Straight answers

How does a project start?

Send a brief through the services form, or email hello@lucasmullerstudio.com. The form asks for four things: where the work will run, when you need it, the budget band, and any reference you already like.

Those four answers are usually enough for me to tell you whether I'm the right person for it, and roughly what the work would involve.

What do you need from me before we begin?

Brand guidelines if they exist, product references or samples, and a clear statement of where the assets will run — a paid social set and a brand film are different jobs from the first decision onward.

The single most useful thing is knowing what the work has to achieve: the channel, the audience, and the decision you want a viewer to make. That's the difference between direction and decoration.

How long does a project take?

It depends on scope, but as a rough guide: [ CONFIRM: image set turnaround ] for a product or campaign image set, and [ CONFIRM: video turnaround ] for a video ad or product film.

Concept and direction come first and are the part worth not rushing. Production moves fast once the direction is agreed — that's the advantage of the workflow, and it's why the thinking gets the time instead.

How many rounds of changes are included?

[ CONFIRM: number of rounds ] rounds are included in a standard project, applied at two points: once on the concept, once on the produced assets.

Changes that alter the agreed direction rather than refine it — a different concept, a different product, a new channel — are quoted as new work rather than absorbed as a revision. I'll always say which one I think it is before doing it.

What happens if the direction isn't working?

We stop at the concept stage and say so. Every project starts with direction before production, which exists precisely so a wrong turn costs a conversation rather than a finished film. If the concept isn't right, it gets rebuilt before anything is produced.

Can you work to a fixed deadline?

Usually yes — tell me the date in the brief rather than after. The timing field on the form exists for that reason. If a date isn't realistic for the scope, you'll hear it before we start, not the week it's due.

Who owns what you deliver?

[ CONFIRM: ownership terms ] — the intended position is that you own the delivered final assets outright on full payment, and I keep the right to show the work in my portfolio unless you ask me not to.

Worth knowing: copyright in purely AI-generated images is unsettled in several jurisdictions, including the EU and the US, where protection generally depends on demonstrable human authorship. What I can transfer is every right I hold. If your legal team needs a specific warranty, raise it in the brief and we'll put it in writing before starting.

What usage rights come with the files?

Whatever you specify in the usage field of the brief — that's why it's asked up front rather than negotiated afterwards. Organic social, paid media, web, print and out-of-home are different scopes, and the one you name is the one you get.

If usage expands later — a set made for organic that starts running as paid, or a regional campaign that goes global — tell me and we'll extend it. There's no trap here; it just needs to be accurate.

Is AI-generated imagery safe to run as paid advertising?

In most cases yes, but it's your platform and your jurisdiction that decide, not me. Meta, TikTok and Google all currently require AI-generated advertising content to be disclosed in some form, and the rules change often. Regulated categories — health, finance, alcohol, children's products — carry stricter limits again.

I'll flag anything in a concept that looks likely to trip a platform policy. I can't give legal advice, and I won't pretend otherwise — final clearance sits with you or your legal team.

Do you use real people's faces?

No recognisable real person appears in the work without a signed release. Generated figures are synthetic — not built from, and not intended to resemble, a specific identifiable individual.

If a project genuinely needs a real person, that becomes a casting and release conversation before anything is produced.

Can you match an existing brand's guidelines?

Yes, and this is most of the work. Matching an established brand world — palette, type, tone, the way products are framed and lit — is a direction problem, not a generation problem. Send the guidelines and a few recent campaigns, and the output is built to sit alongside them rather than next to them.

Will anyone know it was made with AI?

That's your call to make, and I'll follow it — but I won't help conceal it where disclosure is required. UGC-style work is the clearest case: it's synthetic advertising creative, not genuine customer or creator content, and presenting it as a real customer testimonial would be a false claim regardless of how it was produced.

The full position on how AI is used, and where its limits are, is on the how I work with AI page.