App design · Influencer marketplace
A marketplace connecting brands with the creators they want to work with, designed dark so the work does the selling.
Lead UI & UX designer
Four developers, LA to London
iOS app, MVP through handoff
iOS
The problem
Creators and artists have become some of the most effective marketing channels a brand can buy. Actually reaching them is another matter: tedious, expensive, and often impossible without an agency in the middle taking a cut for making introductions.
Sway’s founders wanted to remove that middle layer. The result was a place where a brand could find the right creator, agree terms and get the work done, without either side needing a manager to broker it.
Creator profiles carry the reach numbers a brand actually decides on, including followers, platform and audience, without burying the work itself.
What I did
A rough prototype had already been coded when I joined. Rather than restyle it, I mapped the journeys back out as UML diagrams first. This surfaced the flows nobody had thought about yet and meant the wireframes were solving the product rather than decorating the build.
Dark mode for MVP was a decision, not a trend. The product is a wall of other people’s photography, and a dark interface makes that imagery carry the screen instead of competing with it. Test groups confirmed it: creators spend real effort making their photos perfect, and the dark UI made that work land. Light mode was scoped for after launch rather than built twice.
The team ran from LA to London, so review couldn’t depend on being in a room. Designs went out through InVision so founders and developers could test on their own phones and comment directly on screens; approved work went to Zeplin for build; motion and transitions were prototyped in Principle so the developers could see the intent rather than read a description of it.
Dark throughout, so photography carries the interface rather than fighting it.
Start a project
Send the Figma, live product, deck or even a rough message. I’ll tell you what I think it needs, whether I’m the right fit and roughly what it’ll cost.
Usually reply within one working day · No sales call required