Super happy to share my entry for the Figma Makeathon 😊 Connected Earth. Language separates us. Sound connects us. https://www.connected.earth Connected Earth started with a simple observation: despite being more connected than ever, many of us feel increasingly disconnected from each other, our surroundings, and the places we live. Most platforms ask us to compete for attention. More followers. More likes. More visibility. More noise. I wanted to explore the opposite. Connected Earth is a living archive of sounds contributed by people around the world. A quiet place where someone can capture a moment from their corner of the planet and share it with someone they’ve never met. The sound of rain in Scotland. A train arriving in Tokyo. Waves breaking in Australia. Bikes whizzing past in park in Amsterdam. Children playing on a street somewhere you’ll probably never visit. None of these moments need translating. They’re immediately human. Every recording becomes part of a growing global collection that can be explored individually or experienced through Earth Radio, a continuously evolving stream shaped entirely by community contributions. The more people contribute, the richer and more diverse the experience becomes. Alongside the archive, Connected Earth includes Ambient Radio for creating evolving soundscapes from community recordings where sounds are stretched, overlayed, reversed, and can have user effects applied. We also have Resonance Tables for discovering related sounds and places, and Resonance Chains that allow recordings to be connected (chained) together into journeys spanning countries, cultures, and time zones. Together they transform individual moments into something larger than a collection of uploads. Rather than likes, Connected Earth uses Resonations. Small acknowledgements that a sound resonated with someone else. No user account, No follower counts. No popularity contests. No pressure to perform. Just people sharing moments. For those looking for calm, Ambient Mode transforms community recordings into evolving soundscapes that can be used for focus, reflection, relaxation, or simply feeling connected to somewhere else in the world. The result is less of a social network and more of a shared listening experience. The project was designed and built using Figma’s evolving ecosystem, including Figma Agents (Conversation & Moods), Make, AI-assisted (ChatGPT > validation) workflows, and iterative prototyping. What began as a conversation with design tools quickly became an exploration of how technology might help us feel a little more connected to one another. Connected Earth is fully desktop and mobile compatible, allowing people to contribute, discover, listen, and explore wherever they happen to be. In a world increasingly driven by content, Connected Earth is an experiment in presence. A reminder that while we may speak different languages, we often experience the same rain, the same wind, the same birdsong, and the same quiet. And perhaps that matters more than we think.

Love the idea, Lee! Being focused on what matters most, the small details of life. No pressure, no engagement, no likes... Just seeing the awesome world that we have from our chairs

Your design mentors need this, and honestly, you do too. I surveyed and spoke with 20+ designers, motion designers, and animation experts, as well as everyone working with us at The RLVNT Studios. One recurring pain point kept showing up: having the right visual, but not the right style.

"Hey GPT, add a new effect to this image, but don't change anything else." I heard variations of that request over and over again. It made me realize that AI has fundamentally changed how creatives approach their workflows. People know what they want, but getting there is still frustratingly inefficient. After spending years testing AI tools, creative software, and motion workflows, I knew there was an opportunity to build something better. That's how Velox was born.

Velox is a media manipulation solution that lets creatives upload an image or video and instantly explore professional-grade styling, effects, and enhancements without spending hours experimenting, prompting, or searching for the perfect workflow.

It comes packed with 100+ curated styles and 15+ professional effects inspired by techniques used by leading motion designers, graphic designers, and animation experts worldwide. No API limits. No token anxiety. No endless prompting. Just creative control when you need it.

I invited 20 creatives to test the platform so far, and the feedback has been incredible. The biggest takeaway? It saves hours of effort while making high-end creative execution accessible to anyone.

For motion-focused creatives, Velox also includes animated SVG strokes that can bring life to both images and videos. You can control entry states, exit states, post-exit behavior, styling, and animation characteristics with ease.

The goal wasn't to replace creativity; it was to remove the friction between having an idea and bringing it to life. Make it yours - https://velox-studio.figma.site/ Community link - https://www.figma.com/community/file/1649518891613198504/velox-studio

The insight from your survey is spot on. The gap isn't skill anymore, it's translation between what you have and what you want. The animated SVG stroke control for motion work is what I'd actually use day-to-day. Congrats on the launch.