A Shape You Can Name

A Shape You Can Name

Produce ONE image, 3:4 portrait: a flat vector illustration held inside one large silhouette, with parts of the scene crossing its edge. Follow every line. Replace only the FIELDS block; everything after it is fixed.

First — do you have the fields?

If any field below still has braces around it, stop and ask. Put all the questions in one short message, and show the example under each one so they can see the shape of a useful answer. Wait for the replies, then draw. Never fill a brace yourself: a value you invented is a value nobody asked for, and it will look exactly as considered as the ones they did give you.

Ask in whatever language they are writing to you in. Translate the questions and the examples; do not make someone read English to tell you what they want.

The examples are only examples. If someone answers a question, use their answer; never fall back to the example because you prefer it.

If the fields are already filled in, ignore this and carry on.

Fields — replace these six lines only

• The subject: {what the picture is about} e.g. a library of interface patterns you can browse and copy
• The silhouette, and why that one: {a nameable shape, and its reason} e.g. a rounded speech bubble with its tail at the lower left — everything in the library started as somebody describing it
• Inside it, top and middle and bottom: {three bands} e.g. a pale sky with flat clouds · a city of screen-towers with a bridge running through · a garden growing out of keyboards
• What crosses the edge: {each crossing, named, and which one re-emerges} e.g. the tallest tower breaks through the crown · the bridge enters left, is cut by the outline, and re-emerges outside it · one leaf pushes past the lower right · a walking figure overlaps the tail
• The palette: {four to six flat colours} e.g. indigo, sky blue, mint, bone, one amber
• A title, or none: {one short line, or none} e.g. none

The naming law

The silhouette is the whole idea, and it is the thing these templates lose.

It must be recognisable on its own. A head in profile, a leaf, a bell, a map, a fish, a bulb, a speech bubble, a boat. Cover the scene inside it and you should still be able to say what the shape is.

A soft irregular blob is what comes back when this is left open — technically an irregular contour, semantically nothing. A reference run of this style returned exactly that: a beautifully drawn scene inside an amoeba that was not a shape of anything, so the outline carried no meaning at all and worked only as a mask.

The silhouette occupies 75–90% of the frame. Its edge is smooth and confident, and its identifying features survive: the tail on a bubble, the stem on a leaf, the prow on a boat.

The crossing law

Three to five elements cross the boundary, and a crossing is not a touch.

An element has crossed when the outline cuts across its own body — part of it inside, part of it outside, the edge passing through the middle of the thing. An element resting against the outside of the edge has not crossed; it is a sticker sitting next to a shape.

At least one element must be clipped by the outline and re-emerge beyond it — a bridge, a road, a rope, a cable, a wave that goes in at one edge, disappears behind the silhouette, and picks up again outside. This is the only construction that proves the silhouette is a middle layer rather than a backdrop with things placed on top, and it is what the whole style is for.

Name the crossings individually in the field. A bare count comes back as one.

Inside the shape

Three bands, in this order:

• Top — sky, distance, weather, one large atmospheric element.
• Middle — the subject itself: the buildings, the people, the product, the machinery. The largest and most detailed band.
• Bottom — what carries it: ground, water, planting, road, foreground objects.

The bands blend into one another; they are a structure, not stripes.

Weight

• First order: the silhouette, plus one or two largest subjects.
• Second order: three to five scene modules.
• Third order: a few accents — leaves, birds, light lines. A handful, in one or two places.

No confetti. No field of small icons, no scatter of tiny buildings, no drift of dots across the whole picture. Detail appears in two or three places and nowhere else. The picture gets its richness from large shapes crossing each other, never from density.

Style and colour

Modern flat vector: large areas of flat colour, soft gradients used sparingly, clean geometry, simplified forms. Not photographic, not 3D, not painterly, not collage.

Four to six colours, bright and clean. The ground is white or barely tinted, and a wide margin of it stays empty on all sides.

Never

• ✕ a silhouette that is not a shape of anything
• ✕ fewer than three crossings, or crossings that only touch the edge
• ✕ every element contained inside the shape
• ✕ scattered small detail across the whole picture
• ✕ a busy or coloured background
• ✕ 3D rendering, texture, or heavy shading
• ✕ text of any kind unless the title field asks for it

The result

A picture that reads twice: a shape you can name from across the room, and a whole world inside it when you get closer — with enough of that world pushing out past the edge that the shape sits in the middle of the picture rather than behind it.