# Magic, Risk, and Vogue's Stunning AI Cover **Date de l'événement :** 20/08/2025 * Publié le 20/08/2025 ## Description ### Hugo Barbera's Journey from Traditional Ad Creative to Generative Visionary ![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!V3WL!,w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3ed2065b-9778-480b-96f7-be80cfec26ea_1368x1782.png) When Hugo Barbera sent his AI-generated fashion images to Vogue Portugal in 2022, the editors didn't even know what they were looking at. "They were like, okay, what's this? These images are really cool, but what is this? A painting? How did you build this?" Today, Hugo is one of advertising's most sought-after creatives pioneering AI work with the biggest brands on the planet. Advertising has always thrived on reinvention. But when delivering for the world's most iconic companies, do you build on decades of established creative excellence or venture where many are still afraid to go? Hugo has lived both sides of that question. An award-winning art director and co-founder of [Humain](https://www.humainmade.com/), he has spent nearly two decades shaping campaigns for brands like Nike, Coca-Cola, Volkswagen, and Vogue. His work has been exhibited all over the world, from Milan to Paris to New York, and he has been a keynote speaker at major global stages like Cannes Lions and Digital Fashion Week. And he's led more than 30 AI-powered projects, including the 2022 Vogue Portugal AI editorial and the first-ever AI fashion film to win a major award. Barbera calls generative AI "magic," but he's not drinking the Kool Aid without a discerning perspective. He's candid about its limits, ethical contradictions, and impact on jobs. Yet, he remains convinced that creatives who embrace these tools will outpace those who don't. This article presents excerpts from our longer conversation. Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and brevity. For the full discussion: [📺](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AX4ikK-9qMY) _[Watch the full conversation on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOue-FiQ_3c)_ * * * Interview Excerpts ------------------ **Siddhi:** You've spent nearly two decades in advertising and fashion. What sparked your shift from traditional creative craft to embracing generative AI as a core part of your offering? **Hugo:** Five years ago, I quit advertising, so I started working for startups in London doing web design. I was teaching creative innovation in a well-recognized advertising school. So actually, I started learning AI to teach my students in very early stages. I realized that I could be using it in my work doing brand design, whether it was just to make concepts or presentations or even to fill some gaps that maybe the clients didn't have enough money to go for a CGI artist. So I could be making CGI-style visuals… So it was almost instantly that I started and I started actually doing paid job with AI. ### "It was during the second week using AI that I saw you could actually make meaningful things." **Siddhi:** When did you first realize that AI wasn't just a toy, but a medium that could deliver real creative outcomes? **Hugo:** I remember that it was summer. We were just hanging out at the beach at my parents' villa, and I was already digging a lot into AI. At some point I told my wife, "Okay, look, I just made a fashion editorial with Midjourney V3." And she was like, "Yes, these images are cool, but this is not a fashion editorial." So what we did was to use the usual process that we do for any other commercial or editorial project, which was to start with thinking a concept, developing a moodboard, and then starting just with that seed in mind, not going to the AI just to do something, but actually something meaningful… We had the images that we sent to Vogue. It was during the second week using AI that I saw that you could actually make meaningful things. * * * **Siddhi:** What was the conversation like with Vogue when it came to pursuing an AI-forward project? **Hugo:** When we explained the project at the beginning, they were like, "Okay, what's this? These images are really cool, but this is a painting. Or how did you build this?" Because they didn't know even what AI was at that moment. I mean, many people didn't know it when we sent it, it was maybe three weeks or four weeks that Midjourney went public and that ChatGPT was also starting to be public. So they started digging on it, asking us some questions on how we create it. We showed them about the process… and they were like, "Okay, so you put some text here and you get these images? That's amazing." It was the 20th anniversary, and they spoke about the new era and things coming on. It was good for them because it was a nice project to speak about the future, but they weren't expecting that. And at the beginning they were like, "Okay, what is this? I mean, it's beautiful, but we don't understand this." * * * **Siddhi:** What's the sell when it comes to clients? How do you get them on board? **Hugo:** Obviously it's going to be cheaper. I mean, we can easily lower the price by between 60 and 80% and still making a lot of money. But then there are the creative possibilities, which sometimes… now we have a creative possibility that the other way to do this would have been literally impossible for that brand to pay for that. They were not going to pay 200,000 for a 15-second video, for example. And now you can do it. Not for that price, obviously. So it gives a lot more of creative freedom. ### "The only way I can describe it is like magic." **Siddhi:** How does the speed of AI allow you deeper creative reflection, and where do you still draw the line for human-led artistry? **Hugo:** The speed of producing… gives me the chances that actually I can think the idea, but I can see it live. Even if it's not perfect, I