ai in THE creative PROCESS
ai in THE creative PROCESS
AI has the answers, but it's the human that has the questions. The thinking, the instinct, the ability to know when something’s right and when it isn’t — that’s still a designer. Always will be. What I’ve used AI for is get there faster, handle the repetitive, and free up the headspace for the parts that actually matter. It’s a tool. A good one. But a tool that needs an idea and the creative thinking behind it to be worth anything at all.
AI doesn’t have ideas. It has answers — and only to the questions you know how to ask. The thinking, the instinct, the ability to know when something’s right and when it isn’t — that’s still a designer. Always will be. What I’ve used AI for is get there faster, handle the repetitive, and free up the headspace for the parts that actually matter. It’s a tool. A good one. But a tool that needs an idea and the creative thinking behind it to be worth anything at all.
AI has the answers, but it's the human that has the questions. The thinking, the instinct, the ability to know when something’s right and when it isn’t — that’s still a designer. Always will be. What I’ve used AI for is get there faster, handle the repetitive, and free up the headspace for the parts that actually matter. It’s a tool. A good one. But a tool that needs an idea and the creative thinking behind it to be worth anything at all.
Beat the Street gave us a Wall Street-inspired key visual — a final boss built within the IG brand — and a launch deadline that ruled out a conventional animation process. Using GoogleVEO, Nano Banana and Claude, we crafted prompts built on the original Wall Street research to animate the asset realistically, adding movement without losing the integrity of what made it work as a static. The result was a micro interaction-style motion piece — CTA bounces, phone spin, built to feel native to the app environment it was designed to live in. Not straightforward. There were iterations, refinements and restarts — the same creative process, just faster. Delivered across multiple channels including CRM, performance marketing and organic social.
The outcome: half the production time, the same standard of work. An efficient crafting process with a designer behind the thinking and AI behind the doing, a small insight in how this human and AI collaboration can help with the day-to-day.
Beat the Street gave us a Wall Street-inspired key visual — a final boss built within the IG brand — and a launch deadline that ruled out a conventional animation process. Using GoogleVEO, Nano Banana and Claude, we crafted prompts built on the original Wall Street research to animate the asset realistically, adding movement without losing the integrity of what made it work as a static. The result was a micro interaction-style motion piece — CTA bounces, phone spin, built to feel native to the app environment it was designed to live in. Not straightforward. There were iterations, refinements and restarts — the same creative process, just faster. Delivered across multiple channels including CRM, performance marketing and organic social.
The outcome: half the production time, the same standard of work. An efficient crafting process with a designer behind the thinking and AI behind the doing, a small insight in how this human and AI collaboration can help with the day-to-day.
The same thinking, a different brief. IG's CRM hero assets needed life — not a full animation overhaul, but enough movement to stop the scroll and hold attention in an inbox. Starting from the existing brand illustrations, the idea was simple: Keeping Investing on the Move. Pace and momentum as the creative territory, motion as the way in.
Using AI to bring static brand assets to life, the process was the same as it always is — scribbling out, starting over, refining until it felt right. As the designer, I was still at the centre of every decision, directing the tool rather than following it. Looking at every little detail, from changing the crypto logo on the coin to a GBP symbol, to tweaking the angle of the paper plane so it felt more natural. The brief was to add character and energy to illustrations that were already warm and personable, without cheapening what made them work in the first place. Movement that felt native to the asset, not applied on top of it.
The outcome: CRM hero assets with genuine motion, built from existing brand illustrations, at a fraction of the time a traditional animation process would have demanded. Workflow accelerated. Standard maintained. The brand still recognisably, unmistakably IG.
The same thinking, a different brief. IG's CRM hero assets needed life — not a full animation overhaul, but enough movement to stop the scroll and hold attention in an inbox. Starting from the existing brand illustrations, the idea was simple: Keeping Investing on the Move. Pace and momentum as the creative territory, motion as the way in.
Using AI to bring static brand assets to life, the process was the same as it always is — scribbling out, starting over, refining until it felt right. As the designer, I was still at the centre of every decision, directing the tool rather than following it. Looking at every little detail, from changing the crypto logo on the coin to a GBP symbol, to tweaking the angle of the paper plane so it felt more natural. The brief was to add character and energy to illustrations that were already warm and personable, without cheapening what made them work in the first place. Movement that felt native to the asset, not applied on top of it.
The outcome: CRM hero assets with genuine motion, built from existing brand illustrations, at a fraction of the time a traditional animation process would have demanded. Workflow accelerated. Standard maintained. The brand still recognisably, unmistakably IG.