landing page
home page
recording a message
on the shore
sonar friends map

Inspiration

Change rarely happens all at once. It comes in waves: a new city, a new school, a new job, a new version of yourself. Each one is exciting, but it can quietly pull you away from the people who knew you before. Everyone gets busy, conversations get shorter, and the small, everyday connection fades without anyone meaning to let it. With "Waves of Becoming" in mind, we kept coming back to a message coming back to you in a bottle. It’s slow and personal, and it finds you wherever the tide has taken you. We wanted to design something that helps people grow and change without drifting apart.

What it does

Bottles from home: loved ones send small, warm questions, like “Found a comfort food in Dallas yet?”
Easy replies: you answer with a photo, a voice note or a few words, then toss it back to sea.
No pressure: there are no streaks, likes or feeds, so staying in touch feels like something to look forward to, not a chore.
Your tide pool: your answers collect into a quiet record of who you’re becoming in your new home.

How we built it

Research first: we started with research on the loneliness of moving and on what makes long-distance connection feel meaningful rather than draining, and used it to guide the flows and the copy.
Design and prototype: we designed the app in Figma, building from low-fi flows to hi-fi screens, and then made it interactive with Figma’s prototyping tools.
Visual style: a watercolor, ocean look in soft pastels. It includes hand-painted sea creatures, washed-up paper notes and skies that change with your mood.

Challenges we ran into

Calm, not kiddy: our early versions felt too cute and too much like a game. We cut back to softer colors, fewer elements and plain, honest copy.
Watercolor in a digital tool: getting it to look right was hard. Glowing edges, harsh backgrounds and stiff motion all needed several rounds of fixes.
Keeping it simple: we had more ideas than we could use, so we had to choose what to leave out.
Filling the screens: making them feel warm and full without cluttering them took lots of iteration.

What we learned

Small, low-effort moments of contact can mean more than long catch-up calls.
Restraint is a design skill: removing things often made the app feel better.

What's next for in progress

Building a working version with real bottle delivery and voice replies.
Prompt packs for different relationships: parents, grandparents and old friends.
Gentle reminders timed around hard moments, like the first holidays away from home.
Accessibility work: captions for voice notes, screen-reader support and options for reduced motion.