"craft an image" is a perfectly acceptable phrase used in written English.
It is typically used to mean to create an image, or to carefully compose or design something, usually for artistic or expressive purposes. For example, "The artist carefully crafted an image of a setting sun to capture the peacefulness of dusk."
"These guys craft an image," said Fred Martens, former director of the Pennsylvania Organized Crime Commission.
I wanted to craft an image that would cause people to step back from their preconceived biases.
The rugby union player Peter Fatialofa was a prop forward who captained Samoa at the 1991 World Cup and helped craft an image of Samoan rugby which mixed physical prowess with gentleness and humility.
Allowing students to stand in front of exhibits for hours on end, as they lovingly craft an image of that 1950s Playtex rubber girdle in their sketchbooks, just doesn't allow the conveyor belt of visitors to flow fast enough.
The crown prince, a young leader known as "MBS," has made great efforts to craft an image as a reformer and modernizer and to endear himself to the West.
"That's where I learned how to organize and channel the creative muse, create from nothing, generate and refine a sound, capture an emotion and craft an image," said Mr. Smith, who now plays mostly cover songs in the band Wrist Rocket.
Mr. Daley carefully crafted an image as the chief executive of a city government that operated like a corporation.
Perhaps no one embodied the spirit of carefully crafting an image more than Michael Jordan, the biggest sports star of his era.
Your May 28 article "In a Vulnerable Year for Republicans, Just How Vulnerable Is Sue Kelly?," about New York's 19th Congressional District, notes that Representative Sue W. Kelly "has spent more than a decade carefully crafting an image as a moderate independent Republican".
It's plain now that Savile exploited his fame as an entertainer ruthlessly, crafting an image as an indefatigable charity worker in order to gain unfettered access to vulnerable people and abuse them.
From nothing but gall and patter, Tonken had crafted an image of himself as the ultimate celebrity wrangler, able to deliver performers from Red Buttons to Natalie Cole to lend glitz to fundraising events.
