Most executives are learning AI. I spent 25 years in marketing and creative for Fortune 500 brands, more than a decade building and running studio operations for national fashion retailers — and the last two building a fully AI-enabled studio of my own. The playbook exists. I run it every day.
$40B
Retail chain served
10+
Years of studio operations
Daily
AI production, live now
Case 01 · AI Model Generation
Daniela
Anyone can prompt a pretty model — and it looks like AI. Daniela began as a raw generation. Everything after is direction: editorial styling, art-directed poses, realistic skin and light, one identity held frame to frame, refined and upscaled to campaign grade. The strategic bet was identity — the thing AI imagery usually can’t do and the thing a brand can’t live without. One model, deployed across every category a retailer sells.
The origin
What started as a detailed prompt in Midjourney became a supermodel — shot by an iconic photographer.
The campaign
Fine jewelry
Lifestyle
The roster
Born in Midjourney, brought to life with Higgsfield Soul 2.0, Kling 3.0, and Seedance 2.0.
All frames AI-generated · one identity per model — from first prompt to finished campaign
Case 02 · AI Campaign Production
002
The brief for 002, a fashion-forward pickleball label: elevated style made for sunlit living. The system ran two image languages — a campaign layer that sells the fantasy, a commerce layer that sells the product — with a cast chosen by a fashion editor rather than a sports marketer.
Style first, intelligence second, aspiration throughout · every frame AI-generated
Case 03 · A Brand Built End-to-End with AI
Civil Form
Civil Form began with a brief, not a prompt: protective, architectural outerwear for a buyer who wants a point of view, not just good taste. One design code runs through everything — a compressed upper shelter over an elongated lower base — so the women’s asymmetrical coat, the men’s coat, and the ceremonial hero piece read as one family. Navy behaves as depth rather than color, and the linework comes from material transitions: matte nylon against coated cotton, bonded wool, tonal rubber.
The environment — a trade-show experience, rendered end to end
Built to be built: booth architecture, sightlines, and brand surfaces specified from the same design code as the garments.
The process — built like a real label
The turn: one garment, one take, every body · Built like shelter. Cut like fashion. Finished with restraint.
Case 04 · The AI-Native Studio
VIPeaples™
VIPeaples was created for children — a world where the soft skills that last a lifetime, naming a feeling, sharing, repairing a friendship, are first practiced somewhere safe. For the adults beside them, it is a working platform: a patent-pending lesson-plan generator, live in classrooms today, producing over 1 million unique bilingual plans. A teacher can describe the exact challenge one child is facing and receive a lesson, and a story, customized for him or her. Every character, film, voice, and lesson is made and run by one person, with an AI studio behind them.
The product — live today
A patent-pending lesson-plan generator, live in classrooms now. Bilingual EN/ES, over 1 million unique lesson plans, serving classrooms from special-needs to gifted — with free resources for any teacher or family. Built, shipped, and run as a one-person studio.
Merchandise & licensing — the IP off the screen
Concept to spec: sketch, product design, packaging, tech pack, and hangtag — the work a licensee actually needs before a character can go on a shelf.
Sketch to realized: one accessory taken from concept sheet to finished product shot.
Manufacturing-ready: orthographic plush spec with dimensions, and the hangtag that carries the mark to retail.
Where it lands: a child, a pod of peas, and none of the pipeline in sight.
The music — original songs, written and produced in-house
“Bumblebee” — one of the original songs written for the world. No licensed library, no AI music: the score is composed in-house so the garden sounds like itself.
Episodes and the pilot — the story engine everything else draws from.
Social
Four channels in 9:16, cut from the same locked assets.
Product
The lesson-plan generator — live, subscription, in classrooms.
Music
Original songs and voice — the world's own sound.
Licensing
Merchandise concepts and hangtags — the IP off-screen.
One character system feeds all five. A frame locked for the film becomes a social cut, a lesson illustration, a product render — without a second production.
Character sheets gated before production · every asset held on-model, every generation
The Record
Before AI, the studios.
The Runway at T.J. Maxx — the program’s most successful campaign
ICONIX × Ellen von Unwerth — Olivia Culpo · Pia Mia
2016
Saks OFF 5TH identity & catalogues — fine jewelry, private label
2011–14
In-house studios built or expanded — Elie Tahari · rue21
2017–18
"He digs into the essence of a brand and develops a creative language that elevates that brand’s DNA."— Robert Wallstrom, CEO / Board Director
"An exceptional creative strategist. You can count on him to bring a completely different approach to a creative problem."— Nadja Bellan-White, Global Brand Leader / C-Suite Advisor
The person behind the work
Wayne Jones has spent twenty-five years as a creative director for Fortune 500 brands — Saks Fifth Avenue, T.J. Maxx, Elie Tahari, Coca-Cola — building campaigns, studios, and the teams that run them. For the last two years he has been rebuilding that model with AI, one working system at a time. His conviction hasn’t changed since his first campaign: restraint is the luxury signal, and taste can’t be prompted.
In the AI era, everyone can generate. What separates the work is taste, and taste can’t be prompted.
Fine jewelry
Lifestyle
The roster
