Stop 3 of 8 · Daily
Textures, backgrounds and mockups
Tiling textures, packaging and device mockups, upscaling and cutouts, and a texture library in a Project so you stop regenerating the same brass.
The assets nobody briefs you on
Half of Yara's week is not concepts. It is the brushed brass the pattern sits on, the paper stock behind the logo lockup, the phone frame for the app screen, the pouch that has to look like it exists before the client will sign off on the label. None of it is the idea. All of it takes an afternoon.
These are the jobs generators are good at, because there is no likeness, no brand mark and no factual claim in a piece of concrete. The work is being specific about the physical thing, then being disciplined about where the file goes afterwards.
Three kinds, three different asks
| Kind | What to specify | What kills it |
|---|---|---|
| Tiling texture | Square, even light, material, no seam | A shadow near the edge |
| Product mockup | Material, form, light, camera height, surface | A real brand's shape |
| Device frame | Device generation, angle, screen left empty | A fake screenshot baked in |
The device rule matters. Ask for the frame with the screen empty or flat grey, then composite your real screen in. A generated screen invents UI you did not design, and somebody will read it.
Try this
Write me three prompts for tiling textures for a food packaging range: uncoated recycled paper, matte ceramic glaze, and brushed brass. Each one square, evenly lit, tiling with no visible seam at any edge, no text, no logos, nothing distinctive within 10 percent of the edges, and neutral enough to take a colour overlay later. Add a short negative list for each and tell me which of the three will take small type on top.
We are pitching a coffee brand with a 250 gram pouch, a 1 kilogram bag and a cafe cup. Write a mockup shot list: for each item, the camera height, the surface, the light direction and hardness, whether the label should be blank or composited, and what the shot is proving to the client. Flag any shot where a real product photograph would be safer than a generated one and say why.
This generated pouch shot is the one we are using. Write eight prompts that keep the pouch form, the material and the light identical and change only the context: on a shelf, in hands, on a kitchen counter, on a dark studio sweep, and four more you pick. Keep the label area blank in all of them.
A texture library that survives the year
Yara keeps one Project called Texture and mockup library. Its files are the textures themselves, and one running document with three columns: file name, the prompt and tool that made it, and the licence note. Every chat inside that Project starts already knowing what is in the library, so when she asks for a warm paper background it can tell her she already made one in March.
Add the cutouts to it too. Background removal is a two-second job now, so the temptation is to redo it every time. Do it once, save the transparent PNG in the library, and name it after the object rather than the client.