PULP

Discover new music from your friends' favorite tunes

PULP

Discover new music from your friends' favorite tunes

Client

Younode, Inc.

Services

Product Logo Design
User Experience Design
User Interface Design
Marketing Collateral

Learn more at PULP's official website.

Press

Younode News

The Mission

The Younode team, comprised of passionate music enthusiasts, grew tired of hearing the same songs on repeat through Spotify and craved a way to uncover fresh, exciting music. So they envisioned a social media app that could unite music lovers and facilitate the sharing of favorite tunes. Our mission was to bring their concept to life by creating a comprehensive design, from inception to visual prototype, enabling them to introduce their innovative idea to the masses.

The Outcome

We created a holistic design for the app that they could immediately take to development.

The Impact

PULP was released on the App Store and is steadily gaining fans around the world.

Reviving the joy of music discovery

Music discovery has become easier in recent times, with algorithms suggesting tunes you might like.

But the team at Younode felt that they were being limited to the same type of songs on repeat, and not being exposed to different kinds of music. Back in the day when friends shared music with each other, there were new discoveries and organic connection. With only algorithm recommendations, we lose that serendipity and bonding.

They wanted to revive that joyfyul experience of stumbling upon new and unexpected songs that they might not have come across otherwise, and the idea for PULP was born.

Who is this for?

Many people love music, but who would be PULP's biggest fans? We worked with the Younode team to create a persona by gathering insights from their personal experiences.

Our initial persona was Mami Hasegawa, a 20-something Tokyoite working in corporate. She pays for Spotify Premium and listens to music all the time. She's not hooked on a specific genre, but is open-minded. She loves going to music festivals.

While we could have done extensive user research, we did not, as the Younode team consisted of developers. In this case, it was more efficient to build something to test with real users and get solid user input, rather than to interview hypothetical ones.

Crafting the story

So why should Mami care about PULP? To write the story and understand a bit of the user journey, we ran a workshop with the Younode team using the StoryBrand Brandscript framework.

For Mami, music was an integral part of who she was. Without PULP, she found herself scrolling through Twitter, consuming what everyone else was consuming, and feeling unfulfilled. She couldn't help but wonder if she was wasting her life away.

But by engaging with PULP, she would be able to dive into her passions and find her community. PULP offered a way for Mami to break free from the mundane and embrace her true self.

StoryBrand Brandscript explaining the user journey of our main persona

Mobile app design from the ground up

Beginning with a simple app description and a kickoff call to understand their vision, began with UX design, launching into light wireframing. We collaborated closely with their team to envision the app in broad strokes before going into the details.

The initial wireframes for the mobile app design

Applying visual design

The Younode team was quite fond of the pink and orange vibe, which we decided to pull into the app design.

During our discussions, we considered both dark mode and light mode. While we initially recommended dark mode for its underground music scene feel, the team ultimately preferred the vibrant, upbeat energy of light mode. We decided to go with their preference and used bright tones to create a lively and engaging user experience.

Experimenting with light mode and dark mode for the mobile app UI

Prototyping, feature by feature

With new products, it's important to get user feedback from existing users to determine what's next on the roadmap. As the Younode team came up with new features they wanted to try, we helped to create the flow, visuals, and prototype.