Samsung Electronics · 2019–2023
Samsung AR Emoji
Led the AR design team behind Samsung's AI avatar platform, used by 20M+ people a month: a redesigned avatar, the creator pipeline and authoring tool behind it, partnerships with Disney and other IP holders, and an iF Design Award.
- Role
- AR design team lead: creator tools, AI avatars, strategic partnerships
- Team
- UI, visual, and 3D design teams; 3D agencies; overseas R&D and design centers; AI, camera, and graphics software; product planning; partnerships
- Timeline
- 2019–2023
- Stack
- 3D content pipeline, Unity SDK, Galaxy phones, tablets, PCs, and watches
The problem
Avatars on the market mimicked a user's movements but had no aesthetic appeal. They were hard to customize into something people wanted to be seen as, so people didn't use them. Samsung's AR Emoji needed to become a platform people would want to express themselves through, across every communication surface on the device.
What I led
Research. Perceptual mapping of competitor avatars to benchmark where each sat between realistic and cartoon, and where the uncanny valley began for our rendering budget on a phone.
Design strategy. A cartoon style that balanced mobile performance with the platform's playful character. To keep engagement up, we prioritized a steady flow of new items and wider customization over fidelity.
Pipeline redesign. Creating 3D content was slow and missing key steps. I worked across every relevant team to define a complete pipeline, system, and workflow for producing avatar content.
A converter and publishing tool. We designed and shipped a PC tool that converted and published content for internal designers, and let external creators bring their own IP onto the platform. The avatar skeleton was generalized so any bipedal character, not just humans, could be an avatar.
Partnerships and platforms. Exclusive items with external brands, including Disney characters on Samsung's avatar platform, and expansion from phones to tablets, PCs, and smartwatches, with a Unity SDK for third-party 3D apps.
Results
- iF Design Award in the communication discipline.
- Two booths at Samsung's developer conference in San Francisco for the new AR Emoji and the authoring tool, where more than 5,000 attendees tried the avatar and its authoring process.
- A content pipeline that external creators could use, which turned a feature into a platform.
What I took from it
Platforms win on the tooling behind them. The most durable part of this work was not the avatar style but the pipeline and tool that let other people make content. The same instinct shapes how I run my own apps today: shared modules first, features second.
