Generating amazing images in Midjourney has a lot to do with the words you use in your prompts. In most cases, people aren't able to generate the exact images they imagine because they don't specify the art style accurately enough in their prompts.
That's why today I want to focus on the different art styles that you can use in your Midjourney prompts to get better results.
What I'm going to share in this article won't all be art styles and movements, but also some cool keywords that you can use to generate great images. For example, the keyword "Pixar" isn't a specific art style but it will help generate an image in a certain way.
I will also provide you with some good prompt examples for some of the art styles I mention in this article.
Before I start talking about the different art styles you can use in Midjourney, I want to note that each image shared in this article was made using the latest iteration of the AI model at the time of writing this article. In other words, they were made with Midjourney v5.
15 Popular Midjourney Art Styles
I'm going to start by sharing some of the more popular styles people use in Midjourney. These are styles that I often come across in the public Discord server for this AI image generation tool.
Steampunk is a style that's often used in Midjourney. It represents a subgenre of science fiction that represents retro-futuristic technology. This art style showcases how people in the 19th century imagined the future. Let me show you an example.
/imagine steampunk steam-powered vehicle resembling a flying car
With the prompt above, I was able to generate the following images.
Psychedelic art represents a style that doesn't need much introduction. It works great if you want to generate mind-bending and abstract images. Here is a prompt that I used to generate images in this style.
/imagine psychedelic art showing an eye staring into the window to a person's soul, repetitive patterns, trippy, weird, abstract, ethereal, otherworldly --ar 16:9
Glitch art is a style that will almost always provide you with incredible results in Midjourney. This is a style that incorporates errors or glitches for aesthetic purposes. It is meant to appear as if the image has been corrupted in some way. Here's an example.
/imagine glitch art portrait of a young woman that is half human and half machine in a dystopian world
That fourth image looks like it could be a movie poster. Glitch art made in Midjourney never ceases to amaze me!
Watercolor art represents one of the oldest styles in the world. It has been used since the Paleolithic times. If you want to create something in Midjourney that looks like a painting instead of a digital image, you should try using the watercolor art keywords. Here is an example.
/imagine watercolor art painting showing the great pyramid opening up to release an ancient spacecraft that was hidden underneath it for millenia
This is certainly an abstract image, and I like the way it turned out even though it's not how I initially imagined it.
Minimalism is another popular Midjourney art style. I think that this style doesn't need an introduction, so I won't give you a prompt example of it. You can simply include keywords such as "minimalism" and "minimalistic art" in your prompts. However, I will give you an example of a minimalist style called flat design.
Even if you're not familiar with the term "flat design" you have seen countless examples of it on the internet. It's a style that is mostly used in graphical user interfaces. Bright colors, crisp edges, and an overall clean aesthetic characterize this style. Here's an example.
/imagine flat design poster promoting a Chinese restaurant that focuses on food delivery, clean, bright colors, takeout, food delivery --ar 2:3
I really like the third and fourth images here. If you don't know, I want to mention that as of right now you can't instruct Midjourney to generate the text you want in its images. This feature will get added to a future iteration of the model. For now, you can edit the text using software like Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop.
Cyberpunk is a similar art style to steampunk in the sense that it focuses on a futuristic setting. This style emphasizes a combination of lowlife and high-tech. It works great on both portraits and landscape images.
/imagine cyberpunk portrait of a young woman wearing cheap torn clothing and holding a weapon in her hand with a futuristic city in the background, dark and detailed, intricate, ultra realistic, headshot, 8k, octane render
I added some keywords to this prompt that will help it appear more photorealistic, such as "intricate" and "octane render". I think it worked since the third image here is especially realistic.
Vaporwave is a visual art style that I see people often using to make images in Midjourney. It's a style that usually incorporates early Internet imagery. I love to use this style to generate landscape images of futuristic cities. Let me show you an example.
/imagine Vaporwave style image of a neon futuristic city, purple, dark blue, bright green, neon --ar 16:9
I included some colors here that I wanted to see. This is a cool trick that will help increase the chances of generating the images that you want.
If you spend any amount of time in the public Midjourney Discord server, you'll quickly see a lot of people generating images in an anime art style. Here is an example of what you can create in an anime style.
/imagine an anime style portrait of a man dressed in a business suit holding a mystical book radiating a bright green light, fantasy, ethereal, wondrous --ar 2:3
Surrealism is a cultural movement and art style that originated in the early 20th century. One of the major figures of surrealism is the legendary artist Salvador Dali. If you want to create an image in this art style that resembles the works of Salvador Dali, you can include his name in the prompt.
/imagine surrealism art style oil painting in the style of Salvador Dali showing how the unconscious mind perceives the evolution of life on Earth --ar 16:9
Art Deco is an art style that initially became popular in France during the 1910s before being widely used in the United States in the following few decades. This style emphasizes bold geometry and rich colors. Here is an example of an image generated in this style.
