Brand identity + product + motion

Amoeba: a brand for an AI that reads biopsy slides and boxes the cells a pathologist should see first

Amoeba is AI that reads every biopsy slide, tile by tile, and boxes the cells a pathologist should look at first. Its buyer is the lab director with fewer pathologists and more slides every year. We built it from scratch: the name, a world where the slide is cut into tiles and a red reticle reads them in turn, the case view that counts the read, the hand-drawn lockup, and the brand on cassettes, slide labels, scrubs, a lightbox and a tee.

Project: An Alterra Studio project: we built the company's brand, product and launch from scratch
Stage: AI pathology, Series A stage
Services: Naming, world and key art, lockup and mark, case view, films of the read, cassettes, slide labels, scrubs, lightbox and apparel, animated board
Tools: Imagine (our in-house design app), Nano Banana Pro, Seedance, HyperFrames

Brief

The problem and the brief

Ten funded AI pathology homepages, and only one shows its product reading a slide on the first screen.

Amoeba is AI that reads every biopsy slide in tiles and boxes the cells a pathologist should look at first, so each case opens on the regions that need a human eye. Its buyer is the lab director or head of anatomic pathology at a hospital or reference lab.

The brief, in a founder's words: "Our AI reads a whole slide and boxes the two regions a pathologist should look at first, but our homepage says 'precision pathology' over a stock photo, so the lab director who checks us before a call can't see what it does."

What the lab is up against

The research

41.7%

more diagnostic work fell on each US pathologist from 2007 to 2017, while their number fell 17.5%.

Source: JAMA Network Open, 2019

of UK pathologists say all clinical demand is met within their contracted hours.

Source: RCPath census, 2025

of NHS histopathology departments had enough staff to meet clinical demand.

Source: RCPath, 2018

Three doubts a lab brings to the first call

PathologistThe AI will miss the one cell that matters, and I'll still sign the report.
Lab directorI can't prove it saves enough pathologist time to pay for itself.
Lab directorMy pathologists won't trust a box they can't check.

Logic

The strategy: every tile read, the right cells first

The board is the slide. A whole-slide image is read in tiles, so every cell of the board is a tile, and one red reticle reads them in turn until it locks on the violet cell. Red is only ever Amoeba reading.

Doubt 1 · Missed cell?The AI will miss the one cell that matters, and I'll still sign the report.
Every tile read, and counted
The case view counts the read as it goes: tile 212 of 336, slide 3 of 4, prostate core biopsy. Each tile fills in on the map as it is read, so the pathologist sees the whole slide was covered before a single box appears.
Each US pathologist carries 41.7% more diagnostic work than in 2007. A pathologist who can see the coverage can let the machine take the first pass.
Doubt 2 · Worth the money?I can't prove it saves enough pathologist time to pay for itself.
336 tiles read, 2 regions to review
When the read is done, the case opens on its headline: 2 regions to review, each one flagged on the tile map. The next case is already queued below it.
Only 5% of UK pathologists say demand fits inside their hours. Pathologist time is the budget line, so the screen leads with where that time should go.
Doubt 3 · Can I check it?My pathologists won't trust a box they can't check.
The box sits on the tissue
Every flag is drawn on the slide itself, at its tile and position. On the board and in the read film, the reticle crosses the slide and holds on the one violet cell, so the pathologist sees what was flagged and where it sits.
The pathologist signs the report. A box they can check in one look is one they can sign under.

System

The design system

Void black for the ground, bone and eosin coral for healthy tissue. Violet is the one cell that needs a human, and red is Amoeba reading.

Void #050505The ground
Bone #EDE6DAType, the lockup, healthy tissue
Eosin coral #E0745FTissue, as the stain shows it
Hematoxylin violet #3B2F8FThe one cell that needs a human
Read red #FF2A1AAmoeba reading: the reticle, boxes and readouts

The world. Read the glass. A whole-slide image is read in tiles, so the board is the slide: tissue cut into floating tiles, serial sections on glass, and a red reticle that runs through the gutters from tile to tile.

Lockup and mark. Drawn by hand and traced as drawn. The mark is a cell with a ring through it, and the board performs it as the read locking on.

Type. Atkinson Hyperlegible Next for words and Martian Mono for the readouts, set as real tile numbers and coordinates.

What we left out. 7 of 10 competitors use purple as their brand colour, and 7 of 10 lead with words like precision. None uses a dark ground or the coral of the stain.

Amoeba key art: tissue cut into floating tiles, one violet cell boxed in red

The 10-second board, made for LinkedIn and X.

Serial sections of coral tissue on glass panes, one pane violet, a red line dropping at it — Serial sections: the red line of the read drops at the one violet pane.

The world in motion: the slide read tile by tile, one cell boxed.

The Amoeba lockup in bone on black, the mark boxed by a red reticle — The lockup, drawn by hand and traced as drawn. The mark is a cell with a ring through it.

A gloved hand holds a glass slide with an Amoeba label and a red ring around a violet cluster

A pathologist in Amoeba scrubs in warm light

An Amoeba poster in a lightbox in a dark corridor

A rack of coral tissue cassettes printed with the Amoeba mark, one violet — Cassettes in the rack: one violet case, the one that needs a pathologist.

The back of an Amoeba tee printed with serial sections

Amoeba key art: a coral form breaking into red boxes, one locked on a violet point

Tee print: serial sections stacked as rings, one violet, with the Amoeba lockup

Tee print: a grid of coral tiles with one violet tile

Tee print: the Amoeba mark read in tiles, breaking into points

Method

The category audit

We scored 10 funded AI and digital pathology companies on our startup homepage benchmark. Their sites are finished and careful, and only one shows a slide being read on the first screen.

Each homepage was scored on 12 criteria, 0 to 2 each, at 1440 and 390 pixels wide. The group averages 13.4 out of 24, close to the 14.1 of our wider benchmark: 9 of 10 look established and 7 of 10 show some customer proof.

The gaps are on the first screen. Only 1 of 10 says what it does in five seconds at both widths, 3 name the buyer there, and 7 lead with words like precision, transform or future. Those are the gaps Amoeba's homepage is designed to close.

Homepage score out of 100 (12 criteria, 0 to 2 each): 10 funded AI pathology companies, October 2026

Company A67
Company B67
Company C67
Company D63
Company E63
Company F54
Company G50
Company H50
Company I46
Company J33
Benchmark average, 100 startups59

Alterra Studio startup website benchmark 2026. Companies are anonymised.

The offer

What we'd ship

For a real AI pathology company, this is a Brand + Website Build.

Brand: Name check, world and key art, lockup and mark, palette and type, and the rules for violet and red
Website: A homepage that opens on the case view reading a slide, with the buyer and the next step on the first screen, at desktop and phone width
Product: The case view, the queue and the slide label in the brand
Launch: The animated board, films of the read, cassettes, scrubs, lightbox posters and apparel

After this

What's next

Build the homepage opening on the case view at 1440 and 390, and score it on the same benchmark.
Answer the quality lead a screen that shows what the read is cleared for, and on which scanners.