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The tools have changed but great creative thinking still starts with our craft.

It's fascinating looking back at Dominator, a campaign we created for Domus Ventilation back in 2018.

Today, a project like this would undoubtedly benefit from AI. We could rapidly explore concepts, generate dozens of visual directions in hours instead of days, test compositions, experiment with environments and accelerate many parts of the creative process.

Back then, none of that existed.

Every stage had to be carefully designed, drawn and engineered by hand.

The process began with pages of rough sketches, exploring proportions, poses and how each individual ventilation product could become part of a believable robotic character. We weren't asking AI to "make a robot from ventilation products." We were solving the problem ourselves - piece by piece.

Every duct, grille, connector and component had to be considered. How would it fit? Could it become a shoulder? An arm? A knee joint? Would the silhouette still feel powerful? Would people instantly recognise the products while still believing in the character?

Only once the concept was resolved did production begin.

Each product was recreated as an accurate 3D asset before being assembled into the final character. Then came weeks of modelling, texturing, lighting, rendering and compositing, refining every reflection, material and shadow until Dominator felt like it genuinely existed.

And the work didn't stop there.

Once the CGI build was complete, it became the foundation for an entire integrated campaign. From press advertising and trade publications to exhibition graphics, animated GIFs, digital banners, social media content and point-of-sale materials, one carefully crafted digital asset was repurposed across countless applications.

That's something people often overlook with CGI.

The real investment isn't in producing one hero image - it's in building a flexible digital asset that can be used again and again, creating enormous long-term value for a brand.

Today, AI has transformed the speed of that workflow.

Instead of spending days sketching a single direction, we can now explore fifty. Instead of manually building quick visual concepts, we can prototype ideas in minutes before deciding which deserve full production. It allows us to spend more time evaluating creative possibilities and less time producing throwaway concepts.

But here's the important point.

AI hasn't replaced the craft.

It hasn't replaced strategic thinking.

It hasn't replaced knowing why a shoulder should be bigger, why a pose feels more heroic, why one silhouette is instantly recognisable and another isn't.

Those decisions still come from experience.

The difference today is that AI helps us reach the right answer much faster.

Looking back at Dominator reminds us how much our workflows have evolved. What once took weeks of sketching, visual development and concept iteration can now be explored in a fraction of the time. Yet the principles remain exactly the same: start with a strong idea, solve the creative problem, build with purpose and create something memorable.

The tools have changed dramatically over the past eight years.

The thinking behind great creative work hasn't.

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