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The Greatness of Nano Banana 2

AI-generated business card for Left Join Studio

When Life Gives You Bananas

Fal.ai recently released Nano Banana 2, and I'm here to tell you: this thing actually reads.

Not "reads" as in "it's entertaining." I mean the text it generates is actually readable. If you've spent any time with image generation models, you know this is borderline miraculous. Most models turn "Hello World" into "HƎLLO WØRLD" like they're having a typographic seizure.

I needed a business card mockup for an AI answering service I'm playing with. In the old days (you know, six months ago), I would have:

  1. Opened Figma
  2. Stared at a blank canvas
  3. Questioned my life choices
  4. Googled "business card dimensions"
  5. Actually designed something mediocre
  6. Spent another hour tweaking kerning

Instead, I wrote a prompt and let the banana do its thing.

The Code

import fal_client

def on_queue_update(update):
    if isinstance(update, fal_client.InProgress):
        for log in update.logs:
           print(log["message"])

result = fal_client.subscribe(
    "fal-ai/nano-banana-pro",
    arguments={
        "prompt": """Minimalist business card design, horizontal orientation,
        white background with subtle texture. Clean corporate style inspired
        by Dieter Rams and Swiss design principles.

        Left side: Bold headline text "Never Miss Another Call" in dark
        charcoal gray (#333), lightweight sans-serif font. Below that,
        three small bullet points in lighter gray: "24/7 AI-powered answering",
        "Trained on your business", "Books appointments automatically".

        Right side: Large phone number "847-686-3116" in vibrant orange (#ff8c00)
        as the focal point, bold weight. Above it in small uppercase gray text:
        "FREE DEMO". Below in small italic gray text: "Discover what you're missing".

        Bottom: Thin light gray separator line. Footer text in small caps:
        "Scott @ Left Join Studio, Inc. // scott@leftjoinstudio.com"

        Style: Professional, modern, high contrast, generous whitespace,
        no gradients or shadows, print-ready at 3.5 x 2 inches, 300 DPI.
        Typography-focused design only.

        Color palette: White background, charcoal gray text (#333),
        medium gray accents (#666), single orange accent color (#ff8c00).""",
        "num_images": 1,
        "aspect_ratio": "16:9",
        "output_format": "png",
        "resolution": "2K"
    },
    with_logs=True,
    on_queue_update=on_queue_update,
)
print(result)

That's it. The entire "design" process was writing a detailed prompt describing what I wanted. No layers, no export settings, no "wait, where did I put that font file?"

Why Nano Banana?

A few things make this model stand out:

  1. Text rendering that actually works: Look at that business card. Every word is legible. The phone number is correct. The email address doesn't have random Unicode characters sprinkled in. This shouldn't be impressive, but here we are in 2025 celebrating an AI that can spell.

  2. Following instructions: I asked for specific hex colors, specific layout, specific typography style. It delivered. No "creative interpretation" where my minimalist design suddenly has a gradient sunset and a wolf howling at the moon.

  3. Typography awareness: The model understands visual hierarchy. Headlines are bold, body text is lighter, the phone number pops because it's the call to action. It's not just placing text - it's designing with text.

  4. The API: Fal.ai's client is dead simple. Subscribe to a model, pass arguments, get results. No wrestling with base64 encoding or multipart form uploads.

The Result

The business card came out surprisingly usable. Would I send it to a print shop as-is? Maybe not. But for mockups, presentations, or "let me show you what I'm thinking" conversations, it's perfect.

The real win is that every piece of text is correct. The phone number matches what I asked for. The email is spelled right. The bullet points say exactly what I typed. For anyone who's rage-quit Midjourney after the fifteenth attempt to get "OPEN 24 HOURS" to not render as "OPƎN 24 HØURS", this is the promised land.

The Banana Bunch

Fal.ai has a whole ecosystem of these fast inference models. Nano Banana is just one flavor. They've got text-to-image, image-to-image, upscaling, background removal - the whole smoothie bar.

The pricing is also reasonable enough that you can actually experiment without selling a kidney. Which is important when you're generating 47 variations of a business card because "maybe the orange should be more... orangey."

Give Nano Banana 2 a spin. Even if you don't need AI-generated business cards (and let's be honest, who knew they needed that?), it's worth seeing how fast image generation has become.

What a time to be alive!

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