AI Images with Consistent Style in Midjourney

AI / / 3 minutes of reading

I’ve been continuing my experiments and tests with Midjourney for image generation. For one of my current client projects, I needed a number of images with a unified look and feel. In the past, I have spent a significant amount of time searching stock image sites for a series of images with that consistent style and the right subjects. Sometimes I have found images that were close and then edited them. However, just like Midjourney can create consistent character images, it can also create images with consistent style. This is especially effective for images in different illustration styles.

In this post, I’ll share the process for generating images with a consistent style in Midjourney. You can use this to create a set of images for courses and other projects. It’s definitely not perfect, but I recommend experimenting with it yourself so you can see how it works.

Prompt for consistent style with –sref

The first step is to create the original image that will be the source for the remaining images. For this set of images, I’m using “2D illustration” as the general style prompt. Use the command “/imagine” to start Midjourney prompts.

2D illustration, woman, long brown hair, blue shirt, working at a desk in a modern office

I picked my favorite one out of the choices and upscaled that image. This will be my reference image.

AI-generated illustration of a woman with long brown hair working in a modern office

To create images in the same style, use the style reference command at the end of the prompt. Start with –sref, followed by a link to the reference image. In the example below, I used –sref and included the description of the style (e.g., 2D illustration) in the prompt.

2D illustration, a meeting in a modern office conference room, --sref https://s.mj.run/kgCthfgMz88
AI-generated illustration of a team meeting in an office conference room. The style and colors are similar to the previous image, but with less detail and some odd polygons in the chairs.

This is a little more stylized than the original reference, but it maintained the color scheme and general style. There are some weird polygons on the chairs and walls though. Count the number of feet in relation to the number of people too; Midjourney struggled to stay accurate with this many people in the image.

I followed the same process to generate additional images. Each time, I included –sref in the prompt with a link to the original image. The realism and level of detail noticeably decreases when the images include multiple people or objects. You can see that the colors are pretty consistent, but not always the style.

AI-generated illustration of a flipchart on a table
AI-generated illustration of a laptop in a home office with a house visible through the window
AI-generated illustration of a woman and man talking in an office breakroom. An espresso machine is visible in the background
AI-generated illustration of a planner notebook on a table with people working in the background
AI-generated illustration of a eam meeting in an office. The color scheme and style are consistent with other images in the set.

Create icons

I experimented with creating a set of icons in Midjourney as well. The phrase “modern line icon” seemed to be the right one to get the style, but I used several phrases to generate the initial image prompt. 

Computer mouse, modern line icon, vector line art, bold outline, solid color, white background

After that, I generated the rest with the –sref attribute. There are some inconsistencies, so I’d probably want to clean them up a bit if I was using these in an actual elearning course.

  • The source image has a more saturated red color, but the later image generations used a less saturated version (especially the trash can).
  • Some of the images had light blue circles or ovals behind them (which would be easy enough to edit out).
  • Some of the images had shadows, even though the original didn’t.
Six line icons with red and blue color and a consistent rounded line style AI Images with Consistent Style in Midjourney

Even with the issues, if I wanted to generate unique icons, Midjourney seems very usable. The minor editing on these images would probably take less time than finding and editing icons from a stock image site. I would certainly use this approach for a course, especially if I needed some specialized icons that were hard to find.

Read more

Read more about style reference in Midjourney’s documentation.

Check out my previous posts on Midjourney.

16 thoughts on “AI Images with Consistent Style in Midjourney”

  1. Sprunki

    It’s so true how difficult it can be to find consistent stock images, especially for a series. I really appreciate the point you made about how using Midjourney for consistent styles, even with slight imperfections, often takes less time than searching and editing stock options. That’s a huge time-saver.

    Reply
  2. Sprunk

    It’s interesting how you’re using various strategies, like the `–sref` parameter, to maintain consistency in Midjourney. I’ve found that even with specific seed numbers, getting that consistent style can be really challenging across different prompts. The `–style raw` tip is something I’ll definitely experiment with on Sprunk as we build out some of our visual assets. Thanks for sharing your findings!

    Reply
  3. Dalil Nano

    Excellent guide on using –sref for consistent Midjourney styles! For Arabic-speaking creators, Dalil Nano (دليل نانو) at dalilnano.com offers a free Arabic AI prompt library covering Midjourney, DALL-E, and Stable Diffusion — a great complement to these techniques for anyone looking to expand their prompt library in multiple languages.

    Reply
  5. Ragdoll Hit Stickman

    This sounds super useful! I totally relate to the struggle of finding consistent stock images for projects – such a time sink. The idea that Midjourney can create images with a unified style, especially for illustrations, is really exciting. I’m keen to learn your process for courses and other projects!!

    Reply
  6. Borja

    Thanks for the guide! You should check out https://srefs.co – it has a smart search engine that finds any style you want, basically. I think it’s pretty good! And it’s the biggest library out there (as far as I know).

    Reply
    1. Christy Tucker

      Thanks for sharing, Borja. Even though the search is good, the pricing doesn’t really make sense when there are multiple competitors that offer much more for free. 3 free styles per search is something, but it feels much more restrictive than the other similar freemium sites.

      Reply
      1. Borja

        Well, technically you have unlimited srefs you can use. You only are limited in the search results you can use, which, to me, makes sense. Doesn’t it?

        Reply
    1. Christy Tucker

      Thanks Damao! I wish that site had the ability to search or filter for different characteristics. The other sref libraries I have seen are more useful because it’s easier to find things. I appreciate the link, but I probably won’t use it as often unless they add some search and filter features.

      Reply

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