Riso Relic

/riso-relic — locked retro-relic risograph poster style

This skill produces single-object pop-art posters in the riso-relic house style: one nostalgic everyday object sitting dead-center on a saturated single-hue field, framed by a tiny "SMALL OBJECTS IN TIME" banner at the top and a chunky retro headline at the bottom, with hand-drawn doodle accents floating around the hero. Think mid-century sticker-pack meets risograph print zine — flat, tactile, and a little bit grainy.

Each invocation swaps only a handful of dials — every other style axis stays locked.

Prompt interpretation

The user will usually give a short brief — sometimes just an object ("rotary phone"), sometimes an object plus a vibe ("walkman, 80s mall energy"). Your job is to turn that into a full poster brief without stopping to ask:

1. Pick a hero object from the brief. If the user only gave a vibe, pick the most evocative everyday relic for that vibe.
2. Choose a saturated background hue that matches the object's era + mood. One color, no gradient.
3. Pick an accent palette of 2–3 colors that pop against the background — these carry the doodles and the headline fill.
4. Write a 1–3 word headline in chunky all-caps that captures the feeling the object gives off (e.g. RING RING, MIX TAPE, PLAY LOUD, SAY CHEESE).
5. Pick a doodle vocabulary — which little hand-drawn marks float around the hero (sparkles, squiggles, dots, music notes, lightning, motion lines, hearts, sound-waves, ZZZs…). Pull from the object's emotional world.
6. Hold the locked frame — banner, drop-shadow, grain, black outlines, centered composition — those never move.

Bias toward objects with high tactile nostalgia: things people held, pressed, wound, or carried. Avoid abstract concepts; avoid logos; avoid people.

Locked style axes (NEVER vary)

Composition

• Single hero object, centered, dead-symmetric — the object owns the visual center of mass
• Portrait canvas (recommended 1024×1536)
• Headline reads at the bottom; small banner reads at the top; hero sits between them
• No backgrounds, no scenery, no horizon line — the object floats on the color field

Line quality

• Bold black ink outlines on every shape, slightly imperfect like a hand-inked stencil
• Simple cel-shading — one or two flat shadow tones per object, never airbrushed
• No gradients, no 3D rendering, no soft modeling — flat vector with weight

Surface

• Riso / halftone grain overlay across the whole canvas — visible noise, tactile print feel
• Slight ink-misregistration vibe acceptable (one accent color nudged a pixel or two)
• The grain is the only texture — no other photo textures, no fabric, no paper-curl

Background

• One saturated hue filling the entire canvas — no gradient, no vignette, no second color band
• Hue is one of: hot magenta, mustard yellow, sky blue, tomato red, deep violet, kelly green, cobalt, burnt orange, chartreuse, blush pink (or a sibling)

Top banner

• Small white rectangular banner with thin black border, centered horizontally near the top edge
• Contains small all-caps text — default copy: "SMALL OBJECTS IN TIME"
• Simple sans-serif, tracked-out slightly, never decorative

Headline (bottom)

• Chunky retro display face, all-caps, thick condensed letters — 70s/80s poster vibe
• Fill is cream-white (not pure white) with a solid offset black drop-shadow behind it
• 1–3 words; never a full sentence

Doodle accents

• Floating around the hero, never overlapping its silhouette
• Drawn in the same hand-inked weight as the hero, in the accent palette
• Vocabulary: sparkle stars (✦/✧), squiggly motion lines, scattered dots, tiny lightning bolts, music notes, hearts, sun rays, sound-wave arcs, zigzags, "ZZZ" squiggles, small triangles
• 6–12 accent marks total — sparse enough to breathe, dense enough to feel alive

Variable axes (the five dials)

These are the only things that should change between pieces.

