META AVATARS
Building the character layer of the Metaverse
When I joined Meta, avatars were fragmented across platforms.
Over three years, I led a creative transformation resulting in a unified, scalable character platform spanning mobile and VR.
I led the development of an art style and technical pipeline that is high-fidelity yet performant across devices, flexible for creators, and aspirational in every marketing moment.
What I was responsible for
I represented a multidisciplinary org of 100+ artists across Art, Tech Art, Animation, and Production — partnering daily with Product, Engineering, Research, and Marketing leadership.
I set the creative vision for:
Avatar SDK across Meta platforms
Consistently aligning the creative to our key audience, Teens and Young Adults.
Aspirational Avatars, our major character refresh
AI Character and AI NPC market introduction
Seasonal drops, rewards, and live economy moments
Brand partnerships, including Captain America, Coldplay, Doja Cat, WNBA, College football, Naomi Osaka, Diesel, Balenciaga, Valentino and others
GDC 2026 and Connect 2024 & 2025 experiential storytelling
1. Unifying the Avatar platform
From fragmented features to industry-leading character system
The challenge:
Meta avatars were inconsistent between platforms. They did not represent our millions of users well - and were, let’s face it, not very appealing. We needed a scalable, personalized system that prioritized craft, worked across mobile and VR, and could support a creator economy, AI, and future creation tools. And we needed all on an accelerated timeline.
What I did
Defined long-term creative strategy for a unified avatar platform
Owned creative decision-making for the latest Avatar SDK
Partnered with engineering, product, and tech art on system-level character architecture
We created guidelines for size, shape and distance of facial features in detail. These guardrails became the bounds of the parametric system.
We also trained an AI creation system, so that users could scan their face and easily get a likeness.
One of the creative decisions I drove was the tradeoff between truly natural tracked animation, vs curated animation that could be more clear and appealing.
Impact
Meta’s new avatars was loved by users and creators, and was a point of pride for the company. Outside of the affinity and creativity that it unleashed, it also
Established a single character platform spanning Mobile and VR
Provided users with a highly customizable avatar system that anchored on representation and affinity
Enabled monetization, brand integrations, and LLM powered styling
Positioned avatars as foundational to Meta’s metaverse strategy
2. Non-Human Avatars
Letting people show up as their inner selves
What I did
Defined the creative strategy for introducing non-human identity at platform scale.
Owned the style choices for our first party skins (while allowing for maximal optionality for creators)
Drove tools and feature prioritization (variable head and hand size, new shader capabilities like emissives, cel shading, irridescence. We had to prioritize rigorously, although we wanted it all
The challenge:
Human avatars weren’t able to express identity, fandom, irony, fantasy, and play for Meta users.
We needed to evolve the platform from “who you are” to “who you want to be today.”
Why it mattered
Non-human avatars allowed users to:
Express their “inner selves” with bold visual statements
Represent fandom, cultural interests, and communities they love
Shift identity depending on context
Impact
Expanded the creative vocabulary of the platform
Increased personalization and engagement
Enabled new types of branded and creator-driven content, rewards and monetization opportunities
Laid the foundation for more autonomous character creation systems
AI Agents
One interesting non-human character project that we did (unrelated to skins) was the creation and training of non-human AI Agents. There was no way to create IRL data for a robot.
My team created the content, and supported the training
3. Aspirational Avatars
Refreshing identity for millions of users
The challenge:
Users wanted avatars that were more aspirational, that expressed a broader range of body types and levels of fitness / appeal
What I did
Hands-on directed visuals for what the core body shapes should look like
Owned creative calls on improved animations, clothing and other reward items to mark the launch moment
Decisionmaking on deeper customization of body shapes
Driving alignment with cross functional leadership.
Previously, the team had proposed solutions that were predicated by the existing bounds of the parametric system, which did not resonate with product leadership or users.
I took a different approach by setting aside the system, and focusing on the end goal. After that, we made quick, data driven decisions that improved the parametric system and enabled us to improve our product as a whole.
Impact
Increased engagement across Meta platforms
Set new standards for character quality on for Meta