"Make it Pop!" - Translating Design Feedback into Effective AI Prompts

"Make it Pop!" - Translating Design Feedback into Effective AI Prompts

If you’ve ever worked in a creative field, you’ve heard it. Those two little words, often delivered with an enthusiastic hand gesture, that can send a chill down any designer’s spine: “Make it pop!” It’s the quintessential piece of vague feedback—a statement of feeling, not instruction. It’s joined by a family of equally nebulous phrases: “Give it more energy,” “Make it cleaner,” or “Can you give it a bit more… flair?” For decades, human designers have learned to act as translators, turning these emotional responses into tangible changes in color, layout, and typography.

Now, we stand at the frontier of a new creative paradigm, powered by artificial intelligence. Tools like SimplyCreate.ai can take a simple idea and generate a unique T-shirt design in seconds. But while the AI is a powerful creative partner, it’s not a mind reader. It thrives on clarity. To get the masterpiece you envision, you still need to be a good creative director. The good news is, you don’t need a degree in design to do it. You just need to learn how to translate those human feelings into a language the AI understands.

This guide is your Rosetta Stone for AI design. We’ll break down the most common pieces of abstract feedback and show you how to convert them into specific, actionable prompts. You’ll learn how to go from a good first draft to a perfect final design by refining your idea, not just restarting. By the end, you'll be able to guide your AI partner with the confidence of a seasoned art director, ensuring your final T-shirt isn't just what you asked for, but what you truly meant.

The Challenge of Vague Feedback in a World of Precise AI

Why do we use phrases like “make it pop”? Because design is often about evoking an emotion. When a client or a friend says they want a design with “more energy,” they aren’t thinking about specific RGB color values or font weights. They’re describing a desired feeling—excitement, movement, and vibrancy. Humans are adept at this kind of emotional and conceptual shorthand. We can infer meaning from context, tone, and shared cultural understanding.

Generative AI, for all its incredible capabilities, operates differently. It doesn't “feel” energy. Instead, it analyzes massive datasets of images and text to identify patterns. It knows that images described as “energetic” often contain diagonal lines, high-contrast colors, and dynamic compositions. When you give it a prompt, you are essentially guiding it toward a specific cluster of patterns it has learned. Therefore, a vague prompt like “a cool dog” will likely result in a statistically average “cool dog” from its dataset. It might be good, but it won’t be *yours*.

The key to unlocking the AI’s full potential is to bridge this communication gap. You must deconstruct the *feeling* you want into its core visual components. Think of yourself as a detective and the vague feedback as your first clue. Your job is to break that clue down into a series of specific instructions.

• Feeling: Energy
• Visual Components: Bright colors, sharp angles, motion lines, asymmetric balance, bold fonts.
• Feeling: Calmness
• Visual Components: Soft, muted colors (pastels, earth tones), horizontal lines, ample negative space, simple fonts, symmetrical layouts.

At SimplyCreate.ai, we’ve built our platform around this collaborative process. Your first prompt is just the beginning of the conversation. The real magic happens in the refinement stage, where you can issue a series of simple text commands to tweak and perfect the design. This iterative loop empowers you to act as the art director, guiding the AI with increasing specificity until the design on the screen matches the vision in your head.

Deconstructing Common Feedback: A Practical Guide

Let's get practical. Here are some of the most common pieces of vague feedback, broken down into specific keywords and prompt strategies you can use to refine your AI designs.

When you think: "Make it Pop" or "Make it More Vibrant"

This is arguably the most famous piece of feedback. It’s a request for more visual excitement and contrast. The design needs to grab attention and not fade into the background.

