I led everything design-related for Currents, a brand-new consumer social product.♥
As head of design for Biography, I was responsible for leading the design and product thought for Currents, a community-based social media app where content expires after 48 hours. Our beta peaked at #149 on the App Store. Stay tuned for what’s next!
Currents
Case study available upon request.
Overview
Last summer, I took a risk.
I said goodbye to my two cats, hello to 80-hour work weeks, and booked a ticket to Boston to join a start-up called Biography. As the Founding Head of Design, I led the branding and 0→1 design for Currents. While most of my work is still not available to be shown publicly, here are some things I did:
Built a thoroughly documented design library with over 3000 variants.
And that's not even including colors, styles, and special animations that we recycled throughout the app. This was my first time ever making a proper design library, and it was definitely a bit of a learning curve. But within a couple weeks, there were hundreds of components and subcomponents with clear and concise documentation for developers. It made our work much more efficient in the long run!
Bridged the communication gap between designers and engineers.
Working at a fast-paced start-up meant ten different things were always going on at once. I was always in constant communication with everyone to make sure we were on track with our tasks and app features were getting shipped on schedule. I was not just a designer, but sometimes a product manager and even a SwiftUI developer as well!
Scaled the Biography team.
A month or so in, I brought Joanna, an incredibly talented designer, onto our team to fast-track our design progress. Despite us never having met before, collaboration and critiquing came easy, and we were able to build off of each others' ideas and skillsets to create a flexible and unique identity for our app.
Interface
Currents
Use social media like it's the 2010s again.
Onboarding
Adding a profile photo.
Home
Posts are formatted to look like a large group chat.
Light/Dark
We created a robust design system that worked for both light mode and dark mode.
Profile
Personal profile screen.
Widgets
Profiles contain editable widgets for users to share more of their personality. One of the more components we researched more rigorously.
Create mode
Another component that went through a lot of iteration. We wanted it the simple act of making a post to be fun and playful.
Comments
Another part that went through a lot of iteration.
Video player
Glass-styled video players. A screen I'm particularly proud of.
Sharing
Shared content for text-only posts and app links.
Icons
Icon library
Joanna and I also drew almost 200 icons for Currents entirely from scratch.
Colors & Gradients
Wrapping Up
Within a couple months, we launched our product, cracked the app store charts, and raised at a $30M dollar seed valuation.
Everything about the summer felt (and still feels) like a fever dream. I cannot put into words how much I've grown from working with the incredible and brilliant Biography team. I grew much more confident in myself and my work, and learned how to stand up for my ideas without being stubborn or unreceptive to feedback. I learned how to best set up prototypes for developers to implement and how to best communicate in a fast-paced environment with a ton of people all working on different projects.
It was a lot of trial and error, a lot of late nights, and a lot of last-minute scrambles. But somehow, we made it to the other side!
A quick update: we recently pulled Currents back into closed beta as we gather user feedback and work on improving the product. This unfortunately means that we're no longer allowing new sign-ups to the app for a little bit. But stay tuned, it's about to get a whole lot better!
