AI design platform
How to use
Recraft.
Creating art-directed brand visuals, illustrations, icons, scalable vector assets, mockups, and controlled image variations inside a design-oriented workflow.
Recraft is a AI design platform for raster images, vector graphics, icons, mockups, editing, and production exports. Creating art-directed brand visuals, illustrations, icons, scalable vector assets, mockups, and controlled image variations inside a design-oriented workflow. This guide covers the whole path in one place: official access, a first session that produces something reviewable, the checks that make output trustworthy, and the permissions worth limiting before you connect real work.
AI should make the work easier to inspect. If the workflow removes the source, the owner, or the review step, redesign the workflow.
Access & setup
Find, install, and sign in to Recraft
Get into the official Recraft experience with the right account and a setup you understand.
- 01
Start at https://www.recraft.ai/ and confirm the domain before entering account or payment information.
- 02
Availability: Recraft is available in web and mobile applications and through an API, with raster and vector generation, brand styles, editing, upscaling, mockups, typography controls, and production export formats.
- 03
A Recraft account and suitable plan, rights to every uploaded or referenced asset, and a deliberate choice of model, privacy, ownership, commercial license, output format, and credit budget.
- 04
Sign in with the account you intend to keep using, then review plan, data, notification, and permission settings.
- 05
Run one low-risk test task before connecting sensitive files, repositories, or workspace data.
- Use official download pages.
- Review permissions during setup.
- Keep installers and applications updated.
First session
Your first useful Recraft session
Learn the interaction loop using a small task with a clear outcome.
- 01
Define the asset's use, dimensions, message, palette, brand rules, rights, accessibility needs, and required raster or vector format.
- 02
Choose the model and plan deliberately because style support, privacy, ownership, and commercial rights differ.
- 03
Generate a few compositionally distinct directions, then refine one approved direction with controlled edits and colors.
- 04
Inspect text, paths, edges, anatomy, logos, likenesses, and export settings before completing layout and approval in the production design workflow.
- State the outcome before the background.
- Provide the real source material.
- Review the result before expanding the task.
Quality control
Check the quality of Recraft output
Turn a promising generation into an asset you can legally and safely ship.
- 01
Restate the brief, the deliverable format, and where the asset will appear before judging any output.
- 02
Inspect at full resolution: generated media hides its errors at thumbnail size.
- 03
Check the details these systems reliably get wrong — hands, text, logos, reflections, symmetry, and edge artefacts.
- 04
Confirm the licence and commercial-use terms for your plan, and check the output does not reproduce a recognisable style, mark, or likeness you have no right to use.
- 05
Review for accessibility and delivery: alt text, contrast, colour profile, file size, and the exact export format.
- Inspect at full resolution before approving anything.
- Confirm commercial-use rights before an asset reaches a client.
- Keep the prompt and settings with the asset so it can be reproduced.
Privacy & permissions
Use Recraft safely
Use the platform without surrendering rights, likenesses, or client material you do not control.
- 01
Confirm you hold the rights to every reference image, voice, or clip before uploading it.
- 02
Check whether your plan trains on submitted content, and opt out before uploading client work.
- 03
Never upload a real person's likeness or voice without their explicit, documented consent.
- 04
Review the output for marks, styles, or likenesses you have no licence to reproduce.
- 05
Label synthetic media where your client, platform, or jurisdiction requires disclosure.
- Free-plan generations are public, owned by Recraft, and not licensed for commercial use, while paid-plan assets have different ownership and privacy terms. Do not upload confidential or third-party material without authority, assume generated marks are trademark-clear, or use assets to train another AI system contrary to Recraft's terms. Validate rights, text, vector paths, print color, accessibility, and production dimensions manually.
- Follow your organisation's approved-use policy.
- Never treat fluent output as authorization to act.
Core workflows
Step-by-step ways to use Recraft for the work it does best.
Each workflow below has its own outcome, steps and review checkpoints.
Create scalable icons from one visual system while preserving recognizability, consistency, editability, and commercial rights.
↓ 02 WorkflowCreate a brand-controlled campaign visual in RecraftMove from a campaign brief to an art-directed production asset without letting generation replace layout, rights, or brand review.
↓Workflow 01
Build a coherent vector icon set in Recraft
Create scalable icons from one visual system while preserving recognizability, consistency, editability, and commercial rights.
Outcome: Deliver a reviewed SVG icon family that works at real interface sizes and can be maintained by designers.
- 01
Define the complete concept list, grid, stroke or fill system, corner language, palette, optical size, accessibility context, and prohibited symbols.
- 02
Use a paid workspace when commercial ownership and privacy are required, select a vector-capable model, and create one anchor icon before the set.
- 03
Generate small batches with the same art direction, comparing silhouette, weight, negative space, perspective, detail density, and cultural interpretation.
- 04
Export SVGs and inspect paths, view boxes, fills, groups, hidden elements, clipping, tiny-size rendering, and consistency in the target interface.
- 05
Normalize and name assets in a vector editor, run accessibility and trademark review, document the style rules, and preserve source prompts and approvals.
What good use looks like
- Establish one anchor icon first.
- Inspect the actual SVG paths.
- Test at the final optical size.
Workflow 02
Create a brand-controlled campaign visual in Recraft
Move from a campaign brief to an art-directed production asset without letting generation replace layout, rights, or brand review.
Outcome: Produce a distinctive, authorized visual direction ready for professional finishing across campaign formats.
- 01
Write the message, audience, placements, safe zones, hierarchy, palette, subject, mood, rights, localization, and measurable approval criteria.
- 02
Choose the model, raster or vector mode, commercial plan, brand colors, and an owned style reference with no confidential or unauthorized material.
- 03
Generate three compositionally distinct directions, select one through the brief, and change lighting, crop, texture, or detail one variable at a time.
- 04
Use inpainting or expansion only for localized changes, checking continuity, text, logos, faces, hands, shadows, reflections, and unintended claims after each pass.
- 05
Finish typography and layout manually, proof every target size and print setting, complete rights and accessibility review, and archive the approved source.
What good use looks like
- Choose directions against the brief.
- Make one controlled edit per pass.
- Finish typography manually.
Official references
Check the current product documentation.
Features, plan limits, availability, and data controls change. These official pages are the starting points used for this guide.
- Recraft documentation ↗
- Recraft commercial rights and ownership ↗
- Recraft data protection and privacy ↗
- Recraft styles reference ↗