Why Text and Vectors Were AI’s Two Blind Spots

If you’ve been wondering whether AI design tools have finally gotten good enough to be useful — not just impressive in demos, but actually useful for a real business — I think the answer is now yes. Two specific things changed that. AI image generators used to fail at two jobs: rendering text that actually spells right, and producing logo files you can edit. Both of those gaps are now covered by tools built specifically to fix them.

This post walks through an AI typography and vector brand kit workflow using two tools called Ideogram and Recraft. Real prompts, real settings, real costs — and honest notes on where you still want a human making decisions.

Every AI image generator until recently shared the same two failures. First, text. Ask a 2023-era model for a flyer that says “Grand Opening Saturday” and you’d get something like “Grqnd Opeming Saturdqy.” Beautiful picture, gibberish words. Second, file format. Everything came out as a raster image — pixels.

Raster is fine for a social post. But a logo has to live on a business card at one inch and a storefront sign at ten feet. Pixels that look sharp on screen turn to mush at poster size. Vector graphics — mathematical paths, not pixels — scale to any size without losing quality. That’s why every professional logo is built as a vector file.

That’s also why so many “AI logo” experiments died in the real world. Even a gorgeous raster logo isn’t a deliverable. It’s a picture of a deliverable.

Ideogram was built from the ground up to render readable text inside images. Recraft generates genuine SVG vector output — real editable paths, not a raster image with an .svg label stuck on. Neither is a general-purpose image generator. Both are design-production tools, and that focus is exactly why they work.

How to Vet an AI Tool Before You Trust It With Your Brand

The AI tools market is noisy right now. A surprising number of “AI logo generators” deliver JPEG files renamed as SVGs, or text that still misspells at random. Knowing what to check saves you time and money.

• Open the SVG in a text editor. A genuine vector file contains path data — strings of coordinates and curve commands. A fake SVG is just an image tag pointing to a pixel file. Recraft passes this test. Most competitors don’t.
• Test with your actual use case before subscribing. Both Ideogram and Recraft offer free tiers so you can check output quality before spending anything.
• Read the export options before committing. A tool that only exports PNG is not a vector tool, regardless of what the marketing says.

This same scrutiny applies to anyone offering AI-assisted design services. Ask to see the actual file — not a screenshot of the file — before you approve a logo direction.

Ideogram for AI Typography: Prompts That Spell Right

Ideogram’s own documentation is direct about how to get good text. Use complete sentences. Put the exact text you want in quotation marks. Describe where it sits. Keep it short. Position the text instruction near the beginning of your prompt.

Here’s a real example for a local business — a grand-opening social post for a coffee shop:

A warm, inviting square social media graphic for a coffee shop. Bold cream-colored serif text reading “GRAND OPENING” near the top, and below it smaller sans-serif text reading “Saturday, October 10”. Behind the text, a softly blurred photo-style scene of a sunny café counter with espresso machine. Colors: cream, espresso brown, warm gold.

Notice the structure: exact text in quotes, each line separate, style and palette stated. That structure is ninety percent of the game. If you need multiple lines, break them into chunks with placement instructions for each. The longer the text string, the higher the chance of errors — short, punchy phrases work best.

Two habits that save time:

• Generate the scene, then fix the text. It’s usually easier to adjust the image while keeping correct text than the reverse. If one letter is wrong, paint over it in the built-in editor and remix at high image strength.
• Keep text short. A headline and a date render reliably. A four-sentence paragraph won’t — and Ideogram’s own documentation suggests adding long passages in a layout editor afterward anyway.

For a flyer, a menu board, or a weekly specials post, Ideogram can turn a two-hour Canva session into a ten-minute review session.

Recraft for Vector Brand Kits: From Prompt to Editable SVG

Recraft solves the other half. Its vector model generates SVG files natively — clean paths with a manageable number of nodes, not an auto-traced mess. Open the file in Figma or Illustrator and the shapes are real: swap the color, move an anchor point, delete an element. This is the difference between AI output you show people and AI output you actually ship.