can see it live in half an hour or one hour and see if it works or not. And keep iterating it and changing it. And that's very magical… Last year I was hosting the masterclass at Cannes… I was doing a whole photoshoot of six photos or something like that for a car in seven minutes… One of these visuals used to take me 2 or 3 days to produce when I was working at the agencies. Now in eight minutes I could do actually not six, but 12. That feels like magic… It's absolutely incredible. I mean, I don't think we have seen anything as powerful as this. **Siddhi:** And the reason you're able to do that in those 7 or 8 minutes is because you're Hugo Barbera, right? It's because of the years and years and years of experience that you bring to the table. Because I think there is this misconception that anyone can pick up the technology and create a world class campaign in five minutes. And I don't think that's true. **Hugo:** No, no, I'm absolutely sure that's not true… But anyone having the knowledge I have… I mean, they know the angles that we need, the things that we need to be perfect, the things that we need… You get it by knowledge of years of working and learning from other creatives…when I'm working on fashion editorials, of course, my wife is super important, but we get help from our makeup artists, for example, because they know about makeup. I don't know anything about makeup, and they can say, “This is the makeup that you should be using here.” **Siddhi:** There's so much debate around ethics and ownership. What are you actually seeing play out with your clients? **Hugo:** Ethics is a difficult word to mix with AI because everything was trained illegally. So I don't think we should be using AI ethics ever… But no one in three years has ever asked me about the copyright of these images. No client at all. No client asked me about where I was hosting or how things were trained. Anyone? I just got one request of a client after we started the project saying that we needed to do generic terms because they build, they take photographs. So they told us, "Do not use any car name, any model name, do not use any picture of reference." And I was like, okay, so I cannot use a picture of reference, but I can use five billions of pictures that were used to train the AI. So that was a bit stupid. ### “ChatGPT cannot have good ideas.” **Siddhi:** How do you see AI reshaping the ad industry in the next five to ten years? **Hugo:** I honestly think there is going to be a big shift to smaller, smaller entities, smaller agencies. There is going to be a big shift in the industry in how things are organized, because small teams will be able to deliver a lot of work. People with a very high background will be delivering very fast, very high-end results. Last time I went into an agency, one day I did 12 visuals. My wife, who is not art director or doesn't know how to use Photoshop, did another 12 visuals and the art directors took two weeks to make two visuals. That cannot happen right now… And then from the creative side itself… I think the importance of the ideas is going to be the key. People who have ideas is going to have work for sure, because that's something that AI cannot have. ChatGPT cannot have good ideas. I mean, it's very, very hard. ### "Sometimes I think that I would rather that it didn't exist." **Siddhi:** Many creatives still feel threatened by AI. What would you say to people who are feeling fear and resistance today? **Hugo:** Sometimes I think that I would rather that it didn't exist. I mean, my friends who work in advertising, my friends are photographers, film directors, makeup artists, stylists. My wife is also an artist, but she's a fashion stylist and many jobs are going to be lost. That's a fact… But I think they have to start just by enjoying it, try it and enjoying, because as soon as they see that they can bring their ideas to life in a way they could never imagine, they are going to love it… As soon as every creative tries to do something, they instantly start doing more because it's like, "Come on, I just had this idea because there was no possibility to do it. Maybe it was just a photoshoot, but they couldn't have access just for fun to a high-end photography. And now you can do something very high-end. So just start and enjoy. * * * Hugo's story isn't about abandoning the old for the new. His AI work succeeds precisely because it's built on time-tested creative craft that wins an audience. The Vogue cover only works because he knows what visuals matter, which details clients obsess over, how to iterate toward perfection. These are the irreplaceable part of creative work and human originality that I describe [here](https://siddhisnewsletter.substack.com/i/171014302/irreplaceable-your-signature), the parts that artists should protect at all costs. Hugo is a compass for thoughtful AI adoption by skilled practitioners who understand both what they're gaining and what they're giving up. In his own words, it really can be magic, but only when wielded by the right hands. * * * _✉️ Inspired by Hugo's vision for advertising's future? Share this piece with someone in your creative network and subscribe for more conversations shaping how we tell stories in the age of machines._ ### Date 20/08/2025 **Source :** [https://siddhisnewsletter.substack.com/p/magic-risk-and-vogues-stunning-ai](https://siddhisnewsletter.substack.com/p/magic-risk-and-vogues-stunning-ai) ### Sujets `#Culture / Arts` `#Créativité` `#Intelligence artificielle (AI & GenAI)` `#Numérique et technologie` **Vidéos / Audios embarqués :** [Vidéo 1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOue-FiQ_3c) --- ### Navigation pour IA - [Index de tous les contenus](https://weare.my-memory.io/llms.txt) - [Plan du site (Sitemap)](https://weare.my-memory.io/sitemap.xml) - [Retour à l'accueil](https://weare.my-memory.io/)