Illustration of a cozy room with a laptop, headphones, and a phone on a desk, a pink sofa, framed pictures, a vinyl record player, and houseplants, with the GitLab logo overhead.
A colorful digital illustration with mountains, a sun, and leaf illustrations in the background, overlaid with a block of text about GitLab explainer animation produced by Thought.
A colorful illustrated background with trees, clouds, a sun, overlaid with a paragraph describing a GitLab explainer animation produced by Thought Café.
Illustration of five diverse people standing in a row with colorful backgrounds, each with unique clothing and accessories.
An illustration of a man in a wheelchair working on a computer in a modern room with scientific and musical equipment, including a telescope, a guitar, and a framed printed poster of modern art the wall.
A man sitting on a purple chair with a laptop, in a cozy living room with pink walls, a standing lamp, a side table with candles, a skateboard on the floor, and framed pictures on the wall.
An outdoor illustration of a woman sitting at a wooden table, working on a laptop with a drink beside her. She is wearing glasses, a white shirt, dark pants, and orange boots. There are trees, a fence, clouds, and a sun in a colorful, cartoon-style background.
A woman sitting outside a vintage camper, working on a laptop, with a guitar and amplifier beside her in a cityscape background.
Three colorful digital illustrations showing different designs of a banner for a DevOps platform, each with a person and a background color: purple with a person in casual outfit and sneakers, pink with a person walking a dog, and orange with a person in semi-formal attire. The banner text is "The complete DevOps platform" in varying fonts and styles, with options labeled at the bottom.
A series of colorful vertical stripes in shades of purple, pink, orange, and yellow.
A young person with short black hair wearing a blue t-shirt and beige pants, sitting on a bench in a coffee shop, working on a laptop with a coffee mug nearby, in a cozy room decorated with shelves holding a bust, books, a globe and a rhinoceros.
A digital line drawing of a person working on a laptop at a desk in a coffee shop, with art and plant decorations, on a purple background.
A Animated gif of colorful, cartoon-style backyard scene with a tree, a fence, a sun, clouds, a laptop on a platform, a stool, a small hill, flowers, and a purple toy on the grass.
A brightly colored room with a telescope, a window showing a snowy landscape, a computer monitor, a framed picture of a telescope, an acoustic guitar, and three hanging light bulbs.
Animated gif of an illustrated scene. A retro camper van parked outdoors with a table, chairs, laptop, water bottle, guitar, grill, and small amplifier nearby, under a sky with clouds and city skyline in the background.
Five illustrated diverse faces with different hairstyles and expressions, each set against a colorful background.

About this project

Mippi created the characters and illustrated worlds for GitLab’s product video series, a cast of developers working from a pink sofa, a coffee shop and a camper van, so a DevOps platform feels as approachable as the people who use it. In collaboration with Thought Café.

  • GitLab, the end-to-end DevOps platform, needed an animated explainer introducing its CI/CD, issue tracking and code management tools to developers, team leads and technical decision-makers.

    • Art direction

    • Illustration and design

    • Animation

    • 6 looping background animations in 16:9

    • Branding and art direction for the character illustration

    • Character designs and styleframes

    • Background and environment illustrations

    • Typography and color palette options

  • Illustration built to fit GitLab’s brand, with characters designed to feel like real developers and teams, so the explainer reads as human rather than corporate.