/imagine art deco style image showing the interior of a hotel filled with luxury items, photorealistic, rich colors, 1920s luxury --ar 16:9
Abstract art is often used to create cool images in Midjourney. I like creating abstract art, as it's one of the few styles where less is more. Sometimes, you only need a few words in your prompt to create abstract art. I'll show you the following example.
/imagine abstract art painting displaying cognitive dissonance
Impressionism is one of the most recognized art styles in history. It was a 19th-century art movement developed by some of the most notable French artists, including Monet, Paul Cezanne, and Edgar Degas.
/imagine impressionism style painting showing a person staring at ancient ruins --ar 16:9
Cave painting is one of my favorite art styles in Midjourney. I especially like to use it to create something I'd like to see on an episode of Ancient Aliens. Apart from cave painting, you can also use the keyword "ancient art" to get similar results. Here is a prompt I wrote for this art style.
/imagine cave painting showing an alien spacecraft flying over a primitive civilization, ancient art --ar 16:9
Hyperrealism represents an art style that started to become popular in the 1970s. It's a style that aims to resemble a high-resolution photograph. You can effectively use it in Midjourney for amazing results.
/imagine hyperrealism style close-up portrait of a very old but charming man, noticable wrinkles on his face, his eyes filled with knowledge and experience --ar 2:3
From what I’ve observed in the public Midjourney Discord server, I’d say that these are the most popular art styles used by people who interact with this AI model. However, there are additional styles that I’d like to mention since using them produces truly beautiful results.
18 More Popular Midjourney Art Styles
I talked about what I'd say are the most popular Midjourney art styles in the previous section of the article. I'm now going to mention additional art styles (and keywords that will help you get a certain result from your prompts), but this time I won't show you the end result. Instead, I want you to experiment with these styles in Midjourney.
Here are 18 more popular art styles people use in Midjourney:
Atompunk - A distinct and bright-colored art style that depicts the future as people from the 1950s and 1960s imagined it.
Pencil Drawing - You can make images generated in Midjourney look like they were drawn with a pencil by including the “pencil drawing” keyword in your prompt.
Fractalism - Do you like making abstract images that include repetitive patterns? If so, you can mention the fractalism style in your prompts.
Crayon Art - It’s always fun to look at art drawn with crayons. Use this keyword to get amazing results in Midjourney.
Chalk Art - If you use the chalk art style in your prompts, you should specify the color of the chalk. It can be a specific color or multicolored. If you want white chalk to be used in your images, it’s best to make sure the background is dark green.
Afrofuturism - The Afrofuturism visual art style is centered on Black history and culture. It contains elements of advanced technology, futurism, and science fiction.
Cubism - Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso are famous for this avant-garde art movement. It involves analyzing the subject in works of art, breaking it up into parts, and reassembling them in an abstract form.
2D Illustration - Two-dimensional art includes shapes that are completely flat. They comprise only sides and corners.
Pixar - Although it’s not a specific art style, Pixar movies have a certain flair to them. That’s why I recommend you use the “Pixar” or “Pixar style” keywords in prompts that will make images look like they’re straight from a 3D animated movie.
Gothic - The Gothic art style was developed during the 12th century and spread all across Western Europe.
Polaroid - If you want your images to feature a retro photography aesthetic, you should use “polaroid” related keywords in your prompts.
Art Nouveau - This is an art style that was popular from the 1890s to World War I, and is inspired by plant forms and nature.
Pop Art - Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein are the most prominent figures of the pop art movement. It became popular during the 1950s and is characterized by imagery from popular and mass culture.
Coloring Book - Make your images appear like it’s straight out of a coloring book by using this keyword in your prompts.
Fantasy - If you want to include fantasy elements in images you generate, simply include the “fantasy” or “fantasy art” keywords in your prompts. You can also use the “dark fantasy” keyword for a darker aesthetic.
Low Poly - Low poly art is also called low polygon art. It's a style that is supposed to be used to create images that favor straightforward geometry and colors over life-like art. It's mainly used for illustrations, video game design, and animation.
Pixel Art - Pixel art is associated with low-resolution graphics from the age of 8-bit and 16-bit computers but it remains a popular style to this day. Midjourney can produce awesome pixel art.
It would be impossible for me to list every art style and movement in existence, so I'm certainly missing a lot here. My intent was to focus on the most popular art styles I've seen people using in Midjourney.
I advise that you continue researching and learning about different styles and keywords you can incorporate into your prompts.
Make Better Midjourney Images With These Art Styles
There is no doubt that using the art styles mentioned in this article when you're writing Midjourney prompts will help you get better results.
What's great about Midjourney is that you use your creativity to mix and match different styles and see what type of results you'll get. AI image generation models like Midjourney enable you to easily express your creativity as much as possible.
Once you enter a prompt, an image will usually be generated within 60 seconds. That means that you can experiment with all of the art styles I mentioned in this article in less than an hour.
