← Kishor ARelay

Designing a messaging app where a letter is held, never kept

Every letter is in one pair of hands at a time. You read it, pass it on, or let it go back.

In your hands: the letters you hold, each with the time it has left
Role
Solo design and prototype
Year
2026
Status
Concept, not shipped
Built with
HTML, CSS, JS, Paper Shaders

Starting from one rule, and letting every decision follow from it

A letter is in one pair of hands at a time. It moves or it dies, and nothing is archived.

The reader: one letter on its own colour, with Pass it on

Designing the whole loop as the path one letter takes

In hand, read, choose, hand over, then back to its author or nowhere. Every screen answers: and if I do nothing?

  1. In hand
    In your hands
    It arrivesEverything you hold has a clock.
  2. Reader
    Reader
    You read itHours left, and what happens if you do nothing.
  3. Choosing
    Choosing who
    You pick whoSomeone you know, a friend of a friend, or a stranger.
  4. Handed over
    Handed over
    It leavesA toast with Undo, never a dialog.
  5. Yours
    Yours
    Or it comes backBack to its author, or nowhere at all.

Letting a letter leave as it went, so handing over feels final

It lifts and turns out of frame instead of blinking away. The departure is the only confirmation it is no longer yours.

Putting colour on the letters alone, so a feed reads as objects

Chrome, rows and drafts wear no colour. Only a letter carries a wash, so a feed reads as a handful of objects on a clean table.

In your hands: tinted glass over a field blended from the letters in hand

Showing how far a letter travelled, without revealing who carried it

Reach should be the first thing you see. The route belongs to the people on it.

I kept thinking about the bridge at night.

MiraOttoJunAma

One hue per carrier: the route, published

A hue per carrierCutIt would publish who knows whom.

I kept thinking about the bridge at night.

A trail of beads: count them, then guess what they mean

A trail of beadsCutA puzzle that needed a legend.

I kept thinking about the bridge.

9h left1

I kept thinking about the bridge.

9h left3

I kept thinking about the bridge.

9h left5

I kept thinking about the bridge.

9h left7

The wash deepens with each pair of hands; one digit counts them

The wash deepensKeptReach at a glance; the route stays private.

Giving the writing the card, and everything else one quiet line

A design that needs a legend has a problem. Every part on the card says one thing outright.

  1. The writing first. No sender header, no avatar: a face on a card is a wash on a wash.
  2. Hours say left. A bare “3h” beside a name read as age.
  3. One digit for hands. Not beads, not “the sixth pair of hands”.
  4. A quiet Pass. The crimson Pass lives only in the reader, where the decision is made.
A Relay letter from Otto Vasquez: the writing, 9 hours left, 2 hands, and Pass

Making being chosen read as one idea

Each rung carries a mark that fills when chosen, and the picked person wears the same pill and the same mark.

Choosing who: a frosted sheet, rungs with marks that fill when chosen

Replacing “Are you sure?” with Undo, so mistakes are reversible

No dialog on the way in. After Hand it over, the feed returns with who it went to and Undo for a few seconds.

Handed over: the letter has left, with Undo in a toast

Never losing the writing: Done saves the draft to Yours

Leaving never loses the writing. The note says the one thing that matters: once handed over, it cannot be called back.

Writing: Done, saved to Yours, and a plain note on what cannot be undone

82

controls in 24 kinds, each measured against a 44 point target

WCAG asks for 24. Small controls grow an invisible hit area to 44, so nothing visible moves out of line.

Undo
Undodrawn 32 · answers 45
Pass
Passdrawn 40 · answers 45
M
Your facedrawn 38 · answers 45

Measuring contrast, because every failure was invisible to the eye

Eight colour failures in this project, none of which looked wrong. Each was found only by measuring the rendered pixels.

Cutting the mark from the same field the letters sit on

The mark and the letters share one material, so the brand is the product, not a badge on it.

The relay mark, cut from the colour field, on ink
On ink
The relay mark, cut from the colour field, on the page
On the page

Building the palette from paper, ink and one arc of hues

Four field colours for the letters, and one crimson for the thing you press.

Warm#FFB37AField
Coral#FF8FA3Field
Lilac#B79CFFField
Periwinkle#7EA6FFField
Crimson#C8103FThe one pill to press
Ink#16151AText
Paper#FFFFFFDrafts, which have been nowhere

A concept, designed to find out what it should be

Not shipped. Designed and prototyped end to end in HTML, CSS and JS, with a library that measures itself.

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