Sail
As the principal designer at Sail, a San Francisco startup, I was responsible for the end-to-end design of the product, covering everything from the user interface and user experience to the brand identity and overall visual language over a two-year period.
I worked closely with the founders at every stage, leading the prototyping of new features, refining the user experience, and ensuring design consistency across the entire product. My contributions were instrumental in shaping the product's vision and directly impacted Sail's successful raise of over six million dollars.
Sail’s core idea was deceptively simple: a shared space for users to collaborate on online resources. However, standing out in a crowded market posed a challenge. We explored various concepts, such as a collaborative browser, before settling on the "shared table" as the central metaphor for the platform.
We chose Chromium to bring full browser capabilities to Sail, a significant undertaking. This decision allowed us to fully leverage web technologies, enabling items placed on the canvas to function as browser tabs. These items (or "cards") acted as live websites, allowing users to interact with them directly on the canvas. At the same time, the real-time collaboration capabilities were developed to keep the shared table central to the platform. This unlocked numerous use cases, enabling users to visually collect and collaborate on websites within a shared space at the same time.
The user interface was designed entirely around the "shared table" concept to enhance the collaborative experience. I created a minimal, content-focused design, experimenting with colour schemes, shadows, and gradients to balance playfulness with professionalism. The result was a tactile, user-friendly interface that differentiated Sail from its competitors. I also designed a custom icon set, featuring hundreds of playful yet clear icons, to align with the brand’s visual identity.
The "shared table" concept extended to the brand’s visual identity as well. I designed the logo to evoke the feel of a tactile sticker or badge, reinforcing the hands-on, collaborative nature of the platform
A huge thank you to the Sail team and the founders Ron and Jimmy.