on Thursday June 19, 2025
AI-Augmented Design: Making the Invisible Visible for Climate Solutions
Written in Collaboration with Orange Bird’s Design Team
In the cleantech and circular economy space, many of the innovations we support as marketers are invisible. Microbes that turn COâ‚‚ into renewable fuel. Black powders that enable next-gen batteries. ESG indices for superyachts.
These are all real examples from our work. And all of them posed the same challenge: how do you visualize the invisible?
This blog post walks you through how we use AI-augmented visuals to support complex storytelling for climate tech and circular economy clients, with real project examples to illustrate how it works in practice.
This isn’t about replacing human creativity. It’s about supercharging it: especially when working with clients at the forefront of science, systems change, and climate tech innovation.
Why AI Design Matters for Scale-Ups and Established Companies
Whether you’re a scaling cleantech innovator or a more mature circular company navigating global expansion, you likely face similar communication challenges:
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You need visual consistency across platforms and markets.
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Legal and IP constraints limit what imagery you can use.
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Internal teams can’t always meet the pace of marketing demand.
This is where tools like Midjourney prove their worth. They allow us to generate custom, brand-safe visuals that solve these challenges, supporting everything from campaign rollouts and product launches to investor communications and internal enablement.
Use them to:
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Prototype web visuals and test creative directions
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Generate brand-safe imagery for highly regulated sectors
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Build scalable design assets across campaigns, regions, and platforms
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Create cohesive visuals for abstract topics like circular systems or sustainable finance
It’s especially helpful when original photography is impossible. Or when the subject is hard to capture, like hydrogen catalysts or biological processes.
AI Design in Action: Climate Tech Storytelling Projects
1. Momentum Materials
Product: Fine black powder used in next-gen batteries and fuel cells
Challenge: Only lab photos of the core product:
AI Solution: we created on-brand visuals that communicated innovation and quality without misrepresenting the product. These were used for our client’s website, LinkedIn, and pitch materials.
On-brand visuals crafted through collaboration between AI and our designer
2. SEA Index
Product: Software and certification services for superyacht owners willing to make their yachts more sustainable
Challenge: Our client needed visuals of superyachts without logos or recognizable features to protect the privacy of end customers and to comply with copyright restrictions.
AI Solution: We used Midjourney to generate high-end, neutral yacht imagery, maintaining the luxury feel while staying fully compliant.
High-end, compliant visuals created with Midjourney
3. Orange Bird Agency (Internal Projects)
Offering: Professional marketing for climate technologies, circular products and nature-restoration projects
Challenge: Visualizing broad, intangible topics like strategic climate communications or circular transitions.
AI Solution: we used Midjourney to explore visual metaphors and aesthetic directions—especially helpful in early concept stages for brand or campaign development.
Using Midjourney to explore visual metaphors and aesthetic directions
4. Electrochaea
Product: Climate technology to produce renewable methane using archaea and COâ‚‚
Challenge: How do you represent microscopic archaea in a way that’s scientifically inspired but still visually engaging?
AI + Animation: We used Kling (AI video tool) to animate the microbes and paired that with background illustrations generated in Midjourney—bringing scientific content to life on the client’s website.
Using AI to create engaging videos
What AI Brings to the Design Process
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Speed & Flexibility: Generating original visual concepts takes hours, not weeks.
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Visual Consistency: Helpful when rolling out campaign assets across channels.
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Compliance: We avoid stock image licensing issues or misused photography.
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Creativity Boost: Midjourney allows one to explore different aesthetics quickly, then refine the best ones through Photoshop, Figma, or Illustrator.
⚠️ Note: AI output is rarely final. We routinely edit images, adjust colors to match brand guidelines, and add specific elements like product features or logos. It’s always a collaboration between the designer and the technology.
Balancing AI with Ethics and Authenticity: 3 Guidelines
For companies with strong sustainability principles and clear brand identities, authenticity matters. Here’s how we make sure AI supports—not undermines—that:
AI tools only implement what a human conceives. The quality of the result depends entirely on the designer’s vision and direction.
What This Means for Cleantech Marketing & Communications
AI Bird on Orange Bird Agency’s contact page, hatched with AI and human creativity
Whether you’re launching a new platform, entering a new market, or simply trying to explain a highly technical innovation, visual clarity matters. Midjourney (and other AI-powered design tools) allows us to help our clients move faster, stay visually consistent, and tell better stories.
If your content pipeline is limited by the availability of good visuals, or if your design team needs scalable solutions for marketing campaigns, events, investor decks, and internal enablement, AI-assisted design can be a real asset.
“AI isn’t here to replace designers. It’s here to support more strategic and faster creativity, especially in sectors where systems thinking, innovation, and speed need to coexist.
Tools like Midjourney are helping us bring bold ideas to life with more clarity and creativity.
Let’s design the future, smarter, faster, and with more impact.”
— Alina, the Tauraco
Orange Bird AgencyCurious how AI-assisted design could support your team’s next campaign? Let’s talk about how we can bring your story to life.
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