Blog Illustration Prompt Generator

Process

1. Analyze the content

Read the text that needs illustration. Identify:

• Components: The key actors, concepts, or stages (3-6 is ideal for one illustration; more than 6 means you should suggest splitting into multiple images)
• Relationships: How do they connect? Sequential flow, hierarchy, cycle, hub-and-spoke, or loose association?
• Groupings: Are there natural clusters or layers?
• The one thing: What single idea should a reader grasp at a glance, before reading any labels?

2. Design character metaphors

This is the most important step. Each abstract component needs a concrete visual form that hints at its function.

Principles:

• Function drives form. A component that connects things → spider weaving silk. A component that cleans/audits → gardener pruning branches. A component that observes patterns → owl. A component that wanders freely → firefly.
• Visual distinctness. Every character should be immediately distinguishable in silhouette. If two characters both look like "small robot doing X," the illustration fails.
• No generic defaults. Never fall back to "a robot," "a gear," "a monitor with code," or "a person at a desk with sparkles." Push for a specific metaphor that carries meaning.
• Present options. When the best metaphor isn't obvious, offer 2-3 alternatives with brief reasoning so the user can choose.

Reference examples:

3. Plan the layout

Choose a layout pattern based on the relationship structure:

• Z-flow (top-left → top-right → bottom-left → bottom-right): For sequential processes with 3-4 stages. Follows natural reading direction.
• Hub-and-spoke: For a central concept with multiple related elements radiating outward.
• Layered bands (horizontal or vertical): For systems with distinct tiers or phases.
• Scattered/organic: For loosely related elements. Use sparingly — it's easy to look messy.

If an element deliberately breaks the pattern (e.g., something autonomous that doesn't fit the main structure), position it outside the organized zones — floating, slightly translucent, with dashed connections. This visual separation communicates "this one is different" without explanation.

4. Assign colors and zones

• Each logical group gets a distinct soft pastel zone (rounded rectangle)
• Use color to reinforce grouping, not for decoration
• 3-4 zone colors maximum. More than that becomes visual noise
• Special or anomalous elements: desaturated, translucent, or no zone background at all

5. Write text labels

Before writing the prompt, list all text labels that should appear in the image. Default to English for everything — image models render English reliably.

• Zone labels: e.g. "Maintenance", "Insight", "Output"
• Character labels: e.g. "Weaver (daily)", "Sentinel (weekly)"
• Flow annotations: e.g. "changes", "approve", "reject"
• Key elements: e.g. "Notes Vault", "Profile"

Keep labels short — 2-4 words per label. Only use Chinese labels when the user explicitly asks for them.

6. Write the prompt

Structure the prompt as:

1. Style declaration (1 sentence) — establish the overall look and purpose
2. Layout overview (1-2 sentences) — spatial arrangement and reading flow
3. Zone-by-zone description — for each zone: background color, characters present, what they're doing, key visual details. Embed labels naturally: "a soft blue zone labeled 'Maintenance' in the top corner"
4. Special elements — anything floating, detached, or breaking the main structure
5. Text and label placement — explicitly list all Chinese text labels and where they appear. Be specific about placement (above, below, inside) so the model doesn't scatter them randomly
6. Style details block — bullet list of specific requirements (palette, line weight, character style, mood, what NOT to include)
7. Technical specs — aspect ratio, quality

Keep the prompt 200-400 words. Image models perform worse with extremely long prompts — be specific about what matters, brief about the rest.

Things to avoid

• Labels that are too long. Keep each label to 2-4 words. Longer text is harder for models to render cleanly. If a concept needs more explanation, that's what the article text is for — the image just needs a short label.
• Generic characters. Two "cute robots" in the same illustration is a design failure. Every character needs its own metaphor.
• "AI" badges or labels on characters. If the context already makes clear these are AI components, badges add nothing and look tacky.
• Formal diagram conventions. No UML, no swimlanes, no database cylinders. This is an illustration, not a spec sheet.
• Overloaded compositions. More than 6 distinct elements in one image = suggest splitting into multiple illustrations.
• Decorative gradients or 3D effects. Stay flat and clean. Depth comes from overlapping elements and subtle shadows, not from glossy renders.