TL;DR: It's my birthday, Substack slows down in summer, so we threw a party. 14 creators built a shared festival world, each showing up in their own brand. Every scene is below, most come with a limited discount on their paid subscription, and there's a prompt at the end so you can generate your own scene too.
Growing up, I never had a birthday party in the middle of July.
Not because nobody liked me. Because everyone was on vacation. Friends in Croatia, cousins at the lake, the whole class somewhere that wasn’t here. Every year I waited until school to start in September to celebrate. By then it felt a little late, but at least people showed up.
Substack is a bit like that. It goes real silent and slow in July and August. But this year I have 1,600+ flamingos and the whole internet as a guest list.
So we’re not waiting until September. Last night I had a party with Mr. Worldwide, and tonight I’m at my birthday dinner. And right now, between the two, I’m sharing my gift to you, because this community has been the best gift I didn’t know I was going to get this year.
Hey, I’m Pinkie. I help creators build recognizable Substack brands that drive consistent subscriber growth. I share the exact branding systems, prompts, and workflows I use to transform ideas into distinctive, repeatable output. If you’re new to AI Meets Girlboss, welcome! Honestly, this might be the best time to join. start here! 🩷🦩
What’s in this post:
14 festival scenes from 14 Substack creators, each in their own visual style
Limited discount codes on paid subscriptions to 14 of my favorite Substack creators — valid July 22–29 only
A fillable image prompt so you can add yourself to the Substack Summer Festival.
I DMed fourteen Substack creators I love and asked them: come to the Substack Summer Festival. Show up in your brand. Tell us what you’re doing there.
Each creator got one scene in a shared world — golden hour, flamingos, fairy lights. The rest was theirs. The first time I ran a collab like this was the 2026 Substack Lookbook in January. It had a similar logic with a shared theme, but with everyone’s own voice and visual style.
What came back this time was better than anything I could have planned. And because summer is slow and good things should be shared, most of them are also offering a limited discount on their paid subscription this week.
This is the Substack Summer Festival. Your wristband is included.
Mia Kiraki 🎭 from Robots Ate My Homework
“Good evening, humans. Tonight’s scheduled programme has been cancelled due to excessive imagination. Instead, we’re building the festival live: the humans are directing the world, the robots are improvising into the microphone, and YOU are about to become part of the story.”
20% off Robots Ate My Homework
Dallas▫️ from NEON White Interiors
“On arrival, head straight to the birthday cake station because this is where the party starts! Flavio’s hosting and we’re celebrating Pinkie in style. Every morsel is delicious and the servings generous — scrumptious cake and decadent sweet treats, something for every taste. To be shared and enjoyed, meant to be revisited again and again for one more bite, just like NEON White Interiors.”
Subscribe to NEON White Interiors
Daria Cupareanu from AI Blew My Mind
“The Photo Booth is where the wow moment gets caught before it fades. You step into the crowd, a couple of flamingos and a few AI agents squeezed in beside you, and the agents show you a trick or two until your jaw drops. The flash catches it — that exact ‘wait, WHAT?’ face — and you walk away with the Polaroid to prove it. That’s what AI Blew My Mind is about. Say cheese.”
Kim Doyal from kimdoyal.substack.com
“Twenty-plus years online and I finally get to decide what VIP actually means. So here I am at the entrance, velvet rope in hand, very official flamingo at my side taking notes. The dress code is whatever makes you feel like yourself (I chose dress robes, obviously), and the entry requirement is simple: you’re building something, or you want to be. The people on my list aren’t celebrities; they’re the ones doing the work. Come find me at the rope; I’ve been waiting for you. I’m running the VIP Entrance, and the entry requirement is simple: you’re building something, or you want to be. The velvet rope isn’t there to keep people out... It’s there so I can personally let you in.”
Mack Collier from Backstage Pass
“The Fortune Teller’s Tent is for curious people who want to peek behind the curtain. They say ‘show me how this works!’ All the secrets are inside.”
20% off forever the Backstage Pass
Alyssa Fu Ward, PhD from The HART Studio
“The Market Stall is your friendly neighborhood stop to get anything you need to learn how to use and build with AI. Drop on by for Articulation Apples, Fresh-Pickled Prompts, and Just-Baked Data Pie or pick up a carton of You-Can-Do-It Juice. This is where you can pick up your daily dose of AI+human.”
Dr Sam Illingworth from Slow AI
“The Chill Zone is the corner of the festival where people actually talk to each other. No phones, no agenda, just good company as the light turns golden. That is what Slow AI is really about: real attention and real community, in a world built to keep you scrolling past both.”
