Recraft is a design tool wearing an image model's clothes: it thinks in flat shapes, clean edges, palettes and layout, which makes it the pick for logos, icons, brand illustrations and marketing assets. Prompt it like a design brief, not a story — declare the style first ("A flat vector illustration of…"), then the subject, then background and palette, ordered from big picture to detail. Reuse the exact same style sentence across prompts and you get a coherent asset set instead of ten unrelated images.
Open with the visual format: "A flat vector illustration of", "A minimal glyph icon of", "An isometric vector illustration of", "A photorealistic photo of". This one phrase does more steering than everything after it — decide flat, line art, isometric or photo before you write anything else.
The single thing the asset is about, with concrete attributes: shape, material, count. Use numbers instead of plurals ("three devices", not "devices") and precise nouns — "a fox head logo mark", not "an animal logo".
Tell it how complex to be. Minimal: "simple geometric shapes, two-color palette, clean lines". Richer: "layered geometric forms, gradient details, rich color palette with complementary tones". Recraft follows the complexity you specify instead of defaulting to busy.
Its own sentence: "plain white background", "subtle gradient background", "smooth taupe seamless paper". Unstated backgrounds invite clutter behind your design.
Name exact, limited colors: "burnt orange and charcoal", "sage green, sand and off-white". "Colorful" is where brand consistency goes to die — two to four named colors is the design-grade zone.
Close with layout language Recraft genuinely responds to: "centered", "generous padding", "maximum negative space", "uniform stroke weight", "crisp edges", "modern graphic design style".
Template
A [style: flat vector illustration / glyph icon / isometric illustration / photorealistic photo] of [subject with counts and attributes]. [detail level and shapes]. [background]. [named palette, composition, finish].A flat vector illustration of a fox head logo mark. Geometric shapes, clean lines, bold outlines, symmetrical composition. Plain white background. Two-color palette of burnt orange and charcoal, minimal design, crisp edges suitable for a brand mark.
The full official grammar in four sentences: style, subject, background, palette. "Suitable for a brand mark" nudges toward centered, contained shapes rather than a scene.
A minimal glyph icon of a paper airplane. Single solid shape, rounded corners, simple geometric construction. Plain light background. One color, deep navy, centered with generous padding around the shape.
"Glyph icon" plus "single solid shape" is the vocabulary for app-icon-grade simplicity. Padding language keeps the mark from touching the edges.
A flat vector icon of a shield with a checkmark. Part of a consistent icon set: two-tone palette of slate blue and soft mint, rounded corners, uniform stroke weight, subtle long shadow to the bottom right. Plain white background, centered.
The middle sentence is the style block — keep it word-for-word identical for every icon in the set and only swap the subject. This is the single highest-leverage Recraft technique.
A flat vector illustration of a small team collaborating around a desk with two laptops. Simplified characters with geometric bodies, no facial detail, layered shapes. Background of abstract arcs and floating interface cards. Balanced color palette of coral, cream and deep teal, modern graphic design style.
"Simplified characters, no facial detail" is how you get the corporate-illustration look on purpose. Counts ("two laptops") keep the scene from sprouting extra hardware.
An isometric vector illustration of a cloud server stack connected to three devices. Clean isometric angles, layered geometric forms, gradient details on the cloud. Plain pale background. Rich color palette with complementary tones of violet and lime, centered composition.
Isometric is one of the format words worth deciding up front — mixing it with "flat" or photo language produces mush. "Three devices" beats "devices" for a controlled layout.
A single-line art illustration of a coffee cup with steam curling into a heart shape. One continuous black line, no shading, minimal design. Warm off-white background with wide margins. Contemporary editorial style.
Line art lives or dies on constraint words: "one continuous line, no shading" removes the fills the model would otherwise add. Great for editorial spots and packaging accents.
A flat vector repeating pattern of abstract leaves and small dots. Flat 2D shapes, evenly spaced elements, no single focal point. Edge-to-edge composition. Three-color palette of sage green, sand and off-white, clean printable wallpaper look.
"Evenly spaced, no single focal point" is what makes it read as a pattern rather than an illustration. True seamless tiling isn't guaranteed — plan to crop a clean repeat region.
