Makers #6: Eric Vienna and Mike Martin

Intro.

If not for remote work, Mike and Eric might never have crossed paths. But as luck —or fate— would have it, they met on their first project together for Nickelodeon more than four years ago. What began as a collaboration quickly became the “perfect partnership,” rooted in a shared mindset strengthened by complementary talents.

Last year, they had a problem to solve: how could AI bring different disciplines together, while still raising the bar for detail and creative thinking? The answer was Make.exe, the first-ever GenAI creative battle, which took place in Los Angeles in October 2025.

Working alongside the wider motion and design teams, the project unlocked breakthrough moments––pushing past what once felt impossible. 

In this installment of Makers, Mike and Eric reflect on the partnership behind Make.exe and how it redefined what’s possible for the craft.

The duo. 

Mike: I’m a Group Design Director at Huge, leading the Motion Craft, and have been here for over seven and a half years. I’m based in New York. I'm a motion designer by trade, specializing in 3D art direction, but over the past few years I’ve stepped into a creative leadership role. 

Eric: I’m currently based in Toronto but moving to LA. I’ve spent the last four years at Huge operating as a Design Principal, Director, and AI generalist. Though rooted in graphic design, I’m fundamentally a cross-disciplinary thinker, contributing to pitches, vision programs, and emerging technology initiatives that push both creative boundaries and the evolution of the discipline.

The partnership.

Eric: Mike and I collaborate on a ton of different projects, combining our talents in a way that feels natural. We each bring our own very unique set of skills and there’s a deep level of trust between us—and that trust is extremely important because we can just go off, work fast and deliver, without needing to manage the process.

Mike: We share a similar mindset around design and craft and a desire to push detail and elevate creative thinking. Eric is highly conceptual and excels at big ideas, while I bring a more hands-on, production-driven approach that elevates the visuals and craft. That balance is what makes our partnership work—we step away, then come back together with more polished ideas.

Eric: I’m obsessed with the future, where nothing is fixed and everything feels open. That’s where my brain lives—imagining what could happen and what could exist. Mike and I come from different angles, but AI has made our collaboration more fluid, almost like a shared language. His technical clarity and production mindset meets my instinct for big, conceptual swings and that tension is where the magic shows up. I push us into new spaces, knowing he’ll shape the landing with precision.

Mike: The best design always starts with solving a problem. Eric will bring this insane concept and I think, “I love it, but how do we make it real?” My favorite part is having to come up with creative ways to do it. It becomes a puzzle and my role is figuring out how all the pieces fit together.  

Eric: That’s exactly it. Sometimes I’m so deep in the abstract that I amplify the challenge. The key is taking it one step at a time: solve the technical challenges first, establish the guardrails, then push beyond them to create better work.

The unlock.

Eric: Make.exe came from a simple problem: we wanted for our creatives to embrace AI tools faster and further. Many felt overwhelmed, unsure or even fearful of how fast things were changing. I wanted to figure out what was happening, how we could tackle it and get people as excited as I am about it.   I believe the future belongs to creative generalists, and AI is the catalyst making that shift possible by dissolving the boundaries between disciplines. I wanted to show how these tools could be used to expand skill sets and unlock new ways of working.   What started as an internal livestream battle for Huge creatives quickly grew into a live event. As soon as that shift happened, I knew Mike had to be involved. Motion and 3D animation are what bring these ideas to life and that’s what was missing. The very first mockup I did for this was me versus Mike —a battle that didn’t exist yet— but it immediately sold the idea.

It felt like the perfect convergence of talent and abilities. I had complete faith that we could do something bigger. Mike was the obvious partner for me to build this.

Mike: Make.exe was a personal story for me too. I’ve been a longtime esports fan, especially fighting games, so the idea of creating a full live broadcast graphics package with over-the-top motion, inspired by professional Street Fighter tournaments, immediately sold me. The biggest key learning that I had through the process was trust and partnership. Eric can give me an idea and let me run with it. I can go away, tap into my motion team, explore brand design and come back with something elevated.

Eric: Once it became a live event, it felt real in a new way. We weren’t just streaming—we were building a physical space, a stage and an experience. That shift gave us permission to take bigger risks, like creating the sculpture that became a symbol of the night: a tribute to the last 30 years of computer graphics, culminating in a future-facing AI battle scene. Rather than focusing solely on AI, we used the moment to celebrate the full lineage of innovation that made it possible.

We bought 20 TVs and needed motion on every screen. I knew Mike and his team could deliver. I prototyped the experience in Unreal Engine to give everyone a proper sense of what it would look like in the real world. Kurt Lorey built the scaffolding from scratch, then Mike, Roger Young, Gino Nave and the rest of the motion team joined us on site—mounting screens, designing motion for each, bringing it all together using both AI and traditional craft.    

Problem solving.

Eric: When the creative team sat down at the table in LA and started to collaborate, it reminded me that being in a physical space is where the best work gets done. The breakthrough for me was realizing just how much we needed to get done—and how powerful it was to sit together, do our own thing, jam and support one another. That for me was the breakthrough moment of “Holy s*** this team is a bunch of killers.”

Mike: Agreed, having been able to collaborate with each other and problem solve in a studio space has really elevated our craft, our team and our trust.