When An AI Tool Finally Gets You

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This transparent approach has connected me to some promising creative tools, one of which is Flora, a generative canvas. One of its founders reached out to me saying they'd been following my X posts and thought I might be interested in trying out their new product. 

Flora bills itself as “your intelligent canvas.” It combines multiple generative capabilities—like image generation, ideation, and organization—into a single workspace. The founders weren't pitching it as a magical AI tool that would replace designers, but rather as something built specifically for creatives, with our unique workflows in mind. 

There's something really intriguing about finding a tool that feels like it was made for you. When software aligns with your natural thinking patterns, it stops feeling like you're fighting against it and starts feeling like it's extending your abilities. That’s the feeling AI tools are chasing—let’s see how close Flora comes to catching it. 

Design is not an assembly line

The first wave of AI design tools followed a familiar pattern: Engineers would get excited about a new AI capability, wrap a basic interface around it, and market it as a "designer's tool." But these tools fundamentally misunderstand how designers work.

Take the standard image generation workflow in tools like DALL-E or Midjourney. You type a prompt, wait for a result, and if you don't like it, you start over. It's a linear, one-shot process that treats design like a slot machine: Input prompt, receive image, and see how lucky you get. But that's not how design works.

Real design is messy, iterative, and non-linear. We explore multiple directions simultaneously. We combine elements from different attempts. We refine and adjust constantly. Most importantly, we need to see our options side by side, comparing and contrasting until we find the right direction.

Flora is the closest thing I’ve seen to a tool that emulates this process: It lets me explore multiple iterations simultaneously. Having the freedom to sketch, experiment, and pivot rapidly feels liberating. I can swiftly iterate and iterate again, nudging the results closer to my vision without losing momentum.

End the workflow ping-pong

A designer’s workflow typically goes like this: "Let me export this image from Midjourney, then import it to Photoshop, then try to remember which folder I saved the reference images in, then switch to Figma to see how it fits with the rest of the design.” But toggling among multiple tools completely derails the creative flow. 

Toggling among multiple design tools. Source: Screenshot courtesy of Lucas Crespo.

Flora tackles this problem by combining multiple generative capabilities into a single workspace. It incorporates various AI models—text models like GPT, image generators like Flux and Stable Diffusion, and video tools—so designers can easily transition between text, images, video, and back again right next to each other, without switching platforms. And it does all this while giving you an “infinite canvas” workspace, a hallmark of Figma’s interface that is refreshing to see in an AI design tool (which evolved from the chatbot interface into text in, image out). This approach lets you fluidly explore different formats and concepts, reflecting how creative processes naturally unfold—moving back and forth between mediums rather than being constrained by them. 

The value in the tool isn't in some exclusive AI technology, but in how Flora simplifies and streamlines existing generative models into one cohesive tool, making it easier to experiment freely and intuitively. You may still need to jump into Figma or Photoshop to bring all the assets together into a final composition, but you won’t lose momentum hopping between separate environments every time you want to iterate or test an idea. 

Putting the ‘flow’ in workflow

When I use a tool like DALL-E, I'm stuck in a one-at-a-time mode: Input prompt, wait for result, and if I want to try something different, start a whole new process. It’s typical of many AI design tools, and it breaks my focus. With Flora's infinite canvas, I can run several ideas at once and see them develop side by side. This matches how I actually think when designing—considering multiple options simultaneously rather than one after another. 

A demo of Flora. Source: Screenshot courtesy of Lucas Crespo.

Another key choice is that Flora can’t restrict me to using its own models. This is where it stands out from a similar tool called Visual Electric, which also provides an infinite canvas but locks you into its proprietary generative models (as does DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion). By contrast, Flora sits on top of multiple models—GPT-4o and Claude Sonnet for text; Luma, Recraft, and Stable Diffusion for images; Hailuo, Runway, Lumo, and others for video—so I’m free to explore and experiment without hitting limitations imposed by vendor lock-in. I can spend a lot of time within one tool, as opposed to spending a little time within a bunch of different platforms.

Build from within, not above

Flora isn't using a groundbreaking new AI technology that no one else has access to. The innovation is in the packaging—how it’s brought these technologies together in a way that lets designers do more with less friction.

The secret sauce is in how closely the Flora team worked with actual creative professionals to understand their workflow. They collaborated with New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, design firm Pentagram, and other major creative institutions and agencies across the U.S. They're building it for real creative workflows because they're embedded in those communities. You can feel that closeness to the end user when you're using the product. 

Precision control is still the frontier

Tools like Flora show concrete progress in how AI serves designers, but we're still in the early stages of this shift. The next frontier, which no tool has fully conquered yet, is precision control over AI-generated content—aka editing.

This is a critical gap in the current AI design ecosystem. First-generation tools gave us raw generation capabilities. Flora offers better workflows and iteration processes. But we still lack the ability to make precise edits of AI outputs.

As a designer, I need the ability to:

1. Make hyper-targeted adjustments to specific elements within generated images, like zooming into the pixel level in Photoshop to refine it manually.
2. Not just apply design principles like alignment, hierarchy, and spacing to AI outputs, but also infuse my own taste within those parameters. 
3. Blend the boundary between generation and refinement seamlessly by not having to toggle among screens, apps, or views.

Right now, I still mostly have to deal with outputs as they are. If I want to make a specific change—like adjusting a facial feature or repositioning an element in the image—I can’t. We're not quite at the point where I can smoothly move from AI generation to detailed design refinement in one place, but Flora feels like a good step in that direction.

Product + purpose = magic 

There’s real value in building specialized tools that solve specific problems for certain subsets of users—not just in general-purpose models.

I've noticed that tools with too broad a scope often end up being a little bit of everything and a master of nothing. Having specialized tools like Flora that focus specifically on creative workflows, or Spiral, which zeroes in on content repurposing—that's where the sparks fly. It's not about building revolutionary technology; it's about making something that genuinely helps users achieve their goals.

This is a complete flip-flop from the consensus just a few years ago. Back then, investors and tech people wouldn't take you seriously if you were "just building a wrapper" around existing AI models. But look at AI Drive (formerly PDF.ai): The team has been hugely successful doing one thing—letting you interact with your PDF files in new ways—really well. They identified a need and addressed it, without trying to be all things to all people.

The lesson I'm taking away from my experience with Flora is this: In the world of AI-powered tools, understanding your users deeply is becoming more important than the technical sophistication of your underlying models. As designers, we don't care about the technical details of how the AI works. We care about whether it helps us create better work more efficiently.

I'm excited to see how Flora continues to evolve. If they keep focusing on what designers actually need, I think they've got a bright future ahead. That's the approach I wish more AI tool creators would take: Build for real people solving real problems, not for tech headlines. 

Lucas Crespo is the creative lead of Every. He was previously an art director at the advertising agencies BBDO and VML. You can follow him on LinkedIn and on X at@lucas__crespo.

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