Public Studio

June 2015 – August 2018

Generalist

Public Studio was an opportunity to work with Aaron Sittig and Justin Shaffer to build new independent companies around sustainable ideas. I helped think through product ideas and build the initial implementations of the clients and services needed to grow the companies. Over three years we produced two companies:

Relay

Relay was an attempt to build a modern version of the communities we experienced during the early days of the internet. We took inspiration from IRC, Usenet and forums to build something where people could share comfortably among people with similar interests. The experience was meant to look familiar if you were already comfortable using your phone’s native browser. You could search and browse rooms of all types or swipe between them effortlessly.

Admins in the room could control who had “voice” privileges as well as control over who could execute custom commands in the room. We wanted to make rooms feel programmable so they could be constructed in creative new ways 🎨 Custom keyboards and our API would make this possible.

The main view you see upon opening the app, swiping through rooms is the core interaction. Tapping the search bar puts you into a search and explore mode.

This zoomed out view offers a home for notifications and a way to quickly triage rooms you’ve recently participated in.

Easily dismissible cards disclose information while keeping you in the room.

User cards make it easy to manage user privileges within a room.

Some iterations for finding just the right shape for people’s heads. We called it the squircle!

Keeping things fun and colorful. Some of these are ripped from Apple.

Precap

Precap was a daily journaling experience with close friends. Everyone writes about their plans or experiences throughout the day. Close friends can see each other’s days and send messages to each other until the next day when everything resets. History is private unless you had a conversation with someone else about a specific day.