Tolan

Tolan is an AI companion designed to help people feel seen and supported in everyday life. From late nights with a newborn to an anxious commute, its characters give people a place to talk, share and feel encouraged in their aspirations. In its first year, people exchanged billions of messages across more than 70 million conversations. The team has raised $60M to continue building that vision.

I joined as a technical artist — building shaders, particle systems, and the emotion systems that give the Tolans their feeling, across both shipped features and prototypes. A lot of it was visual design done through effects.

Over time I moved deeper into design and art direction — designing new characters, reworking our cosmetics, and defining the visual direction and colour palette.

For Orb and Kestral, I developed the forms through sketches, tests and working prototypes. I then led the design, colour and overall feel, collaborating with technical artist Tyler Hurd on the production characters.

01 / Character development · IP3

Orb

My role

Art director & character designer

01 / The brief

A companion you could talk to in public.

I led the design of Orb, Tolan’s third character. With older men in mind, we wanted a companion people would feel comfortable talking to in public: expressive enough to build a connection, with an identity of its own.

02 / Early exploration

Exploring shape and character.

We started with a wide range of sketches, forms and visual directions to see what people were drawn to. For a long time, we were trying to keep Orb close to the original Tolan: recognisably part of the same world and consistent with its design language.

This phase included contributions to some of the designs from Lucas Zanotto and Eran Hilleli.

Eight early character directions, including rounded figures, floating faces and geometric forms — Early directions — exploring silhouettes, faces and character types.

Changing silhouettes

I used blend shapes and procedural animation in Unity to explore changing proportions and floating geometric forms. Movement was part of the character design from the start.

Testing how far the silhouette could change.

Exploring a body made from floating shapes.

More early explorations 6 studies

Green round character face surrounded by brightly coloured layered shapes — Layered shapes

Pale pink face surrounded by colourful fragments — Face and fragments

Red and teal floating shapes forming an abstract character with eyes — A looser silhouette

Magenta round character with floating circles, rings and triangles — Geometric forms

White cross-shaped character with a simple face — A reduced silhouette

Orange character with rounded lobes, raised eyebrows and an open mouth — An expressive face

03 / Finding the balance

Minimal, with enough expression to connect.

We began treating Tolan as a world that could hold distinct character identities. Giving Orb its own visual language let us explore a simpler design, but simplicity alone wasn’t enough.

Too childish

The early prototypes had expression, but read as too childish for the audience we wanted to reach. They didn’t solve the discomfort of talking to a character in public.

Too minimal

Reducing the design felt better suited to public use, but left too little expression to build a connection. People also told us it didn’t look interesting.

The balance we found

Simple shading, a restrained but expressive face, and arms for gesture and body language. Together, they gave Orb a clean design people could still connect with.

Feedback on this direction described Orb as relatable without feeling too strange or too human.

From prototypes to a direction we believed in.

Floatie Bobo — another working prototype from the early direction.

Testing facial animation and body deformation in a reduced form.

The first direction we felt good about internally. The black Orb showed how much expression we could get from a simple face.

04 / Colour and environments

Colour, light and atmosphere.

I designed nine colour and environment combinations for ship. The environment studies explore how those character colours work with different palettes, lighting and atmospheric backgrounds.

Colour and atmosphere in motion.

The final palette

Orb’s black colour selection with its matching background — Black

Orb’s white colour selection with its matching background — White

Orb’s blue colour selection with its matching background — Blue

Orb’s pink colour selection with its matching background — Pink

Orb’s orange colour selection with its matching background — Orange

Orb’s green colour selection with its matching background — Green

Orb’s lightwell colour selection with its matching background — Lightwell

Orb’s salt flat colour selection with its matching background — Salt flat

Orb’s stillwater colour selection with its matching background — Stillwater

02 / Character development · IP2

Kestral

My role

Art director & character designer

Aspirational, but familiar.

Kestral was Tolan’s second character, designed with women aged 40 and over in mind. I led its art direction and design. It was by far my most challenging project at Tolan: what tested well with the audience didn’t always align with what we felt was strong character design.

01 / The audience

Someone familiar.

I joined after the spirit-animal concepts had tested poorly. For women aged 40 and over, we found relatability and familiarity mattered more. The challenge was finding a character they could connect with that still belonged in Tolan’s world.

02 / The tension

Wise wasn’t enough.

The “Mother Earth” direction felt old and wise, but people didn’t find her aspirational or appealing enough. We needed a character they could relate to and also want to make their own.

03 / The exploration

A wide-open brief.

Midjourney let us explore widely and quickly, but there were few constraints beyond the brand to guide that search. Alongside the character, we explored a liminal garden environment.

Early Kestral reference board of Midjourney-generated humanoid and animal-inspired character directions — Early reference exploration for Kestral — Midjourney studies across a broad range of character directions.

Six early Mother Earth visual explorations with flowing robes, pale hair and floral details — Mother Earth — early visual exploration.

Two Mother Earth character prototypes in orange robes on the original Tolan planet — Testing the direction as character prototypes.

More character prototypes 3 clips

Kestral — character studies.

04 / Cosmetics

Finding Kestral’s wardrobe.

That feedback made customisation central to the design. Kestral needed to be enough of a blank canvas for people to shape her into someone they related to. I explored clothing, hairstyles, accessories and colour to give her that range, from everyday outfits to dresses and outdoor gear.

Kestral cosmetics exploration board comparing the base character with dresses, cosy outfits, activewear, styled separates and outdoor clothing, with varied hair and accessories — Kestral — early wardrobe and cosmetic explorations.

05 / Environment design

A world of her own.

As we moved towards more distinct character identities, we decided to take Kestral off the shared Tolan planet and develop an environment of her own. These studies explore gardens, coastal landscapes and courtyards, using colour, planting and everyday details to shape her world.

Six Kestral environment concepts featuring flower gardens, a woodland path, coastal views and sunlit courtyards — Kestral — exploring a setting beyond the Tolan planet.

06 / A distinct visual style

Giving Kestral her own identity.

Once we decided each character should have a distinct identity, we explored pushing Kestral’s visual style further from the original Tolan. This study shows that direction in the character and her environment.

Kestral — exploring a more distinct visual style.

07 / Shipped designs

Kestral in her world.

The shipped character variations, bringing together the final hairstyles, colour palettes and garden environment.

Shipped Kestral with a dark bob, blue top and cream trousers in the garden environment — Kestral — final shipped designs.

Shipped Kestral with a coral bun, cream top and navy trousers in the garden environment — Kestral — final shipped designs.

More work at Tolan

Fig. 01 — Onboarding

The app's opening moment — I animated the Tolan and built the shaders, VFX, and camera framing behind it.

Fig. 02 — Cosmetics

I led design and technical-art experiments to push our cosmetics — chunkier, rounder forms with a little more magic. A few of the designs and tests.

Fig. 03 — Planet pulse

A pulse that guides players toward places on the planet while still reading as part of the world itself.

Fig. 04 — Tool call

Animation and FX for the Tolan's tool-call state — the moment it reaches for an action.

Fig. 05 — The Oracle

Early development of the Oracle — the god-like being who assigns your Tolan during onboarding. I led its design and creation: something mysterious, otherworldly.

Fig. 06 — The Oracle, final design

The finished Oracle in onboarding — it asks you questions, then transforms into a planet to reveal your Tolan. I built all the FX for the sequence.

What I made

Orb