How to Write an AI Design Prompt (5 Slots That Work)
Last week a friend who runs a pottery studio asked me why AI design tools "never get it right." She showed me her prompt:
Make me an Instagram post for my pottery class.
What came back was fine. A beige square, a headline that said "Pottery Class," a stock-ish photo of a bowl, and a button that said "Learn More." Nothing wrong with it. Also nothing in it — no dates, no price, no reason to sign up, no hint that this was her studio and not a clip-art one.
That's not the model failing. That's the prompt handing over eleven decisions and hoping.
An AI design prompt is a spec, not a wish. And the difference between a generic result and a usable one is almost always the same five pieces of information. Here's the anatomy, and then the actual rewrite of her prompt.
Why vague prompts produce generic designs
When you leave a slot empty, the model doesn't stop and ask. It fills it with the statistical middle of everything it's ever seen labeled "class flyer." Empty copy slot? You get placeholder-grade headlines. Empty audience slot? You get a design aimed at nobody in particular, which is the same as a design aimed at everybody. Empty visual direction? Beige.
So the goal isn't a longer prompt. It's a prompt with no empty slots in the places that matter, and deliberately empty slots in the places where you'd rather let the tool surprise you.
The five slots an AI design prompt needs
1. The artifact and its format. "Instagram post" is a start. "Instagram feed post, 4:5 portrait" is a spec. Say the surface and the shape, because they change the layout entirely — a 9:16 story wants one idea stacked vertically, a 4:5 feed post can carry three lines of copy and a photo. If you're going to need it in several sizes, say so up front rather than cropping later.
2. Who it's for, and the one action you want. Not demographics — intent. "For complete beginners who've never touched a wheel and are nervous about being bad at it" produces different copy, a different photo, and a warmer color choice than "for experienced potters." Then name the action: sign up, book, DM, swipe, walk in.
3. The exact words that must appear. This is the slot people skip, and it's the one that matters most. If you don't supply the copy, you're asking an image tool to also be your copywriter, and then you'll spend fifteen minutes rewriting text inside the design. Hand over the headline, the details (dates, prices, times, address), and the call to action verbatim. Put them in quotes so they survive intact.
4. Visual direction in nouns, not adjectives. "Modern and clean" means nothing — it's the default, and everything is already trying to be it. What works is concrete: materials ("raw clay, unglazed terracotta, cream linen"), a palette ("warm rust and off-white, no black"), a photo subject ("close-up of hands centering clay on a wheel"), a reference format ("looks like a workshop poster, not an ad"). Nouns are checkable. Adjectives aren't.
5. The constraint you care about. One or two, max. "No stock-photo smiling faces." "Keep the bottom third clear for the logo." "Don't put text over the hands." Constraints do more work than another paragraph of description, because they eliminate the specific failure you already know you'll hate.
The rewrite
Her prompt, with the five slots filled:
Instagram feed post, 4:5, for a small pottery studio. Audience: total beginners who are nervous about being bad at it — I want them to book a spot. Headline: "Make something with your hands." Subhead: "6-week beginner course · Saturdays 10am · Starts September 6 · $180." CTA: "Book at northclay.studio". Visual direction: close-up photo of hands centering clay on a wheel, warm terracotta and cream palette, no black, feels like a workshop poster rather than an ad. Keep the bottom-right corner clear for a small logo.
Same tool. Same amount of typing as a text message. But now every decision that had a right answer has been given one, and the only things left to the AI are the ones you actually wanted it to solve: layout, type hierarchy, spacing, and how the photo and text share the frame.
That's the split to aim for. You own the content and the constraints. The tool owns the composition.
Building one in Ridvay Studio
Paste this into Ridvay Studio:
Instagram feed post, 4:5, for a small pottery studio. Audience: total beginners nervous about being bad at it — goal is booking a spot. Headline: "Make something with your hands." Subhead: "6-week beginner course · Saturdays 10am · Starts September 6 · $180." CTA: "Book at northclay.studio". Close-up photo of hands centering clay on a wheel, warm terracotta and cream palette, no black, workshop-poster feel. Keep the bottom-right corner clear for a logo.
What comes back isn't a flat picture. It's an editable design — the headline is a real text layer with a real font, the photo sits on its own layer, the panel behind the details is a shape you can move, recolor, or delete. Which matters, because slots 4 and 5 are the ones you'll want to tune by hand:
- Click the headline and push the size up until "Make something with your hands" is unmistakably the first thing you read. Hierarchy is faster to fix by dragging than by re-prompting.
- Swap the photo if the hands look staged. Studio's image generation is right there, or drop in a photo you took at the studio — the layout holds either way.
- Recolor the CTA to the one accent in the palette that isn't in the photo, so the booking line separates instead of blending into the terracotta.
- Apply your brand kit so the fonts and palette snap to the ones you already use — then use one-click resize to pull the same design out as a story and a Facebook cover without re-prompting anything.
Those four edits take about two minutes, and none of them are things you should have tried to specify in the prompt.
→ Generate the pottery-course post in Studio — then swap the headline for your own.
Three things to leave out of the prompt
Pixel-level instructions. "Make the headline 64px and move it 40px left" is a sentence you'll retype four times. It's one drag in the editor. Anything you can fix by clicking the layer, fix by clicking the layer — that's the whole argument for editing an AI design instead of regenerating it.
Your brand's entire history. Two paragraphs about your founding story dilutes the prompt. Your brand belongs in a brand kit — logo, palette, fonts — applied to every design in one click, not re-described every time.
Font names you're not sure about. Naming a font locks the layout to a decision you may not want. Give the feeling in nouns ("condensed poster type", "friendly rounded") and pick the actual pairing after you see it — the font pairing guide is a faster way to land that than guessing in a prompt.
Getting a second version worth comparing
Once the first design is good, don't re-prompt from scratch. Change one slot and regenerate: same copy, same format, different audience framing ("for people who want a quiet Saturday to themselves") or different visual direction ("switch to a flat illustrated look, no photo"). One variable at a time gives you two designs you can actually judge against each other. Change everything and you're just rolling dice again.
The five-slot habit takes about thirty extra seconds to type. It's the difference between a design you have to apologize for and one you can post.