Brief template

When generating, expand the user's input into this internal brief before describing the image to the model:

Copy code
Hero object: <one specific named object, with era>
Background: <single saturated hue>
Accents: <2–3 colors>
Headline: <1–3 words, all caps>
Banner: SMALL OBJECTS IN TIME  (override only if user explicitly asks)
Mood: <one phrase>
Doodle vocabulary: <4–6 marks pulled from the object's world>

Worked examples

Five reference pieces below — each holds the locked frame and varies the five dials.

Example 1 — boombox · hot magenta · "PLAY LOUD" (80s mall energy)

• Hero: chunky 1980s stereo cassette boombox, two big speakers, antenna up
• Background: hot magenta
• Accents: cream + lime green + yellow
• Doodles: sparkle stars, music notes, lightning bolts, scattered dots
• Headline: PLAY LOUD

Example 2 — rotary phone · mustard yellow · "RING RING" (60s domestic)

• Hero: 1960s rotary dial telephone, curly cord, finger dial
• Background: mustard yellow
• Accents: cream + tomato red + teal
• Doodles: sound-wave arcs near handset, zigzags, sparkles, scattered dots, lightning
• Headline: RING RING

Example 3 — Polaroid · sky blue · "SAY CHEESE" (70s vacation)

• Hero: boxy Polaroid-style instant camera, rainbow stripe, blank photo ejecting
• Background: sky blue
• Accents: white + coral pink + lemon yellow
• Doodles: tiny sun, hearts, zigzags, motion lines, sparkles
• Headline: SAY CHEESE

Example 4 — twin-bell alarm clock · tomato red · "WAKE UP" (morning rush)

• Hero: vintage twin-bell mechanical alarm clock, hands at 7:00
• Background: tomato red
• Accents: cream + cyan + black
• Doodles: sound-wave arcs around the bells, "ZZZ" squiggles, sparkles, dots
• Headline: WAKE UP

Example 5 — cassette tape · deep violet · "MIX TAPE" (80s nostalgia)

• Hero: 80s compact cassette, visible spools, hand-scrawled "SIDE A" label
• Background: deep violet
• Accents: lime green + hot pink + yellow
• Doodles: music notes, hearts, lightning, sparkles, zigzags
• Headline: MIX TAPE

Anti-patterns

• ❌ Two or more hero objects — the frame is a one-object poster; never a still-life
• ❌ A scene background (a desk, a wall, a horizon) — the field must be a single flat color
• ❌ Gradient background, vignette, or a second color band — flat saturated hue only
• ❌ Photorealism, 3D modeling, soft airbrushed shading — must read as flat vector + grain
• ❌ Doodle accents overlapping the hero — they orbit, they never collide
• ❌ Headline in a thin / modern / serif face — must be chunky retro display
• ❌ Headline without the offset black drop-shadow
• ❌ More than ~12 accent marks — the canvas should still breathe
• ❌ Headline that is a full sentence — keep to 1–3 punchy words
• ❌ Modern / digital objects (smartphones, AirPods, laptops) — defeats the "relic" feel
• ❌ Adding a human face or figure — the object is the only protagonist

Output evaluation checklist

Before declaring a piece done, verify:

• Exactly one hero object, centered, dead-symmetric
• Saturated single-hue background fills the entire canvas
• Top banner present with "SMALL OBJECTS IN TIME" (or user-specified copy)
• Bottom headline in chunky retro all-caps with offset black drop-shadow
• 6–12 doodle accents in the accent palette, floating, not overlapping the hero
• Visible halftone / riso grain across the canvas
• Bold black ink outlines on hero and all accents
• No gradients, no photoreal textures, no second background color, no scenery

Portability note

This style is designed to be model-agnostic at the semantic level — the spec describes what the image must look like, not which model produces it. It generates cleanly on broad-distribution image models (GPT-Image-2, Flux, Qwen-Image, Seedream 5). Higher-fidelity poster faces (clean type, accurate halftone) are easier on GPT-Image-2 at high quality and 1024×1536 portrait size. If a model struggles with the inline banner text, allow the banner to render as a small clean rectangle and overlay the "SMALL OBJECTS IN TIME" copy in post — the rest of the style should still hold.