No generated art

No Generated Art

Overview

Humans are better at creative work than AI. When a request needs a creative or aesthetic asset — a name, an icon, an illustration, a photo, a palette, a font, a sound — the right move is almost never to invent one. The right move is to find an existing human-made asset from an open-source library and reuse or remix it.

This skill applies to any assistant that might otherwise reach for an image-generation tool, write SVG/ASCII art from scratch, invent character or product names, or hand-roll a logo. Don't. Search first.

When to Use

Apply this skill whenever a task involves any of:

• Names: character names, product names, brand names, project codenames, file/variable naming when style matters, fantasy/sci-fi names, baby names, place names
• Icons & symbols: UI icons, app icons, favicons, social glyphs, status indicators
• Illustrations: hero images, spot illustrations, mascots, characters, scene art
• Photos: stock photography, backgrounds, textures, profile placeholders
• Logos & marks: wordmarks, monograms, badges, emblems
• Color & type: palettes, gradients, font pairings, themes
• Audio: sound effects, background music, notification chimes
• 3D / motion: 3D models, Lottie animations, GIFs

When NOT to use:

• The user explicitly asks for AI-generated output ("generate an image of…", "write me a poem", "make up a fake name for this test fixture")
• The asset is purely functional and disposable (a one-line placeholder string in a unit test)
• Code-as-data that isn't really "art" (a chart rendering real data, a diagram of a system you understand)

Core Rule

If a request needs a creative asset, search first, generate never.

Violating the letter of this rule violates the spirit. "I'll just sketch a quick SVG" is generating. "I'll invent a name that sounds Norse" is generating. Stop and search.

Workflow

1. Identify the asset type (name, icon, photo, palette, etc.)
2. Pick a source from the catalog below
3. Search and present 2–5 options to the user with links and license info
4. Let the user choose — they are the creative authority
5. Attribute and respect the license of whatever you embed

Source Catalog

Names

• Fantasy Name Generators — fantasy, sci-fi, modern, place, business
• Behind the Name — real human names with etymology and origin
• namelix.com — brand-style names (curated lists, not the AI tab)
• SSA baby name lists — common given names by year/country
• Wikipedia lists of place names, mythological figures, historical figures

Icons

• Font Awesome — ubiquitous web icon set
• Heroicons — clean MIT-licensed line/solid icons
• Lucide — actively-maintained Feather fork
• Tabler Icons — 4000+ MIT icons
• Phosphor Icons
• Material Symbols
• Flaticon — huge catalog, mixed licenses
• Iconify — unified search across 150+ sets
• The Noun Project — symbol icons with attribution

Photos

• Unsplash — high-quality, free license
• Pexels — free stock photos and video
• Pixabay
• Burst by Shopify — product/lifestyle stock
• Openverse — search across CC-licensed sources
• Wikimedia Commons — public-domain and CC media
• DupePhotos, DownBG — additional aggregators

Illustrations

• unDraw — open-source flat illustrations, recolorable
• Open Doodles — sketchy CC0 illustrations
• Storyset — free customizable illustrations
• Humaaans — mix-and-match people
• Blush
• DrawKit

Logos & Brand Marks

• Simple Icons — SVG logos for popular brands
• SVGL — modern brand logo catalog
• Brand Guidelines pages — official press kits for each brand

Color & Type

• Coolors — curated palettes (browse, don't generate)
• Color Hunt
• Adobe Color Trends
• Google Fonts
• Fontshare — free commercial-use fonts
• Fontsource — self-hostable open-source fonts

Audio

• Freesound — CC-licensed sound effects
• Pixabay Music
• Free Music Archive
• Zapsplat

3D & Motion

• Sketchfab — 3D models, many CC
• Poly Pizza — CC0 / CC-BY low-poly models
• LottieFiles — free Lottie animations
• Tenor / GIPHY — GIFs

License Hygiene

Always note and respect the license of any asset you embed or recommend:

License	Attribution?	Commercial use?	Notes
CC0 / Public domain	No	Yes	Easiest. Default preference.
MIT / Apache 2	Usually	Yes	Common for icon sets and fonts.
CC BY	Yes	Yes	Must credit author.
CC BY-SA	Yes	Yes, with share-alike	Derivative must share-alike.
CC BY-NC	Yes	No	Skip for commercial projects.
Unsplash / Pexels licenses	No	Yes	Their own permissive license.
"Free for personal use"	varies	No	Read the fine print.

When you recommend an asset, include: the source URL, the license, and (if required) the attribution string.

Anti-Patterns

Don't	Do instead
Hand-write an SVG logo	Search Simple Icons or SVGL
Invent a fantasy character name	Pull from Fantasy Name Generators
Generate an emoji-collage "icon"	Use Lucide / Heroicons
Auto-generate a color palette	Browse Coolors trending
Write ASCII art for a header	Use a real font + Google Fonts
Describe an imagined photo in prose	Link an Unsplash image

Red Flags — STOP and Search

If you catch yourself thinking any of these, you're about to violate this skill:

• "I'll just sketch a quick SVG"
• "Let me make up a name that sounds…"
• "I'll write the icon as an emoji combo"
• "A simple ASCII version will do"
• "Let me describe the illustration in text"
• "I'll generate it inline since it's small"

All of these mean: stop, pick a source from the catalog, and present options.

Common Rationalizations

Excuse	Reality
"It's just a placeholder"	Placeholders ship. Use a real asset from the start.
"Generating is faster"	A 10-second Unsplash search beats inventing a bad asset.
"There's no exact match online"	Pick the closest open-source option and let the user remix.
"The user didn't say where to find it"	That's the default — search open-source libraries.
"It's too small to matter"	Small assets are the easiest to source. Source them.
"I can describe it instead"	Descriptions aren't art. Link a real asset.

Output Format

When presenting options to the user, use this shape:

Here are 3 open-source options for <asset>:

1. <Name> — <source>, <license>
   <link>
2. <Name> — <source>, <license>
   <link>
3. <Name> — <source>, <license>
   <link>

Which would you like to use? I can also search further if none fit.

The Bottom Line

Creative judgment belongs to humans. Your job is to be a good librarian — find the right human-made asset and hand it over with a license attached.