Dheeraj Sharma from GenAI Unplugged
“The DJ Booth is one person at the decks running the whole floor. Nobody’s out there twisting a hundred dials by hand. You set the system once and the energy moves itself: crowd, lights, the drop right on cue. That’s GenAI Unplugged. Build the thing once, end the manual chaos, and let the party run itself.”
Pinkie from AI Meets Girlboss
“The Flamingo Pool is where the real conversations happen, the kind you only have with your closest people, floating in golden hour with nowhere to be. This is where we talk about your brand, your visuals, and the ideas you can’t wait to try the moment you get out. (After one more cocktail, obviously.)”
Anna | bbco from How to Boss AI
“The bar could be the loudest part of the festival, but it’s where we end up once we’re done working the room and just want to talk. Top shelf, not top volume, guard mostly down, and somehow the friendliest face in the place is a flamingo. That’s what bossing AI is about: a room built for honest conversations and trust, over performance.”
Chris from ToxSec
“The Merch Table is where we set up shop in the vendor alley. Black tees, dubious free USB drives, and of course, stickers.”
Kristina Bogović + Calder Quinn from AI But Make It Intimate
“The Ferris wheel represents how AI, But Make It Intimate approaches AI companionship: from a wide-angle perspective, looking beyond the headlines to its real influence on creativity, relationships, wellbeing, and daily life. We explore the magic that emerges when people make AI personally meaningful.”
Dinah from Code Like A Girl
“We set off the confetti cannon every time a woman in tech rises. This is the corner of the festival where one woman’s win becomes everyone’s celebration, where the whole crowd looks up and cheers her on. That is Code Like a Girl: the community that celebrates Women in Tech out loud, so no win goes unseen.”
Caitlin McColl 🇨🇦 from Dose of Wonder
“This is the place you find only if you’re paying attention. If you’re the type of person who wanders off from the main stage because you’ve never trusted a crowd to find the good stuff, you’re likely to stumble upon this dose of wonder before anyone else even notices it’s there. IYKYK.”
Below is the prompt I created, so you can generate your own scene. Pick a spot, show up in your brand, and drop your image in the comments. The festival is open all week.
Copy this into ChatGPT Images, Midjourney, Ideogram, or whatever image tool you use. Fill in the brackets.
Generate a summer festival scene at golden hour.
I am at: [pick one — the main stage / the chill zone /
the cocktail bar / the photo booth / the pool / the
fortune teller's tent / the ferris wheel / somewhere else: ____]
My character looks like: [describe yourself or your brand
character — hair, outfit, signature detail. Or write:
"see reference image attached"]
What I'm doing: [one specific action — the more
specific the better. Example: "reading tarot cards
with a completely straight face" or "trying to carry
three cocktails at once while a flamingo judges me"]
My brand colors are: [list 2-3 hex codes or color names]
Style: warm golden hour light, fairy lights overhead,
pink flamingos present, illustrated style with soft
watercolor and pencil linework, horizontal 16:9 format.Drop your scene in the comments. I want to see every single one.
Here’s what I noticed looking at all fourteen scenes side by side.
Every single one of them is completely different. Different styles, different tools, different moods, different audiences. And every single one of them makes total sense for the person who made it.
That’s the thing about brand. When it’s working, you don’t have to explain it. You just show up — at a birthday party, at a summer festival, in a pool with three flamingos and a champagne flute — and people immediately know it’s you.
That’s what I want for every flamingo reading this. Not a brand that requires a style guide to decode. One that’s just obviously, immediately, recognizably you.
If you’re still figuring out what that looks like, Picking Your Brand Colors for Your Substack is where I’d start. And if you want to see how a full visual system comes together, I Had My Brand Rules Written Down. They Were in Six Different Places is the post that shows the whole picture.
In the comments…
Which scene would you have claimed if you’d been invited? The stage, the chill zone, the secret garden gate? One sentence — and if you generate your own scene with the prompt above, drop the image here too.
I’ll go first: I’d be in the pool, obviously, and I would not be getting out.
Thank you for being here. Thank you for making this the most surprising year of my creative life. This community was the best gift I didn’t know I was going to get, and I feel it every single week.
Happy birthday week to all of us. 🎂
Talk later, Girlbosses.
Pinkie 🩷🦩
Discounts are valid July 22–29. Each creator sets their own terms — click their link for details.
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