A photorealistic photo of a matte ceramic vase on a stone plinth. Dramatic spotlight from the upper left, sharp focus at f/11, warm neutral palette. Background of smooth taupe seamless paper. Ultra-minimalist composition with maximum negative space.
Recraft's own photorealism grammar for products: object, material, lighting, camera angle. The f-stop and negative-space language produce catalog-grade restraint, not a busy lifestyle scene.
A photorealistic portrait of a ceramic artist in her studio, hands dusted with clay, calm expression. 50mm lens look, shallow depth of field at f/2.8, golden hour backlighting through a dusty window. Background of soft bokeh shelves. Earthy, muted palette.
Portraits follow the same recipe with different levers: face, pose, lighting, background. Lens and aperture words ("50mm", "f/2.8") do the aesthetic work that adjectives can't.
A flat packaging design for a bar-soap box, front panel facing the camera. The panel reads "PINE + SALT" in simple bold sans-serif with a small triangular tree icon. Plain background. Two-color palette of sage green on cream, minimal geometric layout, clean edges.
Recraft V4 handles short structured text on packaging and signage well — keep it to a few words. For typography-heavy work where the text is the whole design, Ideogram V3 on Clipwave is the sharper tool.
A flat vector illustration for an app empty state: an open cardboard box with a few stars floating out. Rounded shapes, simple two-tone depth. Subtle gradient background. Soft palette of lavender and slate, centered with clear space above for a headline.
"Clear space above for a headline" reserves layout room for the UI copy you'll place later — prompting the artboard, not just the drawing, is very Recraft.
Recraft V4 is the default — the latest generation, with stronger prompt accuracy and cleaner design output; it replaces V3 for most work. Keep V3 for continuity with assets you already generated on it.
1:1 for logos, icons and patterns; 16:9 or 4:3 for hero illustrations and feature graphics; 2:3 or 3:4 for portrait-format assets. Icons and marks almost always want 1:1.
Generate 2-3 variations for exploratory work like logo concepts, then drop to 1 once the style block is locked and you're producing a set.
The way to get a coherent set — ten icons, six illustrations, a pattern that all belong together — is to write one style block and treat it as frozen: palette by name, corner treatment, stroke weight, shadow, background. Every prompt in the set is "A flat vector icon of [subject]. [frozen style block]. Plain white background, centered." Change only the subject. When one asset comes out off-style, regenerate it rather than editing the style words — a "fixed" sentence in one prompt forks your brand language.
Vector output responds to structure words, not texture or lighting words. Dial complexity explicitly with tiered vocabulary and you control how "designed" the result feels:
Recraft shoots photos with a designer's restraint, and its official grammar splits by subject. Portraits: face, pose, lighting, background — with lens and aperture ("50mm, f/2.8, golden hour backlighting, soft bokeh"). Products: object, material, lighting, camera angle — "dramatic spotlight, sharp focus at f/11, maximum negative space". Environments: scene, atmosphere, light, perspective — "layered composition, cinematic depth". Use it when your brand needs photography that sits next to its vector assets without clashing.
Default for everything new — latest generation, best prompt accuracy, follows material and layout relationships closely, and handles short in-design text (labels, signage, packaging) cleanly.
Continuity: matching assets you already produced on V3, or when you prefer its earlier rendering character for an existing brand set.
V4 for anything new — it replaces V3 for most generation tasks with better prompt understanding and design fidelity. Pick V3 only to stay consistent with a set you already built on it.
On Clipwave, Recraft outputs high-resolution images. Prompt for the flat vector style ("flat vector illustration, clean lines, crisp edges") and you get artwork with the clean scalable look that drops straight into web, social and decks; if you need true editable vectors, plan a manual trace step in your design tool.
Short, structured text — a brand name on packaging, a label, signage — works well on V4. Keep it to a few words. When typography is the design (posters, quote cards, lockups), Ideogram V3 on Clipwave is the specialist.
Freeze a style sentence — palette by name, stroke weight, corner style, shadow, background — and reuse it verbatim in every prompt, changing only the subject. Same aspect ratio for every icon. Off-style results get regenerated, not re-worded.
No — it also produces disciplined photorealistic portraits, product shots and environments using camera language (lens, aperture, lighting direction). Its edge over general photo models is design restraint: negative space, controlled palettes, composition. But if you need maximum photographic realism, a photo-first model is the better pick.