From farm-fresh ingredients to the final bite. Ranch Bite is a concept advertisement I created to explore how generative AI and traditional design tools can work together in a creative production process. Instead of only showing a final burger, I wanted to show the journey behind it, starting from fresh ingredients, moving through preparation and cooking, and finally revealing the burger.

RANCH BITE

Role: Creative Director | Designer | Motion Artist
Project: Concept Advertising Campaign

THE CHALLENGE

How can AI-generated food still feel natural and handcrafted?

My goal was to create a short food advertisement that feels warm, fresh, and appetizing. One challenge was maintaining visual consistency between different AI-generated scenes. The ingredients, lighting, environment, and overall mood needed to feel like they belonged to the same story. I also wanted the advertisement to feel like a real food campaign, rather than just a collection of AI-generated visuals.

THE IDEA

Don’t start with the burger. Start with the ingredients.

I wanted the audience to experience the process before seeing the final product. The story begins with fresh ingredients and slowly moves into preparation, grilling, melting cheese, freshly prepared buns, and finally the completed burger.
This gave the advertisement a simple journey:

FRESH → PREPARE → COOK → BUILD → THE BITE

The final burger becomes the reward at the end of the story.

ART DIRECTION

Warm. Rustic. Fresh. Appetizing.
I wanted the visuals to have a warm and handcrafted feeling, so I focused on natural textures, rustic environments, close-up food photography, and cinematic lighting. Even though AI was part of the production, I didn't want the advertisement to look futuristic or overly digital. I wanted it to feel human and familiar.

  • To create a comfortable and inviting mood.

  • Wood, fresh vegetables, flour, clay, and food textures helped create the handcrafted feeling.

  • Close compositions helped make the ingredients and cooking process feel more detailed and appetizing.

  • I tried to maintain similar lighting, colours, and atmosphere across the different scenes.

BUILDING THE STORY

I planned the advertisement as a sequence instead of creating random food visuals and connecting them later.

  • FRESH: Introduce the ingredients and establish the natural feeling.

  • PREPARE: Show the preparation and handcrafted side of the food.

  • COOK: Bring more energy through grilling, heat, and melting cheese.

  • BUILD: Bring all the ingredients together.

  • THE BITE: Finally reveal the Ranch Bite burger.

GENERATIVE EXPLORATION

The first generation was not always the final choice.
I used Midjourney to explore different environments, compositions, ingredients, lighting, and camera angles. Some generations worked well, while others didn't match the visual direction I wanted. I compared different outputs and selected the ones that worked best together into a single story. In some cases, I generated again or changed the direction until the visuals felt more consistent.

WHAT DIDN’T WORK

This is where I would show your real rejected generations.
OPTION 01

Didn't work

The composition was too busy, and the food was not the main focus.

OPTION 02

Didn't work

The lighting was different from the previous scene and broke the visual consistency.

OPTION 03

Didn't work

Some details of the food looked unnatural.

SELECTED ✓

This direction worked better because the composition, lighting, and overall mood matched the rest of the campaign.

FROM IMAGE TO MOTION

Making still images feel like one story.
After selecting the final visuals, I used RunwayML to bring the images into motion. My focus was not to add movement everywhere. I wanted the camera movement and animation to feel natural and support the food rather than distract from it. I also paid attention to the transitions between shots so the advertisement felt like one film instead of separate AI clips.

[STATIC IMAGE] → [MOTION CLIP] → [FINAL SHOT]

THE FINAL TOUCH

Bringing everything together.
After generating and animating the visuals, I brought everything together through editing and post-production. I worked on the shot selection, pacing,
transitions, music, voice-over, and overall visual consistency. The final stage was important because this is where the separate pieces started feeling
like one complete advertisement.

PROCESS
CONCEPT → ART DIRECTION → GENERATE → EVALUATE → REFINE → ANIMATE → EDIT

THE FINAL FILM

RANCH BITE

WHAT I LEARNED

AI can create many options. Choosing the right one is still important.
One thing I learned from this project is that generating an image is only one part of the process. I still had to decide what worked, what didn't work, what needed another attempt, and how all the individual visuals could become one consistent story. For me, this was the most interesting part of the project. AI helped me create the possibilities. My role was to decide which possibilities actually worked.

TOOLS

Midjourney | RunwayML | NoteGPT | Adobe Creative Suite