Create Consistent Visual Assets with a Reusable Art Brief

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A reusable art brief helps several images look as if they belong to the same project. Keep the visual rules steady while changing the subject.

We’ll make three travel posters for Bellhaven, a fictional coastal town. The project uses retro print artwork.

Open the finished example

1. Write the visual rules first

PROJECT: Three travel posters for Bellhaven, a fictional coastal town.
USE: A matching poster series, with a different place on each poster.
LOOK: Mid-century screen-printed travel art; flat geometric gouache shapes;
fine paper grain; strong cropped compositions and long angular shadows.
PALETTE: Midnight indigo, burnt orange, golden ochre and warm ivory.
LAYOUT: Portrait; narrow ivory border; BELLHAVEN at top; place name at bottom.
CHANGES: Subject and subtitle only. Keep the palette and print treatment.
AVOID: Photorealism, 3D clay objects, logos and extra lettering.

The brief describes the look, colours, layout and parts you can change. “Make it nice” leaves rather a lot of room for interpretation.

2. Make one strong baseline

Use the coast walk as the first subject. This is the exact prompt used for the first poster:

Create a finished portrait travel poster for the fictional coastal town BELLHAVEN. Subject: a sunny seafront promenade, striped parasols and a small sailing boat beyond the sea wall. A sophisticated mid-century screen-printed travel-poster series: flat geometric gouache shapes, visible fine paper grain, confident cropped composition, long angular shadows, no photorealism, no clay, no 3D. Fixed ink palette: midnight indigo, burnt orange, golden ochre and warm ivory. Large hand-set-looking uppercase title at top exactly "BELLHAVEN"; smaller subtitle at bottom exactly "COAST WALK". Keep a narrow warm ivory border and the same title/subtitle positions for future posters in the series. No logos, watermark or other words. Deliver the actual poster, not a framed-room mockup.
Retro Bellhaven coast-walk poster with striped parasols, seafront and sailboat in indigo, orange, ochre and ivory.
Actual generated baseline: Coast Walk.

Check the title, border, palette and print texture before making the rest of the set. Save the version you want to use as the reference.

3. Change the subject, keep the brief

For the next two posters, attach the coast-walk image as a style and layout reference. These are the exact prompts used:

Lighthouse

Create a finished portrait travel poster for the fictional coastal town BELLHAVEN. Subject: a white lighthouse on an angular cliff above a deep-blue sea, with a winding footpath and a tiny ochre sun. A sophisticated mid-century screen-printed travel-poster series: flat geometric gouache shapes, visible fine paper grain, confident cropped composition, long angular shadows, no photorealism, no clay, no 3D. Fixed ink palette: midnight indigo, burnt orange, golden ochre and warm ivory. Large hand-set-looking uppercase title at top exactly "BELLHAVEN"; smaller subtitle at bottom exactly "LIGHTHOUSE". Keep a narrow warm ivory border and the same title/subtitle positions as the reference poster. No logos, watermark or other words. Deliver the actual poster, not a framed-room mockup. Use the supplied coast-walk poster as a style and layout reference, not as a subject to duplicate.
Matching retro Bellhaven lighthouse poster with a cliff, lighthouse and angular path.
Actual Lighthouse output, using the Coast Walk image as its reference.

Night Market

Create a finished portrait travel poster for the fictional coastal town BELLHAVEN. Subject: a lively evening harbour market with striped stalls, strings of lanterns and silhouetted shoppers, with the sea beyond. A sophisticated mid-century screen-printed travel-poster series: flat geometric gouache shapes, visible fine paper grain, confident cropped composition, long angular shadows, no photorealism, no clay, no 3D. Fixed ink palette: midnight indigo, burnt orange, golden ochre and warm ivory. Large hand-set-looking uppercase title at top exactly "BELLHAVEN"; smaller subtitle at bottom exactly "NIGHT MARKET". Keep a narrow warm ivory border and the same title/subtitle positions as the reference poster. No logos, watermark or other words. Deliver the actual poster, not a framed-room mockup. Use the supplied coast-walk poster as a style and layout reference, not as a subject to duplicate.
Matching retro Bellhaven night-market poster with lantern-lit stalls and harbour shoppers.
Actual Night Market output, using the same Coast Walk reference.

4. Review the set together

Compare the four ink colours, paper texture, border and title placement. The scenes should change, but the set should still feel like one campaign. A matching palette alone is not enough if one image suddenly becomes a glossy photograph.

Check the lettering too. Image tools can misspell words or change their position. If wording needs regular edits, rebuild it as a separate text layer in your design editor rather than repeatedly regenerating the whole poster.

5. Make a focused revision

If one poster drifts, name the difference you want to fix. For example:

Keep the lighthouse scene. Match the Coast Walk reference’s narrow ivory border, four-colour print palette and title placement more closely. Do not add new words or switch to a photographic style.

That is a suggested follow-up prompt, not an extra output shown here. The three displayed posters are the actual generated baseline and variants; your own run will vary.

Save your working kit

Keep the brief, exact prompts, reference image and selected outputs together. Use the same palette, print texture and layout when extending the series.

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