Meet the SmallBizAI.au Mascots: Australia’s AI Animal Kingdom
Posted: May 8, 2026 Filed under: smallbizai.au | Tags: artificial-intelligence, aussie animals, technology Leave a commentI didn’t set out to build a zoo. It kind of just happened.
SmallBizAI.au is at 690+ posts now. Nine content hubs. Forty-one industries. At some point a site that size stops feeling like a project and starts needing to feel like a place. So Claw 🦞 (my AI assistant) and I started building mascots.
That was a few weeks ago. It just started with me wanting to create a favicon for the site. I really liked the result with the golden Kangaroo surrounded by a green circuit board, so I kept going. There’s now 30 Australian animals, most with a job to do.
Why animals?
Australian animals are distinctive, a bit ridiculous, and most people have a feeling about them before you say a word. The Platypus is already doing something weird and interesting. The Shark is already telling you this section means business. The Quokka is already excited to see you and you haven’t even opened the newsletter yet.
They also made the site distinctly Australian without having to say it. Which felt right for a site about AI tools for Australian small businesses. Plus, it’s a bit of fun.
How we built them
I started with Poke, an pretty handy AI agent which you can text, which connected to Canva which was then used to create, iterate, and resize images. I also love that I was using an Aussie unicorn 🦄 to help design my Aussie animals. .
The brief was identical for every mascot:
Minimalist line art [ANIMAL], [POSE/ACTION]. Gold and green colour palette, white background, clean bold lines, no shading. Logo illustration style – [CHARACTER TRAIT that fits the role].
That’s it. The consistency comes from holding those constraints across all 30. Swap in the animal and the character note, and you have the brief.
The process was a proper back-and-forth. I would start with the initial brief and I would get back a few concepts. I would then reply what felt off , such as “the Platypus looks like a beaver”. We (Claw🦞and I) would refine the brief, and go again. Some came out right first go. Others took a few more attempts. The Tasmanian Devil needed three rounds before it stopped looking threatening and started looking like it was just a bit stressed, which is exactly the right energy for a page full of news deep dives.
Total cost: zero. Which still surprises me every time I think about it.
The Mascot Menagerie
Twenty One are deployed and on duty:
- 🦘 Kangaroo : Favicon + homepage. The brand anchor. The one everyone sees first. It’s done the rounds.
- 🐨 Koala (reading) : /start-here/ for people new to AI for business.
- 🐨 Koala (with tablet) : /topics/ browsing the full content library.
- 🦜 Kookaburra : /how-to/ problem-based how-to hub. The one that knows the answer.
- 🐨 Wombat : /all-how-to-guides/ every how-to guide, indexed.
- 🪶 Lyrebird : /automate-your-business/ the automation hub. Lyrebirds mimic everything, which seemed right.
- 🦈 Shark : /compare-tools/ side-by-side comparisons. No warmth, just verdict.
- 🦎 Goanna : /industries/ browse by industry. Covers a lot of ground.
- 🦅 Eagle : /australian-ai-companies/ 200+ AU company profiles. High vantage point, sees everything.
- 🦆 Platypus : /sunday-specials/ bull & bear debates each Sunday. The Platypus is already arguing both sides of its own existence.
- 🐱 Quokka : /newsletter/ unreasonably enthusiastic about showing up in your inbox every Tuesday.
- 🦡 Tasmanian Devil : /news-deep-dives/ digs into the news stories that matter.
- 🦔 Echidna : /all-posts/ spiky, thorough, covers everything.
- 🕷️ Huntsman Spider : /resources/ industrious, thorough, slightly terrifying if you weren’t expecting it.
- 🦜 Cockatoo : /contact/ loud, opinionated, wants to talk, and we can hear you.
- 🐊 Croc : “Snappy” dashboard. He’s on a private page, may go public one day.
- 🐙 Octopus : /tools/ eight arms, eight tabs open at once.
- 🦎 Blue-tongue Lizard : the 404 page. Lost? The Blue-tongue is here. It is also not impressed.
- 🐦 Bowerbird : Monthly Digests. Collects the best of the month and presents it beautifully.
- 🐸 Green Tree Frog : /start-here/ secondary. Cheerful. Adaptable. Good at showing up.
- 🐇 Bilby : /case-studies/ rare, distinctive, worth seeking out.
The Waiting Room
Nine more are built and ready, waiting for their pages to be built. There is genuinely a section in the mascot library called “Ready: Waiting for Page Assignment.” I just call it the waiting room. The Numbat has been waiting the longest and is starting to look restless.
The Dingo is earmarked for a social and community hub whenever that section takes shape. The Rainbow Lorikeet is the most colourful and will probably end up somewhere that needs energy. The Cassowary is waiting patiently, which is out of character.
What surprised me
The mascots changed how I think about building the site. Every new hub now starts with the question: “which animal?” It’s a useful design constraint. If you can’t figure out which mascot belongs there, the section probably doesn’t have a clear enough identity yet.
I also didn’t expect how much personality they’d add to the daily admin experience. The Quokka shows up in the newsletter section. The Croc is on the “snappy” internal dashboard. It sounds small but it makes the whole thing more fun to build, which matters a lot when you’re doing this on a career break at pace. Did I mention it’s also fun?
The full library
All 30 are catalogued at smallbizai.au/mascots/ active, ready, and backlog. Including the ones whose pages haven’t been built yet. We’ve made it that they may make an appearance on the site’s home page! The Numbat has been told it’s worth the wait.
frankarr 