Creative direction
Finding the idea in the brief. Setting the visual direction and staying close to the work through production.
19 years of creative direction. Leading teams, shaping campaigns and putting hands-on AI practice to work.
EXPLORE THE WORKInternationally exhibited and featured in Forbes, Schön! and beyond. An artistic practice exploring comfort & discomfort and everything felt in between.
EXPLORE THE WORLDCreative leadership backed by hands-on AI practice. Setting the direction and doing the making.
Leading creative teams as AVP of Creative & AI Innovation at Level. Built Level’s AI Creative Pit Crew and integrated AI into the creative process across dozens of accounts.
MORE ABOUT THE APPROACH
Eight projects. From brand identities and campaigns to digital experiences and AI films.
VIEW PROJECT AI art direction and production. All imagery and motion for the New Year campaign and deodorant launch.
VIEW PROJECT [OLAY ROLE]. [OLAY TEAM/SCOPE].
VIEW PROJECT [HUDSON YARDS ROLE]. [HUDSON YARDS TEAM/SCOPE].
VIEW PROJECT [SPARKKE ROLE]. [SPARKKE TEAM/SCOPE].
VIEW PROJECT [LULULEMON ROLE]. [LULULEMON TEAM/SCOPE].
VIEW PROJECT [ENFAMIL ROLE]. [ENFAMIL TEAM/SCOPE].
VIEW PROJECT [MARTIN ROGERS ROLE]. [MARTIN ROGERS TEAM/SCOPE].
VIEW PROJECT [EARTHLING ROLE]. [EARTHLING TEAM/SCOPE].
Leading a multidisciplinary team of [TEAM SIZE]. Setting a clear direction, giving useful feedback and making room to try things. Bringing AI into the process without lowering the bar for the work.
Finding the idea in the brief. Setting the visual direction and staying close to the work through production.
Giving people clear expectations, honest feedback and room to take creative risks.
Built Level’s AI Creative Pit Crew. Bringing hands-on testing into the creative process across dozens of accounts.
A conversation with Michael Rubino about AI, judgement and knowing what’s worth keeping.
EXPLORE THE CONVERSATIONFrom YouTube HQ to Level’s creative practice talks: bringing people into what’s possible and giving them the confidence to explore.
WATCH A CONVERSATIONAn early image: a scorpion sitting on a bowl of sorbet. Something inviting that could also feel a little uneasy. That contradiction felt like the beginning of something.
Exploring the space between comfort and discomfort: soft colour and difficult emotions, beauty with something darker underneath. Rather than prescribing a feeling, offering something to sit with.
Building on Sandrine Castellan’s photography with AI. A conversation between two ways of seeing — and that’s what makes it interesting.
VIEW THE EDITORIALBringing together a career in advertising, a degree in psychology, and a fascination with self-expression and difficult emotions. Behind the work are almost four years of spending one to six hours a night generating images, testing tools, editing, and starting again. That sustained experimentation has helped shape a recognisable visual language. AI opens up possibilities; the choices give the work its character—what stays, what gets cut, and whether there’s something worth looking at, and feeling.





A few milestones along the way, and a reminder that the stranger paths can still lead somewhere.

Three-time finalist — AI Image Developing & Creating
2026 SHORTLIST READ THE FEATURES
Carly Fridhandler is a creative leader, an award-winning artist, and someone with a reputation for bringing out the best in people.
A LITTLE ABOUT ME ↓︎
“Being able to make anything doesn’t mean making everything.”CARLY FRIDHANDLER
Carly Fridhandler has spent 19 years in advertising, leading creative teams and shaping campaigns. Her agency experience includes Sid Lee, NEWAD, BAM and Level, with work for adidas, NIVEA, Walmart, Olay, Cirque du Soleil and lululemon.
As AVP of Creative & AI Innovation at Level, she leads creative teams and helps them find new ways to work. She built Level’s AI Creative Pit Crew and helped integrate AI into the creative process across dozens of accounts.
In 2022, a colleague introduced Carly to Midjourney. One of her first experiments was a lavender scorpion sitting on pink sorbet, and that strange little contradiction became Scorpion Sorbet. What started as curiosity turned into an artistic practice about the things that make people feel both comforted and uncomfortable—love, loss, intimacy, fear, and everything in between.
For Carly, advertising and art aren’t two separate lives. Both are about people, curiosity, and finding something worth making. The tools keep changing. That part doesn’t.