Create a brand mascot for marketing assets

What you’ll build

A friendly mascot for “Acme Coffee” — a stylized animated character who shows up holding the exact Acme logo cup, rendered in the brand palette across web hero, social, and product-photo scenes. Mascot identity locked. Brand kit locked.

Step 1 — Build the brand kit (5 min, free)

1. Go to /brand-kit — if you’re in the beta you’ll land on the hub; otherwise the page collects your email so we can get you in.
2. Logos & icons → upload your logo (SVG ideal, PNG with transparent background works). Pick a variant: Primary (dark bg) or Primary (light bg).
3. Colors → add at least three swatches with role tags:
   json

   [
     { "name": "espresso",   "hex": "#3B1F0F", "role": "primary"    },
     { "name": "cream",      "hex": "#F4E6CE", "role": "background" },
     { "name": "accent-red", "hex": "#C9322E", "role": "accent"     }
   ]

   The contrast checker auto-runs on the primary + accent + background combinations once all three roles are present.
4. Voice & tone → add a few personality tags (Warm, Premium, Playful) and 2-3 Do/Avoid rules.
5. Art direction (optional but high-leverage) → pin one line for illustration style and/or photography style. Example: “Photoreal hero shots, warm natural light, real materials, shallow depth of field.” This prepends to every generation, so you don’t restate it per prompt.
6. Image rules (optional) → add visual do/don’ts. Example: “Always show cups with the logo facing camera” or “Never combine more than 3 brand colors per image.”
7. Guidelines & docs → if you have a brand-guidelines PDF, drop it in. Hex codes get auto-extracted into the Colors section for review — saves typing.

Step 2 — Create the mascot (5 min, 5 credits)

1. Go to /dashboard → Create Character.
2. Fill in:
   • Name: Beanie
   • Description: A small stylized coffee bean character with thin arms and legs, a warm smile, and a barista’s apron in cream and espresso colors. Cute but not childish — vibe of a premium specialty brand mascot, not a kids’ cartoon.
   • Art style: modern flat illustration, clean vector lines, soft shading
3. Continue → auto-fill descriptor → generate 5-pose reference sheet → lock.

Step 3 — Generate a brand-locked scene (1 min, 2 credits)

Now compose mascot + brand kit in one scene. From the API:

CHAR_ID="<beanie character uuid>"
KIT_ID="<acme brand kit uuid>"

curl -X POST https://steadyshot.ai/api/generate \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ss_live_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d "{
    \"character_id\": \"$CHAR_ID\",
    \"brand_kit_id\": \"$KIT_ID\",
    \"prompt\": \"Beanie standing in a warm café, holding the Acme Coffee takeaway cup, morning light through the window\"
  }"

Credit cost is 2 (1 for character, 1 for brand composition). The rendered image shows Beanie holding the EXACT Acme cup with Acme branding, palette, and the rest of your kit obeyed.

Step 4 — Build a full asset set (10 min, ~10 credits)

Use the storybook endpoint to fan out a campaign in one call — each “page” becomes one asset:

curl -X POST https://steadyshot.ai/api/storybook \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ss_live_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d "{
    \"character_id\": \"$CHAR_ID\",
    \"art_style\": \"modern flat illustration\",
    \"pages\": [
      \"Beanie waving from a barista counter — wide hero shot for a landing page\",
      \"Beanie holding the Acme cup and giving a thumbs-up, transparent background\",
      \"Beanie sitting on a coffee bean pile, reading the morning paper — for an Instagram square\",
      \"Beanie running with a tray of Acme cups, motion blur — for a delivery promo banner\",
      \"Beanie waving good-night next to a moon, scarf flowing — for an evening email header\"
    ]
  }"

Step 5 — Use anywhere

• Figma — install the SteadyShot plugin (see Figma docs), pick Beanie, regenerate per-frame in your design file. Identity stays consistent across hero, footer, social cards.
• Photoshop — load Beanie + Acme into the Photoshop plugin for layered comp work.
• Claude Desktop (MCP) — just ask Claude: “Give me a Beanie + Acme image for a Black Friday banner — bold colors, big sale graphic”. Claude calls generate_scene with both ids.

Pro tips

• Lock both before scaling. A draft brand kit or character can drift between renders. Locking pins the descriptor + assets so identity stays tight.
• Persist art style. Pass art_style on every generation (or set it on the character) so 4 weeks from now your mascot still ships flat-vector, not photoreal.
• Bound your palette with brand voice + palette together. The brand QA rubric scores palette drift; consistent palette across all renders is the difference between “feels on-brand” and “just AI slop”.