Intro Video
Ambie was an iOS art game that achieved a continuous 4.7+ rating, engaging tens of thousands of creators. It proved that while building a product people love is an art, scaling a bootstrapped freemium model is the ultimate design challenge.
The Position
I co-founded Ambie with a close friend, working as a remote team of three to build an iOS art game from scratch. As the sole designer, this project became my heart and soul. Out of sheer necessity and passion, I wore every creative hat imaginable: crafting the app’s UI/UX, building the brand identity, animating in-app elements, and designing the website. To get the word out on a bootstrapped budget, I even stepped outside my comfort zone and jumped in front of the camera for the first time in decades to lead our social media marketing.
The Takeaway
Our community loved the app. We maintained a 4.7+ rating throughout its life, and our super-users were using it daily, generating thousands of beautiful pieces of art. But despite the engagement, we hit a classic hurdle: people loved the free version and didn’t want to upgrade. We couldn’t get the business fundamentals to align, so we ultimately chose to remove it from the App Store. It was a tough call, but the experience hasn’t slowed me down, it has only made me hungrier to build the next product people love.
Ambie, your creative sidekick
An interactive iOS Art Game
Built as a creative sanctuary for mobile players, Ambie is an art challenge game that merges interior design with generative art tools. The platform invites users to design custom wall art, unlock unique styling elements, and share their creations with an active community. It's an immersive space designed to gamify artistic exploration and unlock daily inspiration.
Core Game Mechanics
Artwork Creation
Miscellanious
Logo - Wordmark
Primary
Secondary
Background
Brand Colors
The primary yellow and vibrant green were chosen to cut through the neutral tones of our interior design-led challenges. This striking contrast allowed us to protect a sleek, modern aesthetic while injecting a joyful, high-energy vibe.
Custom icons
I designed a bespoke icon set with a playful, gamified aesthetic. To elevate the overall feel, every icon was paired with fluid micro-interactions and animations.
UI Component library
A high-gloss, glassmorphic finish became the defining visual language across our entire UI component library.
Game currency
I illustrated custom, scalable 3D assets for our core in-game economy: diamonds and coins.
Reward icons
These hand-illustrated assets were designed to celebrate player milestones and were seamlessly integrated throughout the user journey.
The Creative Toolkit
Developing a minimum viable toolkit was essential. Without these core assets, testing and evaluating the actual gameplay wouldn’t be possible.
Art styles for image generation
A bespoke library of frames
Customizable Poster Templates
Starting from a blank canvas can be daunting, so our templates anchor users with an intuitive structure and process. Behind the scenes, these templates functioned like mini-websites—engineered to be fully responsive and adapt to a multitude of dynamic variables. While only a curated selection of the concepts below were ultimately implemented, they represent the foundational framework of the product.
Bringing the Scenes to Life
Every challenge needed its own backdrop, requiring a heavy production lift. I built these environments using a mix of AI and precise Photoshop work, structuring them in layers—separating shadows, subjects, and foreground elements—for a clean, seamless assembly.
Artwork by the community
From Screen to Print
We made it effortless for users to get their artwork printed and shipped directly to their door. By integrating a global print partner’s API, we turned digital creations into physical products in just a few taps. On the tech side, our front-end engineer worked absolute magic to ensure every piece rendered beautifully at a massive scale—which was no easy feat.
Driving Growth through Video
I’ve always preferred being behind the camera, but distribution requires stepping out of your comfort zone. I produced a series of video campaigns for our paid and organic channels myself.
Website design for early access page