes Slaptastic
• 03:32 Labor of Love, Subscription Model, and Getting Paid
• 05:06 Selling the company
• 06:10 The Challenges of Subscription Models
• 08:10 Burnout and hitting goals nobody sees
• 10:03 The harder it gets to create for YOU
• 12:22 Joe's Trading Card Project
• 16:49 The Role of AI in Design
• 17:15 AI doesn't make design worse, it makes bad design faster
• 17:41 What Rocky actually uses AI for and the Claude Machine
• 20:57— The Role of Designers in AI-Driven Workflows
• 25:44 Brand Consistency in the Age of AI
• 26:31 Using AI as a Content Creation Tool
• 31:23 Can't stand AI Designers
• 32:08 You cannot copyright AI work
• 33:52 AI Designer FAIL story
• 35:25 The Future of Craftsmanship in Design
• 36:21 The AI Film at the Cannes Film Festival
• 37:06 Verifying Podcast Guest Email
• 37:54 Rapid Fire Questions
• 44:57 Closing Notes