The University of Birmingham approached me to create a series of custom illustrations guiding students and staff through their new AI platform. With artificial intelligence often perceived as an intimidating, overly complex concept, the brief called for a distinctly human touch, using hand-drawn visuals to keep the technology approachable, friendly, and grounded.
To ensure the visuals felt completely authentic, the illustration needed to feel genuinely drawn by hand rather than generated or synthetic. I worked in Adobe Fresco on the iPad, which allowed me to draw directly with natural textures while strictly adhering to the university’s distinctive brand colours. Crucially, Fresco enabled me to record every stroke as a continuous timelapse, capturing the real-time process of each concept taking shape on screen.
The university’s talented Creative Media team then took the raw timelapse recordings, expertly editing and animating them into a dynamic explainer video complete with a warm, human voiceover. The finished film breaks down a complex topic into an engaging, accessible guide, proving that even the most futuristic technology benefits from genuine creative craft.
A massive thank you to the University of Birmingham Creative Media team for their fantastic collaboration in bringing these drawings to life.
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