Break it down into:

• Color: This is the most powerful tool for making something “pop.” Instead of just saying “vibrant,” specify a color palette or style. Prompts: “Change the color palette to neon,” “Use a high-contrast complementary color scheme (like electric blue and orange),” “Make it psychedelic with swirling rainbow colors,” “Add fluorescent accents to the main subject.”
• Style: Certain art styles are inherently vibrant. Prompts: “Change the style to Lisa Frank,” “Redraw it in a 90s retro style with bright geometric shapes,” “Make it pop art style like Andy Warhol.”
• Lighting & Effects: How light interacts with the subject can create incredible vibrancy. Prompts: “Add a neon glow around the text,” “Give the design a high-gloss, reflective finish.”

Example Scenario:
Initial Prompt: "A tiger's head"
The AI generates a standard, realistic tiger.
Refinement Prompt: "Make the tiger's head out of vibrant, geometric low-poly shapes with a neon color palette."
The result is a stylized, eye-catching design that truly “pops.”

When you think: "Give it More Energy" or "Make it Dynamic"

This feedback asks for a sense of movement, action, and excitement. A static, centered design often lacks this feeling. You need to introduce elements that guide the viewer’s eye and imply motion.

Break it down into:

• Lines & Shapes: The direction of lines is critical. Horizontal lines feel stable and calm, while diagonal and jagged lines feel energetic and unstable. Prompts: “Add dynamic speed lines coming from the object,” “Use sharp, angular lines instead of soft curves,” “Incorporate explosive shapes like starbursts in the background.”
• Composition: Avoid perfect, static symmetry. An unbalanced or tilted composition creates tension and energy. Prompts: “Change the composition to a Dutch angle (tilted),” “Use an asymmetric layout,” “Create a sense of motion from left to right.”
• Style: Think of styles associated with action and movement. Prompts: “Change the style to graffiti street art with paint splatters,” “Redraw it in a Japanese anime action style,” “Make it look like a comic book panel with action words.”

Example Scenario:
Initial Prompt: "A person running"
The AI generates a simple illustration of a person running.
Refinement Prompt: "Redraw the runner in a sketchy, dynamic style with motion blur and energetic lines behind them."
The new design feels faster and more powerful.

When you think: "Make it Cleaner" or "More Minimalist"

This is the opposite of “make it pop.” The request is to reduce visual noise, simplify the concept, and create a more modern, focused look. The mantra here is “less is more.”

Break it down into:

• Elements & Composition: The key is subtraction. Focus on what you can remove. Ample “negative space” (the empty areas) is your best friend. Prompts: “Remove the background,” “Simplify the design to a single object,” “Use a lot of negative space around the subject,” “Make it a single, continuous line drawing.”
• Color: Limit your palette drastically. Prompts: “Change the design to black and white,” “Use a monochromatic color scheme with only shades of blue,” “Make it a two-tone design.”
• Style: Certain styles are defined by their simplicity. Prompts: “Change the style to minimalist line art,” “Make it a flat vector design with no shadows,” “Redraw in the Swiss design style.”

Example Scenario:
Initial Prompt: "A detailed landscape of mountains and a forest"
The AI generates a complex, busy scene.
Refinement Prompt: "Simplify the scene into a minimalist silhouette of just the mountain range against a solid background."
The result is a clean, modern, and impactful graphic.

The Power of Iteration: Your Secret Weapon in AI Design

One of the most significant shifts in thinking when using an AI design tool is embracing the iterative process. Unlike working with a human designer where each revision takes time and costs money, refining a design with SimplyCreate.ai is instantaneous and free. This completely changes the creative dynamic. You are encouraged to experiment, to play, and to build upon your ideas layer by layer.

Don't try to craft the single, perfect, 50-word prompt from the very beginning. It's inefficient and often leads to frustration. Instead, think of it as a conversation. Start broad, see what the AI delivers, and then provide targeted feedback to steer it in the right direction.

