Interview

How AI Is Redefining Creative Excellence: Insights From BRINK’s Creative Director 

An Interview with Elisa Anguiano, Creative Director at BRINK


About Anguiano

Elisa Anguiano is a seasoned strategic Creative Director with over 20 years of experience in branding, design, and customer engagement. She’s worked with a diverse range of industries, including health & wellness, pharmaceutical, semiconductor, CPG, QSR non-profit, and more. Elisa’s creative vision goes beyond visuals; she’s dedicated to building brand identities that resonate and crafting content that deeply connects with audiences. Her passion lies in keeping brands fresh, relevant, and customer focused. Over the years, she’s collaborated with high-revenue clients like Epson America, Capgemini, EGYM, MillerCoors, Pepsi, and more.


The creative industry is in the middle of a major shift — and AI is driving it. For agencies like BRINK, AI isn’t just another tool; it’s a transformative force that’s changing how creativity happens. It’s helping designers push creative boundaries, work smarter, and deliver standout results. But there’s more to it than just efficiency. How an agency uses AI reveals a lot about its overall approach to creativity and problem-solving. To explore this shift, we sat down with Elisa Anguiano, BRINK’s Creative Director, to unpack how AI is reshaping design — and why the right approach to AI can unlock unprecedented creativity without sacrificing authenticity.

How is AI changing the way agencies approach creative work?

Elisa Anguiano: AI is a game-changer for research and ideation — it’s like having an entire team of designers working behind the scenes. If a client needs branding or a new website, I can now pull together market and competitive insights almost instantly using AI tools. Research and ideation have always been core to our process, but before AI, the amount of information we could process was limited by time and budget. Now, AI lets us explore a wider and deeper range of insights in a fraction of the time — ensuring that every project starts with the rich, strategic foundation it deserves.

So, it’s not about doing less work but focusing on better work?

Elisa Anguiano: Exactly. AI speeds up tasks like research or sourcing visual inspiration, which lets us concentrate on the high-value aspects of our work. For example, creating mood boards or generating design concepts becomes more efficient with tools like Midjourney. This means we can dedicate more time to refining those concepts and ensuring they align perfectly with the client’s brand.

Can you share an example of how AI helped solve a unique client challenge?

Elisa Anguiano: Form Technologies had a tricky problem: how do you showcase your work when you can’t actually show your work? As a metal-casting company under tight NDAs with clients in sensitive industries, displaying actual products on their website was a no-go. So we used Midjourney to build a custom library of product and part images that highlighted their capabilities — without breaking confidentiality. AI also let us blend multiple images to create standout visuals that were both unique and compliant. The result? A faster, more efficient solution that nailed brand alignment better than traditional methods ever could.

How would you have tackled this problem without AI?

Elisa Anguiano: It would’ve taken way more time. We’d have leaned heavily on stock imagery and a lot of detailed Photoshop work — not only less efficient but also hard to fully disguise the “stock” feel, which can undercut the uniqueness of the final product. We still used plenty of custom Photoshop work to fine-tune the AI-generated images, but starting with AI visuals that were already tailored to the client’s needs sped up the process and helped us hit a level of brand alignment that would’ve been nearly impossible before.

Some executives worry that AI might make their brand feel generic. How do you ensure authenticity?

Elisa Anguiano: That’s a fair concern — but it all comes down to how AI is used. At BRINK, AI isn’t a shortcut; it’s an extension of our creativity. We use it to explore ideas faster and refine them more precisely, making sure the final product feels unique and true to the client’s brand. When used thoughtfully, AI doesn’t water down authenticity — it amplifies it.

Beyond research and imagery, how else does AI enhance your workflow?

Elisa Anguiano: AI is a game-changer for prototyping and wireframing. It helps us crank out low-fidelity mockups quickly, giving us more time to polish and perfect the final design. In creative work, the best results come from testing and tweaking. AI lets us explore more ideas upfront and refine them faster — which means we land on innovative, highly tailored solutions more efficiently.

What excites you most about AI’s potential in design?

Elisa Anguiano: I’m especially excited about what’s happening with 3D rendering and video. AI can now turn flat images into 3D CAD drawings — a game-changer for many of our clients. It’s making it possible to create dynamic, interactive visuals without relying on heavy engineering resources. This shift is going to completely change how we engage audiences across digital platforms.

Should clients consider how their agency uses AI when choosing a creative partner?

Elisa Anguiano: Absolutely. There’s a big difference between using AI as a crutch and using it as a creative amplifier. Some agencies lean too hard on AI, churning out work that feels generic and uninspired. Others, like BRINK, use AI strategically — to sharpen creativity and solve problems more effectively. Clients should ask how AI fits into an agency’s process and how it complements human expertise. At BRINK, AI is a tool that lets us focus on more sophisticated creative and strategic thinking — which means higher-quality, more innovative results. The real question isn’t whether AI is being used, but how it’s being used to elevate the work.

Ready to elevate your brand?

At BRINK, we combine human creativity with AI — strategically and thoughtfully — to deliver innovative solutions that make your brand impossible to ignore.

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