When Shopify Sidekick started supporting AI-generated visuals, I immediately tested it for banner creation. I’ve used enough design tools to know one thing: AI only performs as well as the prompt you give it. After a few messy outputs, awkward compositions, and some surprisingly good ones, I started to understand what actually makes a prompt generate a beautiful, usable banner image.In this post, I want to share what worked for me — not just theory, but the small adjustments in wording, structure, and detail that clearly improved the results. If you're using Sidekick or any AI banner generator, this will save you a lot of trial and error.

Clarity Always Beats Creativity (At Least in the First Draft)

My first prompts were too vague. Things like:“Create a banner for my product.”And, of course, Sidekick gave me something generic, unbalanced, and impossible to use.Once I shifted to describing the exact scene, the difference was instant.What worked better:“A wide hero banner featuring a premium leather wallet on a clean wooden table, photographed from a 45-degree angle.”That one sentence alone reduced randomness by 80%.
The lesson for me was simple: start with clarity, refine creativity later.

Style Words Changed Everything

When I began adding style descriptors — modern, minimalist, warm light, airy lifestyle — the visuals suddenly started to look like something from an actual brand.Some of the style keywords that consistently improved my Sidekick outputs:

  • minimalist modern
  • soft natural lighting
  • bright and clean background
  • premium / luxury feel
  • warm tone or neutral tone

Whenever I added these, the banner looked more intentional and less “AI trying its best.”

Telling the AI About Layout Saved Me Hours of Editing

Something I learned quickly: AI doesn’t naturally understand banner layout.If I didn’t say anything, it often created a centered composition with no space for text. Nice picture — useless banner.So I started including layout instructions like:

  • “16:9 wide format”
  • “negative space on the right for headline text”
  • “composition balanced for a website hero section”

These tiny additions made the banners instantly more practical for Shopify themes.

Photography Cues Made the Banner Look More “Real”

Adding photography terms was one of the biggest upgrades.Sidekick responded really well to:

  • shallow depth of field
  • studio lighting
  • high-resolution
  • natural soft shadows

Once I started using these, the product banner looked like a professional photoshoot instead of a random render.

Adding Text Instructions (Even Simple Ones) Helped With Overall Balance

I don't always ask the AI to put text directly into the banner, but when I do, including the font style and placement helps a lot.For example:“Add headline text ‘Summer Sale Now On’ in bold white sans-serif font, right-aligned.”Even if the text isn’t perfect, the composition becomes much easier to work with later.

Negative Prompts Cleaned Up the Result

I didn’t use negative prompts at first, but once I started adding things like:

  • “no cluttered background”
  • “no watermark”
  • “no distorted text”

…the images became significantly cleaner and more consistent.It’s a simple trick, but extremely useful for banners.

A Sample Prompt That Worked Extremely Well for Me

Here’s one of the best-performing prompts I used:

“Create a high-resolution 16:9 hero banner featuring a premium leather wallet on a clean wooden table. Minimalist modern aesthetic with soft natural daylight and subtle shadows. Product in sharp focus with shallow depth of field. Leave negative space on the right for headline text. Add bold white sans-serif text saying ‘Summer Sale Now On’. No clutter, no watermark.”

This generated a banner that I could literally upload to Shopify with almost no edits.

What I Learned Overall

After trying dozens of prompts, here’s the pattern I noticed:The more intentionally you describe the scene, style, layout, and lighting, the more Sidekick can “think like a designer.”AI banner generation isn’t magic — it’s collaboration.And once you get the prompt right, the results feel surprisingly close to real brand visuals.