Let’s walk through a complete start-to-finish example of this iterative workflow:

1. The Spark of an Idea: You want a unique shirt for your book club. The club is called “Literary Giants,” and you want something that feels both classic and a little bit magical.
2. Initial Prompt: You start simple. You type: "A stack of old books." The AI generates a nice, but perhaps generic, image of three leather-bound books.
3. Refinement 1 - Adding the Magic: It needs that magical element. Your next prompt is: "Make the books glow with a faint, magical aura." The AI updates the design, adding a soft light around the books. Better.
4. Refinement 2 - Introducing a Style: You want a more artistic feel. You prompt: "Change the style to a detailed vintage woodcut illustration." Now the design transforms into a beautiful, classic-looking engraving, and the glowing aura adds a mystical contrast.
5. Refinement 3 - Enhancing the Composition: It feels a bit static. You decide to add more context. Your prompt: "Place the glowing books on a wooden table, with a single candle lighting the scene." The composition is now richer and tells more of a story.
6. Refinement 4 - Adding Text: Time for the club name. You prompt: "Add the text 'Literary Giants' above the books in an elegant serif font." The AI integrates the text, choosing a font that complements the vintage style.
7. Refinement 5 - Final Color Tweak: You decide you want a more subdued look for printing on a cream-colored shirt. Your final prompt: "Make the entire design a single dark brown color, like an old ink drawing." The AI flattens the colors, and you have your perfect, unique design.

This entire process might take only five minutes, yet it allows for a level of creative direction and evolution that would be impossible with traditional template-based designers. The ability to refine is not just a feature; it is the core of the creative process with AI.

Building Your Prompting Vocabulary: A Cheat Sheet for Art Direction

The more specific your vocabulary, the better you can guide the AI. As you become more comfortable with the refinement process, start incorporating more precise terms from art and design. Keeping a list of these keywords can be incredibly helpful. Here’s a starter pack to expand your creative toolkit.

Art Styles & Movements

Use these to make wholesale changes to the look and feel of your design.

• Classic: Watercolor, Oil Painting, Ink Wash, Woodcut, Engraving, Botanical Illustration
• Modern: Abstract, Surrealism, Cubism, Pop Art, Minimalism, Art Deco, Art Nouveau
• Digital & Pop Culture: Pixel Art, Anime/Manga, Cartoon, Comic Book Style, Vaporwave, Steampunk, Cyberpunk, Low-Poly

Techniques & Textures

Use these to describe how the design is rendered.

• Drawing: Sketchy, Line Art, Cross-hatching, Stippling, Charcoal Drawing, Chalk Art
• Painting: Impasto (thick paint), Glazing, Dry Brush
• General Effects: Double Exposure, Silhouette, Halftone, Glitch Effect, Anaglyph

Composition & Framing

Use these to control the layout and perspective of your design.

• Shot Type: Close-up, Extreme Close-up, Medium Shot, Long Shot, Wide Shot
• Angle: Eye-level, Low-angle, High-angle, Bird's-eye View, Worm's-eye View
• Layout Principles: Symmetrical, Asymmetrical, Centered, Off-center, Rule of Thirds, Leading Lines, Golden Ratio

Color & Lighting

Use these for precise control over the mood and tone.

• Palettes: Monochromatic, Analogous, Complementary, Triadic, Pastel, Earth Tones, Jewel Tones, Muted, Saturated, Neon
• Lighting: Soft Light, Hard Light, Dramatic Lighting, Cinematic Lighting, Backlit, Rim Lighting, Chiaroscuro (strong light/dark contrast)

Don't be afraid to mix and match these terms. The AI is surprisingly adept at blending concepts. A prompt like, “Redraw the cat in a steampunk style using a muted, monochromatic color palette” is a powerful instruction that combines style and color theory. The more you experiment, the more you will develop an intuitive sense of what prompts yield the most interesting results.

The era of vague feedback is evolving. While “make it pop” will always be part of our creative lexicon, we now have the tools to translate that feeling into a concrete reality, in minutes. By understanding how to deconstruct emotion into visual components and using a rich vocabulary to guide your AI partner, you can move beyond simple generation into true co-creation. You are the artist, the director, and the visionary. The AI is your incredibly fast, talented, and literal assistant, ready for your next instruction.

Try the AI Designer now!