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My Renoise challenge entry is a short cinematic piece about burnout and self-overload. It looks like a rescue thriller at first, but the meaning is simple, sometimes the thing we’re trying to save is ourselves.
I made this because burnout can feel like a silent emergency and with a realization that the real struggle was internal.
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For the Envato Human by Design challenge, I built an entire brand from scratch: SPAN.
SPAN is a contemporary lifestyle brand built around movement, community and culture. The name SPAN comes from the idea of spanning different moments of the day and bringing different experiences together through one brand. It’s a brutalist café, a functional food concept, a community run club and an audiophile listening lounge, all connected through one cohesive identity.
The brand is built around four pillars. The Space explores architecture and interior design as part of the brand experience. Food & Drinks reimagine functional nutrition through editorial packaging and graphic systems. The Run Club transforms movement into a cultural experience rooted in community. Echo is an after-hours listening lounge where music becomes part of the recovery ritual.
One of my goals for this challenge was to use Envato as my one and only creative toolkit. Every asset in this project was created using Envato’s ecosystem, from Image Generation, Video Generation, Image Editing and Graphic Generation to the soundtrack of the launch film using Envato’s audio library.
The project started with the logo and evolved into building an entire brand world. Rather than generating isolated images, I focused on creating a clear creative direction that would guide every output and keep the identity consistent across architecture, products, photography, merchandise, posters and motion.
My biggest Human by Design moment came from understanding that AI isn’t a creative director. Throughout the project, I found myself rejecting outputs that were technically impressive but didn’t feel like SPAN:
- The community photography is a great example of that. The first generations felt too polished and commercial, so I changed the photographic language entirely, directing every image as if it had been shot on a 35mm film camera with direct flash. The grain, imperfections and motion blur immediately made the brand feel more human and emotionally authentic.
- The same happened with the campaign posters. I realised that AI wasn’t struggling with the visuals, it was struggling with my direction. Instead of describing the brand, I had to art direct the composition itself: the hierarchy, negative space and editorial layouts that I had in mind. It taught me that good creative work doesn’t come from writing better prompts, but from having a clear point of view and knowing when something feels right.
For me, that’s what Human by Design means. AI generated the possibilities, but taste, instinct and creative judgment are what turned them into SPAN.
Great submission 🫡
For this challenge, I built Hydrated: a fictional summer soft drink — carbonated, ice-cold, citrus-sharp — with a visual identity built entirely around temperature. The can runs a gradient from pale ice to deep navy, top to bottom, so the design itself feels like it's getting colder the longer you look at it. Tagline: "Stay Cool. Be Cool."
Using Envato as my toolkit, I sourced the typefaces, built the can label in Affinity Designer, and composited it onto a photorealistic mockup in Photoshop. I then used Envato's AI Video Generator — with a custom Start Frame and End Frame built from my own can mockups — to generate the hero shot: the can dropping into an ice bucket, splashing, sinking, and settling cold. Claude helped draft the ingredient list and nutrition copy, and I built a companion landing page in HTML/CSS so the brand exists somewhere real, not just in a video.
Target audience: Teens and young adults, roughly 10–28 — people who live for summer and want a drink that matches the mood: crisp, cold, a little bit of attitude.
Human by Design moment: The AI video. The first generation rotated the can in a way that mangled the label, and it took several rejected takes before one actually held up. Deciding which take was right, and which word was right, was human work from start to finish.
Thank you to Envato and Contra for putting this challenge together — for the toolkit, and for the push to make something real out of an idea instead of just thinking about it.
Stay cool. Be cool.
The Project Includes:
- The Logo
- The Can Design
- The Video
- The Website
- The BTS Video
#envato #HumanByDesign #Envato
envatochallengeCreative Design Creative DirectionCreative StrategistAdobe PhotoshopAffinity DesignerEnvato
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