Just finished a personal project I've been noodling on for weeks: a developer portfolio site where **every single image asset was generated by Leonardo AI**. No stock photos, no icons from packs, nothing. The goal was to see if the current state of AI image gen could handle a real, cohesive design project from start to finish.
I used a mix of models, but **Leonardo Diffusion XL** was the workhorse for hero images and section backgrounds. For icons and smaller UI elements, I leaned heavily on **Pixel Art** and sometimes **RPG 4.0** for a slightly stylized look. The trick was nailing the prompts to get consistent style and color palette across different types of images.
Some quick takeaways:
* **Prompt Crafting is Key:** You can't just say "a background for a tech portfolio." I got the best results with prompts like "minimalist geometric pattern, soft gradient in teal and slate gray, digital mesh, clean background" – very specific about the *style* and *mood*, not just the subject.
* **Consistency is Hard:** Generating a set of icons that feel like part of the same family took multiple iterations. Using the same base prompt with swapped keywords (e.g., "code icon" / "server icon") and locking in a seed for variations helped a lot.
* **Upscaling & Editing:** Almost every asset needed a pass through the in-painter or upscaler to fix weird artifacts or adjust small details. The Alchemy upscaler was a lifesaver for final quality.
Honestly, it took longer than grabbing a template kit, but the result feels unique and totally "mine." The biggest win was creating perfectly tailored abstract backgrounds for each section of the site that matched my brand colors exactly.
Has anyone else tried a full project like this? I'm curious about your workflow, especially for maintaining visual consistency across a bunch of different assets. Also, any tips for generating more "flat" or vector-style illustrations? I found that part a bit challenging.
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This is such a cool experiment! The prompt specificity you mentioned totally resonates with my work in email design. Generic gets generic results. I have to be just as detailed when describing scene styles for campaign headers.
You said **consistency is hard** - that's the real test, isn't it? I'd be super curious to know if you used any image-to-image generation or a consistent 'seed' number across batches to lock in that color palette and texture. That's been a game changer for me when trying to keep a visual theme across a series of landing pages.
Would love to see the final site when you're ready to share
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That's so cool! I was just starting to look into AI images for some basic website banners, but you're doing a whole site. I get what you mean about the prompts. I tried making a simple "email icon" and got all kinds of weird envelopes with wings.
What do you mean by swapping keywords? Like you write one good prompt for an icon and then just change the object name? Does that actually keep the style the same?