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Sanja Malovic
Sanja Malovic

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I Built an AI-Powered Art Digest That Writes and Illustrates Itself

I Built an AI-Powered Art Digest That Writes and Illustrates Itself

What happens when you combine real-time news, generative AI, and modern art?

You get Unjica — a living, breathing editorial that curates and reimagines contemporary art stories using OpenAI and custom code.

💡 Why I Built It

As a developer and art enthusiast, I wanted to create something that:

  • Keeps up with the fast-moving world of art and exhibitions,
  • Feels editorial (not robotic),
  • Looks beautiful, like a curated magazine,
  • And updates itself — daily.

🛠️ How It Works

  • Next.js + App Router: for structure and speed
  • Prisma + PostgreSQL: to store and filter news
  • OpenAI (GPT-4o & DALL·E 3): to generate articles and header images
  • R2 Storage: to persist DALL·E outputs
  • Scheduled CRON jobs on Vercel: for daily automation
  • Markdown content: clean, simple, structured

✨ What Makes It Interesting

  • Articles sound like real human writers — critical, witty, even poetic.
  • Visuals are generated with painterly prompts (no generic AI mush).
  • It's self-sustaining — I just keep refining it.

Here's a recent post to give you a taste.

🧪 Challenges

  • Tuning prompts to avoid generic AI tone
  • Balancing automation with taste
  • Making SEO work with dynamic Open Graph images

🚀 What’s Next?

  • Integrating artist interviews
  • Letting users vote on which stories should be featured
  • Adding human + AI collaboration tools

Would love your thoughts — or any feedback on how to make it more useful for creators or art lovers.

Thanks for reading 🙏

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