Recraft Guide: Vector Graphics and Brand Styles

Recraft is the image generator designers reach for when the output has to behave like design, not just look like it. It generates true vector graphics, handles text and layout better than most, and lets you train a style on your own work so every asset matches the brand. This guide covers the vector workflow, custom styles and palettes, keeping a set of images consistent, and getting files out in a form a design team can use.

Why native vector output matters

Most AI image tools make raster images: a grid of pixels that blurs when enlarged and cannot be edited as shapes. Recraft can generate directly in vector, which means the output is made of paths, fills and strokes.

• Infinite scale. The same file works on a business card and a building wrap.
• Editable in design software. Open the SVG in Illustrator, Figma, Affinity or Inkscape and recolour, move or delete individual shapes.
• Small, clean files. Icons, logos marks and illustrations stay light for web use.
• Flat and consistent by nature. Vector generation suits icon sets, spot illustrations, patterns and infographics, where a uniform style is the whole point.

Choose vector when the asset is graphic and will be reused at many sizes. Choose raster when you want photographic texture, soft lighting or painterly detail, which vector cannot represent well. Recraft also has a Vectorize tool that converts an existing raster image to SVG, useful for turning a raster generation you love into an editable file, though complex photographic images will produce heavy, approximate vectors.

Text, layout and style: V4.1, V4 and V3

Recraft's latest model is V4.1, and Recraft calls V4 the best default for most tasks; V3 remains the choice when you need curated styles, precise text positioning or artistic-level control. All of them handle words well. It renders short and medium-length text legibly, keeps letterforms consistent and places type where you ask. In the current interface you can also control text position and layout rather than leaving placement to chance, which matters for posters, social tiles and packaging comps.

Prompting habits for text in Recraft:

1. Quote the exact text and keep it short. 'A poster with the headline "Spring Market" in bold condensed type' beats a paragraph of copy.
2. Describe the design, not the photo. Words such as flat, geometric, two-colour, line icon, isometric and grid tell the model what kind of object it is making.
3. Pick a style first. Recraft’s style library covers illustration, icon, vector art and realistic image families with sub-styles. The style sets the baseline; the prompt refines it.
4. State the background. 'On a plain white background' or 'transparent background' avoids an unwanted scene behind an icon.

Building a brand style

Preset styles are a start, but brand work needs the look to be yours. Recraft offers two tools for that.

Custom styles. Upload a handful of images that share the look you want (existing brand illustrations, an approved art direction board, or your own best Recraft outputs) and Recraft trains a style from them. New generations then inherit the line weight, shading approach, colour mood and general character. Use images that agree with each other; a mixed set gives a muddy style. Keep the subject matter varied so the model learns the style, not the content.

Brand colours. You can set a palette so generations stay within chosen colours. Give it the brand’s primary and secondary colours, plus a neutral, and the model will favour them. This is the single biggest step towards assets that look like they belong together without manual recolouring.

If you have worked with reference-driven consistency elsewhere, the logic is similar to Midjourney’s style references, covered in our Midjourney consistent characters guide, but with the advantage that a trained style persists across sessions and across your team.

Keeping a set consistent

A brand rarely needs one image. It needs twelve icons that match, six illustrations for a website, or a run of social tiles. Recraft’s image-set and consistency tools help here, and so does working method.

1. Lock style and palette first. Do not start the set until one test image looks right.
2. Write prompts to a template. 'Flat vector icon of a [object], two-colour, rounded corners, white background.' Only the bracket changes.
3. Generate as a set where the interface offers it, so Recraft treats the images as siblings rather than strangers.
4. Reject outliers early. One icon with a different line weight will show in a row of twelve. Regenerate it rather than adjusting the rest to match.
5. Fix in vector. Small inconsistencies in stroke width or colour are quick to correct in design software once the files are SVG.

Exporting for a design team

Download SVG for anything vector and open it in your design tool to confirm the paths are clean and the colours are editable. For raster output, use Recraft’s upscale (the crisp option for brand accuracy) before exporting PNG, and remove the background where the asset will sit on other layouts. Mockups, where offered, give a quick preview of an asset on packaging or a screen for client review. Keep the prompt, the style used and the palette with each exported file; when the brand refreshes next year, you will want to regenerate the set, not redraw it.

Settings at a glance

Try it

Set output to vector, choose a flat illustration style and a palette of deep navy, warm coral and off-white, then run this prompt.

Flat vector illustration of a bicycle courier riding past a row of tall townhouses, simple geometric shapes, two-tone shading, no outlines, plain off-white background, space at the top for a short headline

Change only the subject to make a sibling image ('a florist arranging tulips in a shop window') and check that the shapes, shading and palette hold. If they drift, the style needs more consistent training images, not a longer prompt.