Philippe Intraligi on using an ai tool which feels authentic and interactive

Philippe Intraligi has trained an exactly.ai model on his late grandfather’s drawings to complete a storybook from his childhood.

Continuing a legacy with AI

I have a large collection of my grandfather, Julius Langkusch’s, drawings, spanning from his early work in the 1920s and 30s right through to the time when I knew him. He would often share these wild stories from his childhood with me.

There was one summer when all the frogs had come up onto the bank of the local pond and he and his friends grabbed straws and blew the frogs up like balloons to make them float - they weren’t very environmentally conscious back then!

But clearly it had some innate appeal because as a kid it fascinated me, I would get him to tell me it over and over again.

Before he passed away he had gotten to work compiling all these stories into a book for me to have, each accompanied by delicate ink and watercolour illustrations. He was fantastic at drawing people, especially children, often in moments of pure wonder—chasing a butterfly, balancing on a fence, or just sharing a secret.

He was never able to finish the book, but he left me the draft and 100s of his illustrations from throughout his life.

I’ve made it my project to finish that book. I took a collection of his drawings and used them to train an exactly.ai model. Now I can add illustrations in his style to all the stories.

Continuing my grandfather's artistic legacy like this makes it feel like he's still here. I’m able to create new works in his style, bring his art into the 21st century, and share it with a wider audience.

Design history

I don't have the same illustrative skills as my grandfather, but it hasn't held me back from building a 20-year career in design. I've worked globally with Fortune 500 brands like Nike, Audi, IBM, Shutterstock, and BlackRock and founded my own design and branding studio, Studio Intraligi.

About 5 or 6 years ago, I transitioned into healthcare, working at Johnson & Johnson Global Design Team. There I oversaw the Pharma & Med Tech portfolio, building brand identities, supporting the product and marketing teams and designing patient support programs. A year in, the pandemic began, and I got to be part of the J&J COVID-19 vaccine development, designing everything from the packaging, IFU and communication. When the company decided to discontinue in-house design, my family and I relocated to Switzerland.

Throughout my career as a designer I've been very privileged to work with incredible teams. For me great design isn't just about the visual, it's also about fostering creative environments in which free collaboration can produce magic results. But when I experimented with AI tools I couldn’t achieve this feeling - instead I felt cut-off from the creative process.

Frustrations with other tools

Tools like Midjourney or Dall-E always left me feeling unsatisfied. They make it quick and easy to get results but it's like working in an echo chamber, just you and your prompt. I find that so isolating. There's no collaboration, no exchange of ideas that makes the process feel alive. Instead, it's just a one-sided exercise that ends up feeling hollow.

Good creative work is about meaningful interaction and emotional memory. Working together, sharing inspiration and creating something great from that process. Without this, using these tools just sapped my motivation to create and I got bored.

I also couldn't shake the feeling that I was just remixing other people's work and ideas. Sure, the prompt was mine, but that wasn't enough input on my side for me to feel like I was creating something genuinely new, or a part of me. It felt exploitative, as though I was appropriating other people's creativity.

This led me to start looking for an AI tool I could use to make something more personal and meaningful, something which allowed me to tell my unique story.

Turning to exactly.ai

That's why I like exactly.ai, instead of generic results, I can produce artwork which genuinely reflects the essence of a style. It has allowed me to work directly with my grandfather's illustrations, using it as a collaborator to make new images without losing their charm and uniqueness. It's like we're collaborating across time, making the creative process feel personal and meaningful again. In a way, I feel like I’m actually able to work with my grandfather to complete his collection of stories.

I also don’t have that guilty feeling of using other people’s work anymore. The assets belong to me and I have a personal connection with them. exactly.ai’s generations feel like a continuation of that, like there’s still a part of me, or my grandfather in them - making his work eternal.

The future of AI and branding

Aside from my personal projects, I see significant value in using generative algorithms for businesses. Currently, big brands have to be really careful around ownership because of complications over ownership when you dig into the terms and conditions of these other AI companies.

Small ventures and start-ups will definitely benefit though. They might not have the resources to hire a designer full-time but for a one off-fee they can hire a designer to produce assets which allow them to train an exactly.ai model. Then either the company has the model, or the designer leases it to them. Now they’re able to generate new illustrations and marketing materials without the recurring costs. Once that model is trained on that style, they can generate new content for whatever projects they may have while staying true to their brand language.