A comprehensive prompt for generating vertical travel posters with a mid-century alcohol marker aesthetic, featuring customizable city names and landmarks.
[DESTINATION] = [CITY NAME]
[LANDMARK] = [PRIMARY LANDMARK]
Create a vertical 4:5 alcohol-marker travel poster of [LANDMARK] in [DESTINATION], viewed from a low pedestrian viewpoint. Make it feel like an affectionate, imperfect travel memory, not a photorealistic rendering, postcard, map, landmark collage, or cinematic panorama.
TYPOGRAPHY
Keep the top 14–16% open warm ivory paper.
At the top center, write exactly:
“[CITY NAME]” — large, bold black marker capitals.
Below it:
“[SHORT TRAVEL PHRASE]” — smaller vermilion-red handwritten marker lettering.
Keep both lines highly legible and separate from the landmark. No additional text.
SCENE
Place [LANDMARK] prominently in the upper-center, preserving its most recognizable silhouette and defining features while simplifying unnecessary detail.
Reduce surrounding architecture to 2–3 broad building masses. Add one simple local vehicle, a few tiny pedestrians, and a young female traveler walking across the lower-center foreground while looking upward.
Dress her in a vivid vermilion-red coat over cream clothing, with natural warm-peach skin tones. Make her warm colors contrast against the cool slate-blue and pale blue-gray architecture.
DEPTH & MARKER STYLE
Foreground: saturated colors, 2–3 overlapping marker passes, visible chisel-tip strokes, darker shadow overlaps, and thick broken black contours.
Midground: medium-density slate-blue / blue-gray marker strokes, 1–2 passes, moderately thick broken outlines.
Background: progressively reduce saturation, density, contrast, detail, and contour weight. Use pale blue-gray single-pass strokes with thin, incomplete outlines that gently merge into the ivory sky.
Use broad vertical strokes for buildings and short directional strokes for streets. Leave approximately 40% of the warm ivory paper exposed.
STYLE CONSTRAINTS
Keep the illustration simplified, tactile, graphic, airy, nostalgic, and slightly imperfect, with only major architectural forms and a few window suggestions.
Avoid: photorealism, repetitive window grids, dense skyline detail, realistic reflections, uniform outlines, digital gradients, watercolor effects, black-filled shadows, excessive detail, clutter, or extra typography.
Overall: sophisticated mid-century-inspired travel-book illustration recreated with expressive alcohol markers, with strong foreground-to-background atmospheric perspective and an unmistakable sense of place.
