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For my #EnvatoChallenge I made a social reel called People.
Every stranger you pass is living a life as full and complicated as your own.
You just never get to see it.
That was the whole starting point. You catch a half-second of someone and your brain files them as an extra in your movie, while they're the main character of theirs, with a whole thing going on you'll never know about.
So I tried to make something that sits in that feeling.
No story line, but just a reminder that everyone's got one.
I used Envato for music, images and videos starting with stock images that I got inspired by and used as references and to expand ideas from those.
I believe the main human by design call I had to make was not only the final edit, but prompting for "imperfect" generations.
AI is trained to give the perfect image every time, centered angles, equal proportions, bright colors. I tried the complete opposite while still trying to make it look like a complete social reel.
envatochallengeaivideocreativeproductionAI Video ProductionVideo EditingVideo ProductionDaVinci ResolveEnvato
GenLayer is a brand for thinking machines. So the identity had to think too.
Instead of a static pattern I built a fluid animation system: lines that continuously flow into one another, the way AI evolves through new thoughts and ideas. One system, endless moments, the same waves that breathe on the website also carry a conference wall or a product reveal.
That's my bar for an AI-driven brand style: not "does it look techy," but "does it behave like the product."
Curious how other designers handle this: when your identity is animated or generative, how do you keep it recognizable without freezing it into a template?
That line about one system with endless moments really lands, especially paired with the waves visual. Did you build the animation in After Effects directly or block it out somewhere else first?
Architect of Chaos: Branding Cobalt Analytics for the Envato Challenge
AI has completely changed the creative landscape, but it hasn’t changed what makes a digital product functional. For the Envato Challenge, I set out to design the brand identity and UI concept for a B2B SaaS platform, Cobalt Analytics. The goal was to show the crucial difference between machine generation and human curation.
The Insight: The Azulejo Metaphor
Data analytics is often visually represented by clichéd glowing nodes and neon webs. I wanted a metaphor with history. I turned to Azulejo — traditional Portuguese ceramic tiles. Historically, the art of Azulejo was about taking thousands of fragmented, independent tiles and assembling them into one grand, coherent narrative. This is exactly what a predictive data platform does: it turns chaotic metrics into a clear system.
The Process: AI as the Miner, Human as the Filter
I started by feeding AI historical references of Azulejo tiles. The result? Absolutely stunning, yet completely unusable visual noise. AI generated beautiful chaos, but as a designer, I know that algorithms don't understand scalability, negative space, or modular grids.
The Extraction: I rejected 95% of the AI generations, extracting just one perfect geometric silhouette hidden in the noise.
The Clean-Up: I moved to Envato Elements to source mathematically perfect vector shapes and rebuilt the AI's concept into a clean, scalable brand mark.
The System (Figma): I established a strict modular Bento-grid, paired the complex geometry with a brutalist sans-serif typography, and built out the core UI dashboard widgets in Figma.
The Execution (Zero Photoshop): To bring the brand into the real world, I utilized Envato’s native mockup generator. I applied my designs directly to premium physical and digital mockups right inside Envato's browser tool—no Photoshop required. A completely streamlined, modern workflow.
The Result: Cobalt Analytics.
A brand identity that is mathematically precise, highly scalable, and ready for development. AI generated the noise, but human judgment built the system.
And for the brave souls, here is the link to the full Figma file. Fair warning: it’s a typical creative mess inside, you know how it is 😅
https://www.figma.com/design/5Du5Sjr7jCCZYNgH5Y9QtB/Envato-Challenge?node-id=17-2181&t=vap8tOu6fACNieNW-1
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