DALL-E is a powerful example of AI that’s capable of creating images, bounded only by your imagination and ability to translate it into text prompts. To help unleash your inner artist, we’ve put together a list of ten illustration styles to consider to prompt DALL-E.
Realism
Realism refers to a movement that began in 19th century France where artists moved away from the traditional elevated style of artwork to be more realistic. This refers both to the subject matter—where mundane scenes from daily life were replaced by more noteworthy moments—and the style itself, which replaced the glorification of the Romantic era with more accurate depictions. If you want this type of realism, you might try “naturalism” as a prompt.
Today, realism often refers to hyperrealism or photorealism, where an illustration is so incredibly realistic that it is almost impossible for the untrained eye to distinguish it from a photograph. Why bother using “photorealism” as a prompt instead of just “photograph”? Well, because it’s almost impossible to distinguish, which means some slight differences from an actual photograph remain.
Minimalism
On the opposite end of the spectrum from hyperrealism lies minimalism. Minimalism attempts to portray a subject with a sparing amount of detail, using only enough lines and shapes to depict the essence of what is being shown. A minimalist illustration uses simple shapes to portray the subject while still ensuring it is identifiable.
One of the most popular styles of minimalism is Line Art, which uses line drawings to define the shape of the main subject of the illustration without necessarily filling in much by way of details within the shape. Line art uses clean lines to define the key figures in the illustration, and white space within the lines to ensure that a viewer’s focus remains on those lines. Often done in black and white, “line art” is a prompt that generates clean, hand-drawn art.
Retro/vintage
These two styles can be easily confused as they both harken back the past, but to an illustrator (like DALL-E!) there is a subtle difference between the two. Retro illustrations typically embody a time a few decades in the past—far enough to have a distinct visual style, but not so far back so as to be unrecognizable. For example, someone who grew up in the 1980s would recognize the distinct, unmistakable style of that era. So if you’re aiming to bring viewers back to their early life (like their childhood), “retro” illustrations are what you want.
Conversely, vintage illustrations tend to go further back, such as a century ago when the world was completely different. In short, vintage illustrations are a relic from older times. Think of an old black-and-white photograph of monocled men wearing top hats boasting handlebar mustaches, and you’ll be in the right mindframe (or in Brooklyn). If you want the kind of illustrations you’d find in a hundred-year-old book, “vintage” is the prompt to use.
Lettering
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but that severely undervalues how much artistry can be found in the physical form of words. Since words are used primarily to convey information efficiently, most people opt for easy readability when it comes to writing. But if you want your words to shine, using prompts like “intricate lettering” will create illustrations of a word where the letters themselves are beautiful. Try “illuminated letters” to get those big, colorful, illustrated letters that monks might have used as the first letter of a book chapter.
The reverse is also possible: making pictures out of words. This is called “typography illustration,“ whereby words are used as the building blocks of pictures. Either many small words can be used to create an ASCII-art style of picture, or letters can be squeezed and stretched so that a few words can define the shape of a whole picture.
Geometric
Some of the first things most people learn to draw are shapes. But geometric shapes aren’t just for beginners. Geometric drawing is popular for its strong angles and recognizable shapes. This helps create designs that have a natural and welcoming feel, often serving as an instantly approachable representation of an object (rather than a more detailed illustration). Geometric illustrations can create pictures that are iconic; appropriately, most icons and emojis use geometric illustration.
Many artists also use geometric shapes to create “geometric abstract” art, where an arrangement of geometric shapes covers part or all of a canvas. Geometric abstract work often uses bold primary colors as well, further highlighting the basic nature of the shapes.
Vector
Vector artwork is made up of vectors, which are one-dimensional arrays such as a point and a line. Vector graphics also use curves, but those curves are defined by a point of origin and a mathematical formula. The biggest advantage of vector illustration is that because every line and curve is mathematically defined, they can be calculated on the fly when an image is resized. Consequently, vector images have become very popular with designers who may have to resize an image post-creation to fit a particular format.
Of course, that’s less relevant when DALL-E is illustrating for you. But the fact that the illustration is composed entirely of vectors tends to give these images a simple and intentional look, as every curve and line is precisely defined. There are vector illustrations that can become complex, but it is most common that a vector illustration style returns clean, simple pictures with high definition.
Flat art
Flat art combines some of the advantages of minimalism, geometric art, and vector illustrations to create a generic look. While the look is generic, the flat art style is easily recognizable. As flat art uses 2-dimensional visuals and often omits details, the resulting images function as a blank slate on which people project their own ideas. Flat art faces are generally non-existent, with occasional mouths and rarely noses or eyes. The general shape of face might be created, but most details of the face are meant for the viewer to mentally fill in.
For this reason, flat art has become very popular with a variety of brands and publications, from tech websites to the New Yorker. Many posted signs and safety instructions also use the flat illustration style to suggest easily identifiable and colorful humans, without actually filling in any details of that human. If you want generic people for a corporate manual, “flat art” is the go-to style.
3D illustration
At the complete opposite end of the spectrum from flat illustration is 3D illustration, where the image creates the specific illusion of a 3D object. Three-dimensional objects are inherently not flat, so even though the illustration itself may be two-dimensional, a 3D illustration provides the viewer with the perception of seeing a 3D object. Another difference between 3D illustration and flat illustration may be the amount of detail. Where flat art omits detail to evoke general concepts, 3D illustration often adds more detail to show the viewer a specific representation of a three-dimensional object.
The biggest drawback of 3D illustration is its difficulty to create. 3D modeling often requires downloading large and expensive programs that tax even powerful computers. Then there are the many hours spent figuring out bump and texture maps, transparency, translucency, and thousands of other concepts to create an impressive 3D illustration. Using “3D illustration” as a DALL-E prompt, of course, can eliminate these hurdles.
Surrealism
Ironically, a lot of AI art accidentally accomplishes surrealism without even trying, simply because the AI engine’s mixture of various styles and unfinished figures morph into the dream-like visuals attributed to surrealism. Surrealism can attempt to portray the deepest thoughts of the unconscious mind, which often results in strange images that may seem both familiar and peculiar.
But not all surrealism is difficult to comprehend. Some surrealist art illustrates the difficulties of the human condition through exaggeration or visual metaphor. On the one hand, this more cerebral level of art can be difficult for an AI to “understand” and recreate. But then again, much of the art created with DALL-E has a tendency to be surrealist anyway, not only in the purely visual sense, but in the nature of the juxtapositions of style and subject that users are creating.
Psychedelic
One step deeper into surrealism is “psychedelic art,“ inspired by the experiences and hallucinations that come from taking psychedelic substances. This illustration style might infuse a canvas with a swirling morass of garish rainbows, shapes and figures that bleed into each other.
Given their hallucinogenic properties, magic mushrooms are a common theme in psychedelic illustration, as are skulls and open eyes. But the rainbow of colors and twisted shapes are what truly define the genre. Shapes bleeding into each other is also a property of “fractal art,“ which is another useful prompt to feed to DALL-E to generate psychedelic art.
