The illustration is allowed to be a metaphor

A paper boat carrying coins makes a charming illustration about cash flow. It does not establish how much money any app earns.

That distinction is easy to preserve when the image is clearly conceptual. It becomes less clear when generated art resembles a real dashboard, testimonial or earnings screenshot.

Choose the image’s job

An editorial illustration can establish tone, explain a metaphor or make an article recognizable. A product capture demonstrates a real interface. A chart communicates measured or explicitly hypothetical quantities. Decide which job you need before creating the visual.

For a hypothetical app-business article, an original illustration of invoices and a small boat can make the topic approachable without inventing a result. A fake revenue dashboard would create unnecessary ambiguity.

Keep numerical visuals reproducible

Build charts from the underlying data and preserve the inputs. Label estimates and hypothetical scenarios on the chart or immediately beside it. Do not ask an image model to improvise precise axes, values or comparisons.

For screenshots, use legitimate access, remove unnecessary account information and avoid presenting another product’s interface as your own.

Design for the actual page

Check mobile cropping, alt text, contrast and file size. A large decorative image should not make the useful article slow to arrive. A caption can explain when the image is conceptual or when a screenshot was captured.

Keep a simple asset ledger with the source or generation prompt, usage rights where relevant, local file path and purpose. This makes future edits and attribution easier.

The visual should help the reader enter or understand the story. It does not need to masquerade as evidence to earn its place.

Let the metaphor be a metaphor, let the data be data, and make the difference obvious enough that a quick scroll cannot confuse the two.