Before Adding More Adjectives, Give Your Image Prompt a Spatial Map

A product illustration can have the right colors, lighting, and mood while still placing everything in the wrong location.

Imagine a brief for a desk scene: a notebook on the left, a cup behind it, and open space on the right for a headline. Adding “beautiful,” “professional,” or “highly detailed” does little to clarify those relationships.

Try writing a small spatial map before describing the visual style.

Start with objects and relationships

Give each important object a simple name. Then describe its position relative to the frame or another object.

For example:

• Notebook: lower-left area, fully visible.
• Cup: above and slightly behind the notebook, without covering it.
• Right side: empty background reserved for text added later.
• Camera: overhead, so left and right refer to the viewer’s frame.

This is more inspectable than “an elegant notebook beside a cup.” You can point to each requirement and check whether it appears in the result.

A prompt for preparing the brief

“Convert the scene description below into a concise image-generation brief.

List the visible objects first. Then describe their positions, relative sizes, and overlaps.

Use viewer-relative directions. Separate camera position from object placement.

If a spatial instruction has multiple reasonable interpretations, identify the ambiguity and ask one focused question before completing the brief.

Preserve the supplied objects. Do not introduce decorative props.

Return:

1. Object list
2. Spatial relationships
3. Camera and crop
4. Lighting and visual style
5. Three checks for the generated image

Scene description:
[Paste the scene here.]”

An example brief

“Overhead editorial photograph of a closed navy notebook in the lower-left third of a pale desk. A small white cup sits above the notebook with a visible gap between them. Both objects remain fully inside the frame. Keep the right half of the image empty. Soft daylight, restrained shadows, no lettering.”

This is a proposed brief, not a report of a tested result. Image systems may still misplace objects or fill the empty area.

Inspect the layout before refining the style

Check three things first: whether every required object is present, whether their relative positions are correct, and whether the reserved space remains usable.

If the cup overlaps the notebook, revise that relationship directly. If the crop cuts off the notebook, clarify the framing. Keep unrelated details unchanged so the next attempt addresses a specific problem.

You can use the visual prompt examples on AI123 as material for this exercise: pick one description and separate its object layout from its style language.

A spatial map cannot guarantee exact placement. For a design that requires precise alignment, treat the generated image as source material and finish the layout in an editor.