what I did: I helped shape the creative direction and AI video pipeline for Shepard Fairey’s The Art of AI keynote at Canva Create 2025

date: may 2025

For Canva Create 2025, I collaborated with Shepard Fairey on The Art of AI, a keynote experience exploring how artists can extend their visual language through next-generation generative tools. Drawing from twenty-four curated works from Fairey’s 2024 Swan Song exhibition and a bespoke model trained on his signature motifs , our team developed an advanced visual pipeline that transformed live footage and static imagery into cinematic, Fairey-inspired sequences.

My role focused on shaping the creative direction and production workflow for the activation. I collaborated with Shepard throughout the design process, advising on how his graphic vocabulary translated into our AI systems, and crafting prompt structures and aesthetic guidelines that maintained the integrity of his visual language. I also guided the development teams on integrating two experimental pipelines highlighted in the deck — a realtime “synesthesia” visualizer capable of transforming live video into Fairey’s style and a generative video pipeline for controlled, keyframed animation and time-based storytelling.

The final experience combined Shepard’s filmed segment with rich generative backdrops referencing his patterns, palettes, and political iconography, ultimately showcased on stage at Canva Create This work demonstrated how traditional craft and AI tooling can coexist — not by replacing the artist, but by expanding what’s possible within their world of symbols, color systems, and visual rhythm.

Created for Leonardo.Ai and Canva