Introduction: Ideogram AI is a platform that generates images based on text. Its biggest advantage is that it is easy to use, free, and has no generation limits, making it a strong competitor to MJ and SD.
AI painting is a popular field in artificial intelligence, allowing AI to generate various styles of images based on text or images, such as 3D, film, portrait photography, illustration, posters, paintings, cartoons, and doodles. Currently, there are two well-known AI painting platforms on the market: Midjourney and Stable Diffusion. However, both platforms have some drawbacks: Midjourney requires payment and only supports English, while Stable Diffusion, although open source and free, requires self-deployment and has unstable effects.
So, is there a free and easy-to-use AI painting platform? The answer is yes, and it is Ideogram AI.
What is Ideogram AI?
Ideogram AI is a platform that generates images based on text. On August 29, 2023, it announced the cancellation of trial application restrictions and opened Ideogram v0.1 version for free to everyone. Its website is:
Ideogram AI can generate more than 10 styles of images based on text (such as printing effects, photo effects, film effects, 3D effects, etc.), and it can deeply understand the meaning of the text and generate image effects comparable to Midjourney.
The biggest advantage of Ideogram AI is - no geographical restrictions. Currently, it is very difficult to use Midjourney in China, requiring a complex account activation process and expensive fees. Ideogram AI only requires login and account registration, which is very convenient for most users.
The Team and Technology behind Ideogram AI
Ideogram AI was founded on August 22, 2023, and in less than 10 days, it attracted over 90,000 seed users, generated over 3 million images, and received a $16.5 million seed round investment led by a16z and Index Ventures.
The co-founder and CTO of Ideogram AI, Dr. Chen Junle, is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Waterloo. He previously worked as a research scientist at Google Brain and has rich development experience in diffusion models and Imagen.
In terms of technology, Ideogram AI can directly embed text into images, supporting multiple fonts and text styles. It can generate four images with different effects at once, supporting three aspect ratios: 10:16, 16:10, and 1:1. The text prompting method is basically the same as Midjourney.
How to Use Ideogram AI?
Using Ideogram AI is very simple, just follow these steps:
Step 1: Open the website and register/login. When the application was first launched, there was a waiting queue, but now you can use it for free by logging in with your Google account.
Step 2: Enter the prompt words and select the style and aspect ratio. After entering the main interface, users can enter the description of the image they want to generate in the text input box. Note that currently only English is supported.
Next, users can select the image style below. The application has launched 18 styles, including "layout," "painting," or "3D," etc. If the user clicks "Lucky style," the system will randomly generate the corresponding style.
If you want to customize the text in the image, just add "With text 'xxx'" to the prompt of the image, and it will generate an image with the text "xxx."
Step 3: Click the "Generate" button and wait a few minutes to generate four images.
Step 4: Select the desired image and click the "Download" button to download the image to your local device.
What are the Applications of Ideogram AI?
Ideogram AI can be used in various creative and design scenarios, such as:
Generating funny images, such as "a picture of an angry cartoon bird holding a sign 'I copied your work, but I had worse results,' cinematic, typography, photo, 3D render, illustration, anime."
Designing text logos or artistic fonts, such as "Company logo 'Macove' simple art white fox, 3D render, anime, vibrant."
Generating movie posters, such as "a movie poster by Disney Pixar, with visible prominent text in full view that spells 'KETAMINA,' tranquil WHITE HORSE sat on a pile of white powder, typography, 3D render."
What are the Pros and Cons of Ideogram AI?
As an AI painting platform, Ideogram AI has the following advantages:
Free unlimited generation, no need for payment or deployment.
No geographical restrictions, only need a Google account to use.
Supports the generation of images in multiple styles and aspect ratios.
Ability to customize text and fonts.
High-quality generation results comparable to Midjourney.
However, Ideogram AI also has the following disadvantages:
Only supports English input, does not support Chinese or other languages.
Cannot zoom in or out of images.
Difficult to present rare or complex words.
Sometimes spelling errors or inconsistencies between text and images may occur.