Case Study: María
A symbolic Latin voice born from AI, for Shine Magazine
Overview
As the editorial designer and creative director, I led the development of Maria, a character created with artificial intelligence to become the official face of the 2025 edition of Shine Magazine and the ambassador of the Days to Shine event, the largest gathering for women in the Dominican Republic.
Maria was born with the goal of representing all Latin American women the magazine speaks to, avoiding visual bias and proposing a symbolic identity that is as inclusive as it is powerful. She is cheerful, optimistic, versatile, and deeply aligned with Shine’s values: beauty, fashion, wellness, style, purpose, and happiness.
Maria doesn’t exist, but she speaks for all. She is the reflection of a diverse, vibrant, and real community.
My hybrid AI creation methodology to design María
I developed a work methodology that merges identity exploration, emotional branding, and advanced visual production. This process includes everything from conceptualization to the generation of dynamic content using multiple AI tools.
01
Cultural Traits Exploration
Research on Latin American racial features.
Use of Google AI Studio to synthesize representative faces.
Co-creation of the archetype with the editorial director.
02
Character consistency
Stylized image generation and scenarios with Flux AI.
Digital styling: wardrobe, hair, and personalized facial expressions.
03
Voice and Personality Development
Voice training with Eleven Labs using my own voice as a base.
Accent adaptation with team collaborators.
Video animation and facial expression with HeyGen.
Advanced production in Veo 3 for dynamic content.
02
Character consistency
Stylized image generation and scenarios with Flux AI.
Digital styling: wardrobe, hair, and personalized facial expressions.
04
Creative Iteration and Emotional Intelligence
Generation of micro-errors, bloopers, and spontaneous reactions to add humanity.
Narrative adjustments based on audience response and editorial use.
Challenges & Goals
One of the biggest challenges in this project was designing a custom prompt structure for each AI model used. Generating still images is not the same as producing videos, and creating content from scratch is different from generating it based on existing images.
The goal was to learn the “language” of each model, its specific quirks, limitations, and strengths, in order to write accurate prompts that would deliver high-quality results with the fewest possible iterations.
This learning process allowed me to streamline the workflow, preserve María’s visual and narrative consistency, and maximize the creative potential of each AI tool involved.
Prompt:
“She shows off her beautiful hair, flipping it in slow motion like in a professional hair commercial. Her hair looks shiny, silky, and full of volume. She radiates confidence and joy, moving naturally and smiling with ease.”
Model: Flux Kontext | Text to Image (with one reference picture)
Prompt:
[Voice in spanish] “Ok, ¡Estoy lista!”
“She nods her head in a ‘let’s go!’ gesture and smiles as she speaks”
Model: HeyGen and ElevenLabs (with one reference picture)
Final Result
María will be the official cover of Days to Shine Issue of Shine Magazine this year.
She stars in an editorial detailing her creative process. She also gets to talk about herself in videos.
She appears in promotional content for the event and brand partners.
She is already collaborating with beauty, fashion, and self-care brands interested in featuring her in their campaigns.