Layla jo
AlgOcean is a project that seeks to bridge the Algorand Community with Ocean Conservation Efforts around the world. The team first started in the AlgoNFT marketplace and developed an interactive virtual fishing game bot via Discord. AlgOcean Bot is a slash-command based game with various functions and you can catch a collection of fish NTFs. I have been involved in this community for the past months, and helped them with branding, merchandise, website and whitepaper.
Go to the website• First of all, I determined their target audience (20s to 40s), defined their personality, and designed a logo. I wrote down their mission statements and personalities and sketched out some initial ideas. And then, I explained my ideas with a team and came up with the final logo. I also created some design patterns for their branding and t-shirts.
I held a kick-off meeting with a founder of AlgOcean to understand their project and what their goal was. During the meeting, we discussed about the current problems why we need to design a website. I researched the latest web design trends and discussed with a team. A developer explained she needed components to build with. She wanted it to reduce the questions asked during the development phase and to have set-up rules. During the process, I adapted her approach and learned how to work with developers. Finally, I handed off all the work to her in Figma.
I created an information document for this organization to promote and highlight the features of their game, product, and service that they offer. I used Indesign and Illustrator to create a template.
"Layla was a delight to work with. She was very attentive to our detailed requests and gave some valuable suggestions as well. We appreciated her flexibility in revisiting some of the designs for review and updates."
- Founder, AlgOcean
"Layla was a very talented designer. Her designs made the website look professional and appealing. It was great to work and interact with her as a developer. She promptly implemented and improved on feedback we provided. Her work added great value to our project."
- Developer, AlgOcean
Overall, I enjoyed working with AlgOcean's executive team! Since I have been involved in the community from the beginning, I know how much they have grown and am glad I was a part of it!
1. Working collaboratively as a team
Working on a real project along with other team members allowed me to think outside of the box. In the beginning, we discussed about the goals and the timeframe to work collaboratively as a team. After I was done with my initial concept design, I had to communicate my ideas with specific rationale behind it. I explained why I rendered the buttons & elements in a specific way. I realized that the more I communicated with them, the smoother the project went. Even after handing off my Figma file to the developer, we communicated more to make sure we are implementing it the way that I envisioned as a designer and not assuming anything/leaving anything out.
2. Seeing the design from a dev's perspective
The challenge through the process was to develop the components in Figma file. From the developer's perspective, she also shared about her availability in terms of technology and asked me to build a design system to make sure we are on the same page. She mentioned about creating components to avoid making something that already existed. Along the way, I wasn't afraid of asking a lot of questions, and she was excited to share her knowledge and helped me learn. Even though I learned a lot by working with a developer for this small project setup, I would like to work with engineering and design team for a larger organization. And I would like to learn about the library in Figma and designing within existing design system.
3. Not just about design, but about building a community
I am a big fan of the AlgOcean's community overall. I like the fact that they help with Ocean Conservation as a supporter of wildlife rehabilitation. They are doing a lot of Ocean Conservation efforts and have partnerships with other fish/ocean-related organizations as well. I like how this community has a genius coder who makes everything possible. We have a 'feedback' channel where users share their frustrations and errors while playing the game. Then the developer team responds accordingly to the feedback. I learned how user's feedback is crucial for the development of the community and the project.