Here’s the workflow that works:

• Set up brand style first. Create a project in Recraft and lock in your brand parameters — hex color codes, illustration style, line weights. Every generation after that inherits them, so icon one and icon twenty look like they came from the same hand.
• Pick the right style category. For logos and icons, “Vector illustration,” “Icon,” or “Line art” styles produce far cleaner SVGs than painterly ones. Set background to transparent for anything that will sit on varied backgrounds.
• Write structured logo prompts. “A logo for a coffee shop” gives you junk. Give it design vocabulary: Geometric mountain peak inside a circular badge, minimal vector logo, flat design, two-color, clean lines, no text, no gradients, no shadows.
• Run the prompt six to ten times. You’re looking for a direction, not a finished mark — same as reviewing a designer’s first-round sketches. Pick two or three promising structures and refine.
• Export SVG, refine in Figma. Simple geometric logos come out with clean, editable paths. More detailed illustrations produce more complex files. If it looks complicated, simplify the prompt rather than fighting the nodes.
• For icon sets, keep prompts short and parallel. “Shopping cart, icon, minimal line art, 24×24 grid, single weight stroke.” One prompt per icon, consistent style settings across the set.

One caution worth keeping in mind: an AI-generated logo direction is a starting point, not a finished identity. Before you commit to a mark, check whether anyone else is already using something similar. A trademark search costs far less than a cease-and-desist letter. And if your brand needs to work across packaging, vehicles, and signage, have a designer refine the direction into a real system with spacing rules, color variants, and complete file formats.

The Full Brand-Kit Workflow, Start to Finish

Here’s the order of operations for a small business starting from zero, with realistic costs at each stage:

• Concept direction — Free model in ComfyUI (e.g., Z-Image) — Mood boards, hero imagery — Cost: free
• Text graphics — Ideogram (free tier, then paid) — Flyers, social posts, signage — Cost: $0 to start
• Logo and icons — Recraft (free daily credits, then Basic) — Editable SVG mark, icon set — Cost: ~$10–12/month
• Refinement — Figma (free tier) or Illustrator — Final files, spacing, variants — Cost: free to $30/month
• Deployment — WordPress and your site theme — Consistent brand across the site — Cost: already have it

The sequencing matters. Lock the palette and style in Recraft before generating text graphics elsewhere, so your Ideogram color descriptions match your Recraft brand colors. Copy the hex codes into every prompt. Consistency is what makes a pile of assets read as a brand rather than a collection of experiments.

On cost: Recraft’s Basic plan runs $10 per month billed annually ($12 month-to-month) for 1,000 credits, with a free tier that offers daily credits for patient experimenting. Ideogram has a comparable free tier. If your need is mostly mood boards and photographic imagery, skip the subscriptions and run a free open model in ComfyUI — the raster side of your brand kit can cost nothing.

What AI Still Gets Wrong

Honest limits, from someone who reviews this output regularly:

• Text is good, not perfect. Even Ideogram stumbles on longer strings. Budget for one or two remix cycles per graphic.
• Vectors vary in cleanliness. Simple geometric marks export beautifully. Complex illustrations produce node-heavy files. Simplify the prompt before wrestling the paths.
• No font control. Neither tool lets you specify an actual typeface by name. You describe stylistic properties and apply your real brand font in Figma or your layout tool afterward.
• Trademark risk is real. AI can generate something close to an existing mark. Search before you commit.
• Consistency still needs judgment. The tools give you parts. Deciding which parts form a coherent system is design judgment — and that’s the part worth paying for.

Frequently Asked Questions About AI Typography and Vector Brand Kits

Can AI really make a usable logo? It can make a usable logo direction. With Recraft’s native SVG output, that direction arrives as an editable vector file. Refine it in Figma, run a trademark check, and consider one round of professional polish for spacing and file formats. That’s a real identity on a small budget.

Which AI tool is best for text inside images? Ideogram, based on what I’ve seen and what user communities consistently report. Put your exact text in quotation marks, position it early in the prompt, keep phrases short, and use the built-in editor to fix any stray letters.

How much does this workflow cost? You can start at zero. Ideogram and Recraft both have free tiers, and ComfyUI with open models runs free on your own hardware. Paid, expect roughly $10–12 per month for Recraft Basic and a similar Ideogram plan.

Do I still need a graphic designer? For the system, yes. Someone has to choose a direction, refine it, check trademark clearance, and produce the final file set. AI collapses the expensive early concepting phase, so you’re buying a day of design judgment instead of a week of sketching. That’s a genuinely good deal for a small business on a real budget.

How do I know which AI tools to trust? Open the SVG export in a text editor and confirm it contains path data, not an embedded image. And test your actual use case on the free tier before spending money. The same standard applies to any designer offering AI-assisted services — ask to see the native file, not a screenshot.

What I’m Watching Next

Both Ideogram and Recraft are updating fast. Ideogram 4.0’s JSON prompting for pixel-precise text placement is still fairly new, and I expect more fine-grained control to arrive over the next few months. On the vector side, the bigger question is whether AI can start respecting specific typefaces by name — that’s the gap that still sends most finished work back into Figma. When that changes, I’ll write it up here.