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!! Heads up: this site is not optimized. !!

3 days. A lot of video. A heavy 3D file. A pitch.

I usually ship faster than this. Today the priority was the idea.

— bear with me, it's almost there —
Head of Design · Creative Evaluation

Hello, HighStack.

Two products, one system, three days. This site is how I'd open the conversation as your next Head of Design — the work, the thinking, and the level I ship at.

By Giovanni Angelini Scroll
A note before you scroll

I don't know the brand. Not yet.

Everything you're about to see is built on assumptions — informed by my taste, by the references I'd reach for, and by what I could derive from the brief in three days.

The goal of this test isn't just to deliver the two icons asked for. It's to show how I work — the kind of thinking I'd bring into the room, the level of finish I'd commit to before showing something, and the way I'd frame a problem before solving it.

So treat what follows as a directional pitch, not a finished product. The visuals are 80% intention, 20% polish — the videos are generated, the photography is placeholder. What's real is the system underneath: the rules, the differentiation, the rationale.

If we agree on the thinking, the rest is execution.

Giovanni Angelini · May 2026
Project 01
Maxine logo
MAXINE

Maxine doesn't live
inside the icon.
She steps out of it.

Not a chatbot. Not a mascot. A presence — the face you trust the way you trust the bartender who knows your drink. The icon is just a window. Maxine is what lives behind it.

An anchor mark, and a window.

The 'A' wedge from the HighStack logo becomes Maxine's signature — fixed inside the M. The monogram stays. The world behind it changes by season, mood, and user.
Maxine monogram 01 · Mark
Maxine creator scene 02 · Creator drop
Maxine night ride scene 03 · After-hours drop
Live interaction

Two directions. Both shippable.

The brief asked for an icon. I'm delivering a behavior. Click the floating card in each frame to see the full conversation surface.
Option A Frosted Glass Looping ambient · iOS / visionOS material language
Option B Spotlight Bloom — preferred Lifestyle video presence · swappable by season & audience
Step 01
Idle
Collapsed mark, bottom-right. Video keeps playing — never asleep.
Step 02
Hover
Attention pulse settles, scrim lifts. Maxine wakes up to you.
Step 03
Expanded
Card grows, label appears, CTA emerges. Cinema before conversation.
Step 04
Modal
Full surface. Chat, suggestions, drop curation, recap.
Tone of voice

She doesn't perform. She is.

Maxine talks like the friend who knows the door guy — calm, sharp, half-smiling. She's read the room before you walked in.

Cool · Confident · Slightly Amused · Speaks Slang · Doesn't Bend
Maxine
Maxine
Greeting
"Back already? Knew you'd come."
Maxine
Maxine
Suggestion
"New Stack Studio drop just landed. You're early."
Maxine
Maxine
Off-state
"AFK. Tap to wake me up."
Maxine
Maxine
Manifesto
"I don't sell. I curate."
The argument

Why a video presence, not a chat bubble.

A chat bubble is a utility. A presence is a brand. The first does a job; the second builds a relationship — and a creator-economy product lives on relationships.

The bubble pattern was invented for support tickets. It says: "need help?" Maxine doesn't help. She hosts. Different verb, different product.

The video pattern also lets HighStack treat the entry point as editorial real estate. The same floating card hosts a Halloween drop, a new-slot teaser, a seasonal mood — without ever redesigning the icon. It's the lowest-cost, highest-frequency surface on the entire product.

Figma file

The technical deliverable. Navigable, in place.

A 4-page static spec — Foundations, Components, Behaviors, Previews. Built around the Round 1 component, ready to hand off.
Open in Figma
Project 02
Stack Studio

It's not a tool.
It's a rig.

The brief asked for an icon. I'm delivering an object — a 3D Creator Rig the platform hands you when you sign up. The mark is the seal. The rig is the gift.

The concept

A rig, not an icon.

Most creator tools are workshops. Most casino platforms are pipelines. Stack Studio is an arsenal. The creator economy is closer to e-sports culture than to dev tools — and e-sports culture lives on loot boxes, drops, and unlocks.

So the deliverable for Project 02 isn't a flat glyph. It's a 3D Creator Rig: a piece of equipment the creator receives when they join the platform. It opens. It contains tools, templates, sounds, presets. It earns badges. It can be skinned for seasons and tournaments.

The flat icon below is the operational signature — the version that lives in the nav, the toast, the favicon. The rig is the cultural artifact. Same A-wedge, two scales.

Drag to rotate Low-quality 3D model — built only to convey the direction
The Rig

Four faces. One object.

Each face is an editorial surface — the same way Maxine's M is a window for ambient scenes, the rig's faces carry status, drop content, and seasonal skins.
Stack Studio vault — front
Stack Studio vault — detail
Stack Studio vault — open
Stack Studio vault — back
The Mark

Operational signature.

The flat icon is the 2D companion to the rig — the version that survives at 16px, in monochrome, in a toast notification, in a Discord role.

The A-wedge sits inside a softened techwear frame. Same color logic as the HighStack mark — the green plays the wedge, the dark frame holds it. Coherent with Maxine's monogram at the system level: three marks, one family.

The flat is the working tool. The rig is the brand asset. They never compete.

Stack Studio mark
The argument

Why a rig, not a UI.

A UI is a panel. A rig is a workspace. The first you open when you have to; the second you open because you want to.

Inside Stack Studio there is real work — templates, slot mechanics, sound packs, scripting, asset libraries. The container shouldn't disappear into the chrome of the platform; it should feel like a piece of equipment that belongs to the creator.

Treating Stack Studio as a settings panel would have produced what every casino backend already has — and what no creator gets excited about. Treating it as a rig produces something that earns a permanent place in the creator's setup, next to OBS and the mic.

The system

Three marks. One family.

The HighStack wedge anchors the brand. Maxine wears it inside the M. Stack Studio frames it inside the rig. Same green, same gesture, three contexts.

HighStack mark
HighStackThe brand
Maxine mark
MaxineThe presence
Stack Studio mark
Stack StudioThe arsenal
Process

Where I looked while building this.

A pitch is only as good as its library. These are the rooms I walked through while making decisions — not to copy, but to know what I was choosing against.

01
Stake
Anchor reference for the casino layer. What to elevate above.
02
Shopify
The floating video card pattern. Presence over pop-up.
03
Stan
Oversized type on intense color. Editorial confidence.
04
Mubi / A24
Cinematic restraint. Letting the image breathe.
05
Hypebeast
Editorial-as-product. Maxine's photographic register.
06
Fortnite Drops
The loot-box economy. Stack Studio's cultural ancestor.
07
Patreon
Creator-as-art treatment. Permission to be editorial.
08
Linear / Apple Intelligence
Restraint in the chrome. Confidence in the typography.
Built with

Honest about the stack. The thinking is mine — the tools made the deadline possible.

ChatGPT Claude Adobe Illustrator Photoshop Google Nano Banana Seedance 2.0