Giving an AI a face, then a cast people would talk to.
Creative Direction
Every LLM product in 2023 looked the same: a text field, grey bubbles, a spinner. SpeakBuddy needed a visual language that could make AI conversation feel like part of a world.
- Role
- Lead Designer
- Context
- App Branding
- Scope
- Visual Language, Art Direction
- Years
- 2023 — 2025
Direction is a shared way to make decisions.
Good direction lets someone make a call without needing the whole room around them. It gives people enough clarity to do their strongest work, because the values are visible and the tradeoffs make sense.
A shared vision gives different kinds of work something in common to answer to, whether that is a conversation flow, an illustration, a mascot expression or a new screen.
Five values — Open, Professional, Vibrant, Supportive, Up-to-date — one shared direction
One cast — Buddies built to work across very different worlds
App branding (2023 — 2025)
A visual language every screen could borrow from.
Onboarding, streaks, feedback and the first-run world all had to feel like one decision rather than four separate features shipped by separate teams. The direction work was five values: Open, Professional, Vibrant, Supportive, Up-to-date. A designer could land anywhere inside that band and still be right.
- Five values defined by what to aim for, not a fixed visual recipe
- New screens judged against shared principles rather than a template
- The learner kept at the centre of the world
BuddyChat (2023 — 2024)
An early LLM feature designed through shared direction rather than a single pair of hands.
BuddyChat was one of SpeakBuddy’s first major LLM features, and one of the first where I set the UX direction while another designer developed the detailed experience. The challenge was making open-ended AI conversation still feel like SpeakBuddy.
- UX direction and detailed design split across two designers
- Free-form AI conversation structured around learning goals
- New interaction patterns developed within the existing SpeakBuddy experience
Mascot Update (2023 — 2025)
Turning an app icon into a character that could carry the product.
Speabo was redesigned to do more than represent SpeakBuddy. A clearer personality, broader expression set and more flexible form let the character move from app icon into onboarding, feedback and the wider product.
- Redesigned around personality and expression, not decoration
- Built to work across product states, poses and interactions
- Expanded from app icon into SpeakBuddy’s learning partner
Our Buddies (2024 — 2025)
Characters built to belong in more than one story.
Each Buddy started with a real-person reference and a brief: background, role, personality and how they speak. The goal was enough identity to make each Buddy recognisable, while keeping the system flexible enough for worlds ranging from startups to hotels and factory floors.
- Real-person references grounded each character
- Background and personality shaped how they appeared in different stories
- One cast designed to work across very different worlds
SpeakBuddy keeps me motivated and pushes me to practise English every day. — 2023 user insight
Different features, one product world.
BuddyChat, Speabo, onboarding and the Buddies were being made for different purposes, often by different people. The useful questions were the ones that could travel between them:
- Does this still feel like SpeakBuddy before you see the logo?
- Is the learner part of the world, rather than looking at it from outside?
- Can another designer extend this without copying an existing screen?
- What is AI doing here that a conventional interface could not?
A visual language that could keep growing.
The same ideas moved through onboarding, BuddyChat, Speabo and the Buddies, while leaving enough room for different designers and illustrators to interpret them in their own work.
- Set the visual language
- Apply it to BuddyChat
- Expand Speabo’s role
- Build out the Buddies
- Extend the world