How I Use Custom GPTs in My Studio (And Why You Might Want To, Too)
Like many designers, I’m always looking for ways to streamline my work without compromising the quality of what I deliver. Over the past year, I’ve been experimenting with AI tools in a thoughtful, measured way. One of the most useful and delightful discoveries I’ve made? Custom GPTs.
In this post, I’ll explain what they are, how I use them in my design studio, and how small business owners—especially solo professionals and service providers—might benefit from using them too.
What Is a Custom GPT?
A “custom GPT” is a specialized version of OpenAI’s ChatGPT tool that’s trained with specific instructions, behaviors, and tasks. You can create one to follow a particular tone, workflow, or output format.
Think of it like hiring a very smart assistant who remembers your preferences and helps you get things done faster. You don’t need to know how to code—just describe what you want it to do, and ChatGPT’s tools can help set it up.
How I Got Started
My interest in custom GPTs started in the most unexpected way: a coloring page playdate.
One afternoon, I stumbled into the public GPT gallery and found a tool called “Coloring Book Hero,” which turns any prompt into a printable coloring page. I thought it might be a fun activity for my 4-year-old and his friend, but what happened surprised me—all the adults at the playdate ended up joining in. It was hilarious and kind of magical.
That experience sparked a thought: I had been meaning to launch a blog, but I was dreading the time it would take to create illustrations for each post (of course I didn’t want something generic!!!). What if I could train a GPT to generate blog images that matched the illustration style of my studio’s website? Something that looked good, felt on-brand, and didn’t take hours? Intriguing!
The result? One of the most satisfying tools I’ve created. It took about half a morning—probably the same amount of time it would’ve taken to draw a single image—but now I have a tool that saves me hours on every post.
GPTs I Use in My Studio
Here are a few of the custom GPTs I’ve built so far:
→ Content Plan Generator
A tool that helps me quickly map out content for new websites or blogs. I’ve trained this GPT on my user-centered process. I give it info about the goals we’ve set for the site and answers from a questionnaire that I give my clients, and it outputs a well-formatted outline that covers all the bases. This puts my work at a great starting point and probably cuts at least an hour out of a task that might take four to six—a big help!
→ Project Brief to Timeline Converter
A HUGE help! This one turns a written project brief into a rough phased timeline. It outputs a list of dates and milestones that I can copy and paste into an email. Super handy for proposals or scoping calls. And when a client misses a deadline or reschedules a meeting? No problem! In 30 seconds I can make a completely new project calendar.
→ Name That Color
This is a fun one! I use this to brainstorm creative names for brand colors. It’s something that adds a little delight and personality to every branding project. It will also give me a list of hex codes or Pantone numbers from a screenshot of my design file. How handy is that?!
→ Blog Illustration Generator
The tool I mentioned earlier—this one creates on-brand illustrations for my blog posts, styled in line with the visual language of my website.
Addressing the Elephant in the Room: Is This “Cutting Corners”?
I know that AI still feels a bit controversial in some circles. We’ve got to get over this. People sometimes worry that using tools like this means sacrificing creativity or originality. But here’s how I see it:
Good tools help you do your best work more efficiently.
I don’t use GPTs to write brand copy, generate logos, or design entire websites. I use them for support: to keep things moving, avoid creative bottlenecks, and free up time for the deep thinking and custom design work that my clients hire me for.
In fact, by offloading small repeatable tasks, I can bring more attention and thought to the work that really matters. This makes my services better—not more generic.
How You Might Use a GPT in Your Business
You don’t have to be a designer (or a techie) to benefit from a custom GPT. If you’re a solo attorney, consultant, coach, or content creator, here are a few ways a GPT could help:
Draft a month of social posts from a blog article or newsletter
Brainstorm headlines or webinar titles
Rewrite your bio for different platforms
Create client onboarding checklists
Summarize long articles or client notes
You can even build your own with OpenAI’s GPT builder, which is user-friendly and requires no coding knowledge.
Want to Try It Yourself?
If you’re curious about GPTs but not sure where to start, here’s what I recommend:
Use the GPT gallery in ChatGPT to explore public tools. You might find something already made for your problem or just something kind of fun.
Try building one with a small task in mind—like writing email subject lines. Think of something that seems like it takes a lot more time than it should (something an assistant could do).
Ask your designer or strategist (👋) if they’ve created any tools that might help.
Final Thoughts
Using AI thoughtfully doesn’t mean replacing your creativity or judgment. It’s about creating more space for both.
If you’re curious about using custom tools like these in your business—or want to work with a designer who embraces smart systems to make things easier—I’d love to talk. I bring this same approach to every Rapid Website sprint and custom branding project I take on.
Want to see how a little automation can lead to better, faster design? Let’s chat.
And just for fun, below is a gallery of images that I made with my blog post image generating GPT tool—can you name the song I’m referencing with the images? (Answer here)
