Final moodboard + style tiles

These are our final moodboard and style tiles.

Our final moodboard turns away from more sleek and fun aspects and leans into an edgy, weird, retro vibe. The overall aesthetic is a retro game – pixel art, Undertale, OFF (2008 video game), this weird Squeeze the Egg game that just recently came out. All of these games are interested in the weird, the abnormal, the off-putting – as well as story, enigmatic characters, and starting over. We were also interested in the “old timey hacker” vibe, that “hacker” green, all of which is an antithesis to this GUI-dominated era. Most of all, we wanted to not allow our app – an anti-AI app – to reflect the aesthetic of AI. We wanted to produce not only a “useful” app, but an experience; since the character (avatar) representation of the brain is pretty central to the app, the aesthetic of the app is also really central. If the avatar is eclectic, strange, weird, then users will be more inclined to use it because they know that it is not AI generated, that it’s not generic, and the game-like interface makes it obvious that it’s a game, which avoids the subtle social-control tactics of gamification.

 

The style tile reflects what we describe in our moodboard: old timey hacker, retro aesthetic, game-like interface. One of the most central parts of our app will be the copy-writing, which ensures that it’s not writing you can ignore; it will be the opposite of AI-generated slop, which has no character. We don’t want our app to be ignorable. It’s going to add friction to the process of using AI, which is precisely the point, unlike many apps nowadays, which hope to decrease friction at all costs. Therefore, the progress bar is literally different colored ||||| characters, most elements are text (and not image) based, and the colors are fairly simple. The green will be the primary accent color, white and black as the “main” colors, and pink/blue for the character itself. 

Since we’re leaning into the retro game-like aesthetic, we only have one font. We will also borrow a lot of “style” language from text-based platforms, like those RPG adventure games, the Terminal interface, etc. etc. with only Barry as the image. That’s why we have the < character a lot (which is how you’d used to select). The dialogue box is borrowed from Undertale, to give you sense that the app itself is “alive,” is a character with personality.

To get to this point, we made some mockups as to what the app might look like, which helped guide our ultimate vision.

 

Individual moodboards

These are the individual moodboards each member made, which helped us get to our final moodboard/style tile.

Varsha: This moodboard presents an encouraging perspective on learning, on setting AI use goals intentionally, and on reinforcing the idea that learning is a beautiful process. For the overall visual aesthetics of the moodboard, I chose a pastel palette marked by shades of light pink, green, yellow, and blue. These softer shades align with a sense of patience, not intimidation or haste, which I believe everyone should approach learning with. When it comes to AI use, it is important that we bring the same perspective: how do we use AI in a way that helps us learn more than before, instead of hindering the learning process and our growth as individuals?

Natalia: The words I chose for my mood board are cute, simple, active, calming, and intuitive. For an extension that could cause some stress (ex. you don’t meed your AI goals or you receive constructive feedback) I think it’s important to keep the energy light and calming. This is so that when you do receive the criticism, it feels constructive and supportive rather than pushy or critical. I wanted the colors to be soft yet active, and since many people like to have their screensavers be pictures of nature, I thought an extra incentive to use the extension could be to add serene pictures of the outdoors. 

 

Eva: I chose the words: rest, warm and fun, vibrant and minimalistic, motivational and inspiring, and orange cat energy as the words for my moodboard. Our solution is a visual indicator that tells a user how much AI they are using, and helps them use AI more intentionally to achieve their goals. From our pre user interviews, I realized that for most of our users, they gravitate towards using AI when they are tired, stressed, or behind in deadlines. That is why my moodboard reflects warm vibrant colors that encourage rest and romanticization of everyday things so that the users can feel grounded, and instead of them focusing on always locking in, it can motivate them to lock in with intention so that they are not drained at the end of it. 

Sid: This moodboard reflects a very youthful, animated vibe that is designed to maintain a playful attitude for the user. It draws a huge inspiration from PostHog’s design, which also leverages several characters and sketch-like animated designs. We purposefully are detaching ourselves from the ‘professional’ software look and feel that most products showcase. Our analytics, including graphs, tables, etc., also will reflect a more cartoon feel with various sketches as shown above. I’m also a big fan of the blue gradient, especially because it usually resembles ‘calmness’ and ‘neutrality’. 

 

Angela: Since the original idea for our app was “youth”-centric – aka. something that related to the concept of “brainrot,” which stems from Gen-Z meme lingo, I wanted to make something that would reflect that particular aesthetic. I wanted it to be equally as funky, new, and interesting – and not something that looks like a generically AI-generated app. The idea was to make it just slightly ugly – oversaturated, 90s, kitsch, which would capture the feeling of what looking at brainrot feels like, what your brain rotting feels like. I also wanted to borrow from 90s web aesthetic because the app is meant to simplify, reduce, and bring us back to a vaguely nostalgic era of the internet, where there is no Chat, fewer images, cursors, square edges. It’s an attempt to be the antithesis to sleekness, frictionlessness. I wanted most of all friction: to remind us that friction is the thing that sometimes produces the most wonderful moments of human existence.

Individual style tiles

Natalia: When we all shared our mood boards to each other, before making our style tiles, I was really inspired by Angela and Sid’s boards and the one we made that combines all of our ideas. I decided to build upon that aesthetic. This is a more engaging, eye-catching, and trendy feel. Rather than make you feel relaxed, which could result in boredom, this extension style is hyper, cartoonish, and bold. It still employs some softer colors, but the accents are more pronounced and it is unpredictable. I think this is a more exciting brand look and could almost be like a visual accessory to their browser. It’s fun to play around with, meaning the user is more likely to keep it. 

 

Sid: In this style board, I wanted to use a neutral set of colors, as shown by the deep blues, grays, and browns, along with the background being a soft sky blue. Also, the fonts are very playful and are meant to resemble a Disney-type feel. Once again, the button components have a UI that was more common in the early 2000s. Our team also decided to incorporate an animated, personified brain to emphasize emotional attachment for the user, hence the two brains above. Lastly, I added in a crumpled paper texture as it’s an inspiration from Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Overall, the entire atmosphere here is meant to be minimalist and child-like.

 

Varsha

 

Eva

 

Angela