In January 2023, I enrolled in Dribbble’s Intro to UI Design course to deepen my understanding of digital product design. Although my background is rooted in motion design, I’ve always been drawn to the way great interfaces feel: intentional, intuitive, and quietly delightful. This course became a turning point, not just a learning experience, but a shift in how I think about people, interaction, and the experiences we create.

For the final project, we were asked to design an app for a fictional client: Moon, a startup aiming to redefine the NFT marketplace with a design-first mindset and a curated approach to digital art. Over the course of three weeks, I developed a visual identity, designed a multi-screen app, built a complete UI library, and delivered a functional Figma prototype.

The brief for Moon was ambitious: establish a visual language for a new NFT marketplace, scale it across key screens, and create a prototype that felt polished and purposeful. The challenge wasn’t just to make something aesthetically pleasing, it was learning how to think like a product designer, how to prioritize user experience, and how to turn wireframes into something that felt alive.

As someone new to UI/UX at the time, the toughest part was shifting from “making things look good” to “making things work beautifully.” I wanted the final app to feel desirable, an interface you could imagine people actually using, not just admiring. This meant learning the logic behind navigation, crafting flows that made sense, and designing interactions with intention.

This was a solo project completed within the course timeline, and I had full ownership of the design decisions from concept to prototype. My responsibilities included:

Concept Exploration · Visual Direction · Screen Design · UI Systems · Component Library · Interaction Design · Figma Prototyping

Throughout the process, I shared work-in-progress screens with coworkers who had product design backgrounds. Their feedback, mostly around UX clarity, helped refine the direction and ensure the final result wasn’t just visually appealing, but practical.

The project began with research and benchmarking, centered around one keyword: NFTs. From there, I built moodboards that captured two distinct visual directions:

• Direction A — Dark, gradient-driven, modern, with bright accents and a sci-fi edge
• Direction B — Light, outlined, pixel-inspired, bold typography, playful shapes

Both directions spoke to crypto-savvy audiences and digital artists, but conveyed different moods. The moodboards helped clarify the initial identity exploration and set the tone for the concepts that followed.

Visual Exploration

With inspiration locked, I sketched out two main concepts for the splash and home screens:

Concept 1 — Dark, Minimal, Futuristic

• Deep backgrounds
• Iridescent gradients
• High-contrast CTAs
• Modern, geometric type
• Glassy transparency effects

Concept 2 — Bright, Playful, Pixel-Inspired

• Light surfaces
• Outlined iconography
• Chunkier typography
• Heavier CTAs
• A more “gaming-era” nod to digital culture

These early explorations were intentionally distinct so the final direction would be a confident choice, not a compromise.

Lock & Scale Design

After reviewing both concepts the dark concept quickly became the clear winner. It aligned more naturally with crypto culture, offered better contrast for showcasing artwork, and delivered the sleek, tech-savvy aesthetic the brief emphasized.

From there, I scaled the visual system across five core screens based on the wireframes provided, reorganizing layout and flow where needed:

Splash · Home · Profile · Search · NFT Detail Page

This stage was where the app started feeling real.

UI Library

To keep the system clean and scalable, I built a full UI library documenting:

• Color palette
• Typography hierarchy
• Buttons and CTAs
• Cards and artwork modules
• Icons and states
• Components built with Auto Layout

This was my first time building a component system from scratch, and it ended up being one of the parts I enjoyed the most, everything neatly organized, reusable, and ready to extend.

All design work was done in Figma, leveraging:

• Auto Layout for scalable screen variations
• Variants for components
• Interactive elements for transitions
• Smart Animate for micro-interactions

I also used a Figma plugin to generate avatars that felt aligned with digital artists, helping the screens feel populated and alive.

Although this was a solo project, I regularly shared my work with coworkers to test clarity, hierarchy, and flow. Most of the feedback centered around UX improvements, small tweaks that made the app easier to navigate and interact with.

I also explored interaction animations throughout the prototype: button feedback, screen transitions, and subtle movement that made the experience feel more engaging without getting in the way.

The final result is a clean, modern NFT marketplace concept that blends visual clarity with a tech-forward aesthetic. The dark theme elevates the artwork, the layout provides intuitive navigation, and the interactions add a sense of polish and intention.

The prototype brings everything together, illustrating how the user moves through the app, interacts with key features, and experiences the interface as a cohesive whole.

View the Figma Prototype ↗