2026-06 · Brand Designer
Flamey Mascot
Forty designer × engineer red/blue pairs explored, then locked in by fixing master.png as a reference image and varying only body color. Six service-specific Flameys (corporate, chatbot, LP, UI/UX, AI ops, advisory) differentiated by job-specific outfits and props.
Why a mascot at all
Flarely says “small, fast, warm” — but it also has to land with tech and SaaS audiences. The logo alone leans hard and formal. A character with a personality lowers the bar to reach out by one rung, on its own.
The exploration kicked off with forty designer × engineer red/blue pairs, varying expression, pose, and props.
Volume first, selection second — generating broadly and choosing later is dramatically faster than deliberating during exploration.
Locking in the color-swap strategy
The blocker in those 40 candidates was that pair silhouettes drifted across runs. Same prompt, slightly different outlines.
The fix: fix master.png as the --ref-image and let the prompt only specify body color. Silhouette holds, color variants ship by the dozen. Designer = red, Engineer = blue, Secretary = a third hue — the system extends cleanly.
The derivative sheet — one master expanded into job-role variants (Designer / Engineer / PM / Sales / Founder / Support) — preserves the silhouette completely.
Locking the reference image and varying only color through language is surprisingly reproducible with gpt-image-2.
Six service mascots
Each of the six services on the corporate site has its own Flamey. The first cut had everyone in glasses and a beret — no differentiation. The fix:
- Fix
master.pngas the reference image - Explicitly ban glasses in the prompt
- Differentiate through job-specific outfits and props
| Service | Character setup |
|---|---|
| corporate | White shirt + web mockup (strategy through operations) |
| chatbot | Graphite hoodie + laptop (web apps that support work) |
| lp | Cream tee + smartphone (mobile LPs) |
| uiux | Beret + stylus (UI/UX & design systems) |
| aiops | Grey sweater + neural nodes (generative-AI systems) |
| advisory | Navy blazer + pointer + chart (generative-AI advisory) |
Embedded in the site
The six characters sit above the service cards. On desktop, GSAP pins the section and slides them horizontally — not one-at-a-time slides, but a continuous parade of personalities that shows the studio’s range at a glance.
The bonus: Flamey extends naturally into proposal-deck chapter openers and inline illustrations, and the Slidev theme reuses the same set. One mascot, once — and every downstream piece of brand material moves visibly faster. That was the loudest takeaway from this round.