Yu Ling Wu finds joy in AI-powered storytelling

Yu Ling Wu loves to laugh. Fortunately for the rest of us, she also loves bringing the people around her in on the joke. Yu Ling’s quirky, irreverent ads for brands like Adobe, DoorDash, Philips, Sephora, Spam, and Taco Bell are all about helping her audience escape the seriousness of everyday life and embrace their silliness.

On top of sharing hilarious ads, videos, beauty tips, and more with her over 200,000 loyal followers on Instagram, Yu Ling has also picked up a wide range of artistic passions over the years, from acting, to interior design, to digital illustration, and she regularly uses Adobe solutions like Photoshop, Premiere Pro, and Illustrator to share those with her audience. Today, she draws on the power of Adobe Firefly, Adobe’s family of generative AI models, to push her passions further than ever while never forgetting to have fun every step of the way.

That spirit of freedom and joy translates to Yu Ling’s creative process. In a landscape where many influencers prioritize staying relevant by adhering to trends, this New York City-based creator takes a refreshingly playful and unabashed approach.

Perfectionism made simple

Behind her playful persona, Yu Ling is a self-proclaimed control freak. From simple poster illustrations to her most detailed video productions, every one of her creations is developed, workshopped, and crafted with meticulous care.

That perfectionism comes through in the quality of Yu Ling’s storytelling and in the public’s love for her work, but, until recently, it also left her with little time to breathe. For example, Yu Ling previously spent hours in Adobe Illustrator developing the various elements that would appear in her videos, including secondary details like logos and background design flourishes.

That all changed with the release of the Firefly-powered Text to Vector Graphic capability in Illustrator, which Yu Ling uses to draw, recolor, modify, and perfect her designs in a fraction of the time.

Yu Ling has gained similar value from Firefly-powered features in Adobe Photoshop, which she also used to work in for hours to develop her image-based content, before the advent of generative AI. For instance, when mocking up the cover of a graphic novel to feature in one of her videos, Yu Ling spent the day experimenting with different visual styles, from cheesy romance to gothic thriller, before choosing one that best told her story. With Photoshop powered by Firefly, she can run experiments like these in minutes, saving valuable time and energy while enhancing the details that make her work pop.

As for her interior design content, Yu Ling uses the Firefly-powered Generative Fill capability in Photoshop as a brainstorming tool to see how different decorating concepts will look before committing the time and money to a full design project. “I come up with loads of interior design concepts, but I don’t always know which ones will look good and don’t have the bandwidth or funds to test every one of them out. Generative Fill makes it easy to visualize all of my ideas before committing to a final design, bringing focus to my creative process while saving me valuable time, energy, and money,” says Yu Ling.

Working with Adobe has also given Yu Ling peace of mind when it comes to the authenticity of her content. Licensing issues are a top concern for digital artists, especially those who need to create and publish content at speed. With Content Credentials, part of a growing ecosystem of technologies available through the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI), tamper-evident metadata is automatically added to assets created with Firefly, so Yu Ling can ensure the originality and transparency of all her AI-generated content.

Pushing creative ideas into new territory

As someone who creates every ad, asset, design, and video from scratch, Yu Ling is excited by the power of generative AI to improve and streamline her artistic process. But she also understands people’s hesitation around the technology.

Joining forces with a new creative partner

As a culture hound and endless consumer of other influencers’ content, Yu Ling lives and breathes the digital life and is committed to carving out her place as a distinctive voice in her audience’s world. That extends to both the originality of her vision and her willingness to keep exploring new storytelling methods and technologies to set her work apart, including generative AI.

That said, Yu Ling also admits that generative AI can be a polarizing topic in the creative community. With IT companies around the world racing to one-up each other with new AI solutions each day, the technology’s capabilities are expanding at a rate that can feel equal parts exciting and intimidating to independent creators.

To stay the course in this constantly shifting landscape, Yu Ling is determined to experiment with generative AI capabilities like Adobe Firefly while being cautious and staying true to her unique vision. Looking ahead, she hopes Firefly will help her to develop props for her video content and dive deeper into artforms like font design and image editing.

"Collaborating with Firefly feels akin to having a creative ally in my studio. Just like in any partnership, it’s my responsibility to acknowledge and leverage my partner's strengths and weaknesses," says Yu Ling. “As time progresses with the technology, it’ll be interesting to see how I can continue to develop ideas, skills, and content processes."

For more on Yu Ling and her singular take on digital storytelling, check out her Instagram profile.

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