A studio that plays in concert.
One accountable human out front. A full, senior AI creative department behind. Signed by one.
Selected work & concept pieces
Drag to explore. Concept pieces are labeled as such; we show no client work we did not make.
CONSORT
A whole brand world, built from zero.
Name, identity, a six-color system, a fictional crew, and a working site. Every piece produced the way a real engagement runs.
CONSORT: a complete fictional studio, built end to end to test our own system. Concept piece, not a client.
Range
Method
The baton conducts. The signature guarantees.
You brief one person.
Every engagement starts and ends with Richard. He runs discovery, holds the relationship, and owns the final call. You never chase a project through a chain of handoffs.
The department produces.
Behind him is BATON's creative department: a disclosed AI creative system built to cover the full studio. Direction, art direction, design, motion, copy, and a critic that argues with the work before you ever see it. Seats that work in parallel, at a speed a room of people cannot match.
One human signs.
Nothing ships until Richard has reviewed it, directed it, and put his name on it. The department gives BATON its range and its speed. The signature is what makes the work answerable. If it carries his name, it is his to stand behind.
The team
The people, and the department.
We run two groups, and we are plain about which is which. The first is people: real, accountable, reachable. The second is BATON’s creative department, a disclosed AI creative system that Richard directs. We do not dress it up as staff. We built it, named each seat, and gave every one of them a standard to hold. Between the two, one person gets the range of a full studio. We think that is worth being proud of, not quiet about.
The people
Richard Vaughn
Founder & Principal
The one who signs. Richard runs discovery, holds the relationship, makes the final creative call, and puts his name on everything the studio ships. He built BATON's creative department so that a small, senior team could deliver a full studio's range and speed without pretending to be something it is not.
Jon Vaughn
Co-Founder, Engineering
Turns approved design into fast, live, real product. Jon owns the build-and-ship side across the Robot Friends ecosystem: the part where a comp becomes a thing people actually use.
Wally Vu
Co-Founder, Operations
The human operations partner working alongside the department. Wally keeps the studio running: the logistics, the throughput, the part that turns good work into delivered work.
The creative department
A disclosed AI creative system
Creative Director
Jean Paul "JP" Vasseur
Sets the direction and the downbeat. Reads the brief, finds the real bet, and hands each route to the department grounded in actual references, never a vibe.
Art Director
Margot Vane
Owns composition and the cut. Decides what the eye meets first, and what earns the right to stay on the page.
Graphic & Product Designer
Otto Faber
Makes the mark. Turns a direction into a crafted, durable object you can print, ship, and hold.
Writer / Voice
Cy Merritt
Owns every word that carries brand meaning: the name, the line, the argument. Casts a fresh voice for each brand and defends it, word by word.
Motion
Mira Solano
Owns tempo. Decides how the work moves, and makes sure every frame is there for a reason.
Synthesist
Ravi Sethi
Opens the brief from an angle no one else was standing at, lifting the load-bearing idea from a distant field and stripping it to the mechanism. Hands JP raw material to direct with: the divergent spark before the craft chain runs.
Design Critic
Cato Ferrante
The verdict. Refutes the work before a client ever sees it, so that what ships has already survived its harshest read.
Marketing Director
Simone Ellis
Makes sure the studio practices what it sells. Owns BATON's own presence, the site, the content, the case studies, with a hard allergy to anything that smells fake.
Build Engineer
Kai Okonkwo-Reyes
Ships. Takes an approved design and turns it into a fast, accessible, real page on the web, then sweats the numbers until they go green.
Contact
Bring the work to one person.
A full studio’s range, at a speed that still surprises us, with a name on every deliverable.