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We were looking at prototype screens today. The basic structure is already there, with the home screen, chat, keyboard with all the different pages and states. Everything is still a wireframe on Figma but I want to hire an artist to create the UI. The wireframes currently borrow heavily from existing handheld game interface; obviously, it isn’t something we can just turn around and use as the final visual identity, but it’s a good starting point. So now, I’m realizing how much of a job it’ll be to try and “translate the feeling” rather than copying the reference. Hopefully, this will give them a really clear foundation of what we need in the system, but let them reinterpret the visual language individually.

A slight emergency I suppose - originally, this project was supposed to be primarily marketed through social media channels, but I just found out that you can’t have ads for vapes or nicotine-adjacent products on TikTok or Instagram. I’m unsure of how strict those platforms are concerning having an actual account and just doing normal branding on there, but it’ll definitely impact our strategy. We’ll have to focus more on the technology features and the vape portion of it will be more of a potential additional feature that we can talk about on our website instead. Offering the vape as an optional addition should actually allow us to reach a more general audience initially anyways.

C sent over the first 3D model, SUPER COOL. We have to overlay the electronic screen with the UI that’s still a work-in-progress, but it’s coming together slowly. This week we’re supposed to start talking to the factory about getting a physical prototype produced.

I’m already thinking about what the packaging and outer shell should look like. Everywhere I go, there’s inspiration now, especially from older car models and their paint colors. I want a pink and a teal for sure, as for the other colors, maybe more standard colors would be better? Pearl and black?

Another side thought that just occurred to me - what about introducing characters that differentiate your friends when you’re all on the same screen? It’d be super cute and an easy way to personalize the experience, and allow for some additional customization. There’s already the ability to change backgrounds, but showing your friends your curated and custom characters would be even better imo. I’m not sure if they should be like little pets or modeled more after humans. And should they have accessories so it’s fully custom? How far should the customization ability go? Or should we keep it rather simple and just make sure there’s a standard few to initially choose from… let me give this some more thought. Like I said, stream of consciousness.

Naming session. Oh my god. C originally named this project softmax. I hate that name so much LOL. Something about naming it after a computer program from his university?

We generated a ton of names: Pave. Locate. LOC8. Cipher. Cypher. And basically 100 other ones that sounded like cryptocurrency companies. C says they’re too on-the-nose. My favorite so far is pave, but it’s not something that really sticks out still. We want it to be fun while not outright saying “I am a radar + vape”.

At this point, we’re still calling it Softmax, I gotta find a new name asap. Sidenote as these past few days were just focused on brainstorming company names: who in the world was responsible for naming microsoft…

01:21 AM I texted him - can you tell softmax was plaguing my subconscious… thoughts on: “JUNI?”

It’s also the name of C’s cat. I’ll see if I can insert a picture of him later. What a cutie. He could be our mascot.

I think C also liked it! It wasn’t an immediate no, but I think he’s still emotionally attached to softmax which is fair. We started throwing the name around and seeing what it sounded like in an actual sentence. “Is that a Juni?” “Where’s your Juni?” I like it so much more, it feels less like a software company name and something we have more flexibility with!

Today, we were trying to figure out what the visual identity actually was. The problem is that I’m not sure if there’s a clear idea of what we want just yet. Retro game interfaces for sure, I like glass and ripple textures, and ASCII photos would be so cool (I want to incorporate that into the final packaging as well, already have a really solid idea for that!!).

I think C wanted the base layer to be simple: lots of space, lines, sketches, with an almost unfinished-feel. And then after that foundation exists, we can go a bit more creative with it. Maybe every drop has a different feel? What I’m learning throughout this process is that throwing stuff at the wall and still moving forward is better than trying to make everything perfect from the get-go. We can always go back and edit the first draft, but we need to make sure the draft is actually created first.

I’m going to go on Pinterest and pin everything that remotely looks interesting to me. Maybe some fusion here and there will help with creating the visual identity we’ll eventually go with.

We gave an AI design tool a shot at the interface since the artist we had in mind declined… They said they had no experience or skills creating UI, which is totally fair, they’re a visual artist. I feel like we could’ve made it work overlapping some of our skills, but such is life. We kinda have an idea of what we want it to look like though, so we tried using Figma’s AI to generate a starting point. It generated a surprisingly complete experience in basically no time, but it was also ugly as hell and opposite of the vibe that we wanted to go for.

There were a few ideas we liked that were included, including a burst function and a stealth mode, but I think especially for this portion, we’re going to have to try and create it ourselves from scratch. In retrospect, this is great for our visual identity so we can really make sure we get a good idea of the vibe we want. AI is so much faster to use, but removes the creative aspect of it all. I think one of our core values is shaping up to be around the creative and stylistic function of the device (name tbd).

We kept testing “Juni” and I think it’s a go-ahead! At the same time, this means that we can start thinking seriously about the website and how we’d actually put the project online.

So next things to create:

• domain
• website
• Insta
• TikTok

Slow and steady! I need to learn how to market now…

Today we bought the domain. We also started tracking expenses properly. At this point, we haven’t spent a huge amount of money on the project yet, but I wonder how much time we’ve spent on this now… Website is still empty. C will figure out the hosting, while I figure out the brand & content side.

I started working on designing the characters. I wanted one fantasy character, one more rave-adjacent, and then a cat as our mascot. Current lineup:

Fairy
Frutiger Aero colors, maybe a wood-like texture for the skin. C said not to add too many accessories at first, so I’m trying to keep them simple.

Cat
The primary mascot modeled after Juni. I was thinking of making this one like a very computerized / digital looking cat. He has computer chip-like features right now and is riding on a cloud. Not sure how to accessorize this one.

Androgynous gorpcore character
Still figuring this one out… I like the technical wear, but the character is too human still. Let me simmer on this.

The important part is that they aren’t just characters; we’ll eventually have them “living” inside the interface, appearing in videos, and giving the digital side of Juni an identity. I’m thinking about making the development process itself part of the content; I always relate a lot more to brands that let us in on the development process and building something from scratch.

It’s been a bit since the last entry. The thing is, everything is progressing, but not as quickly as we would have hoped. I suppose that’s to be expected with anything and everything worth doing.

In terms of the interface, we’ve stuck to the basic one we had for now, though it’ll need an eventual overhaul. We’ve been collecting sounds, references, visual ideas and video concepts. I think the Pinterest board is at like, 500+ pins now… C added SFX to the simulator today and it was incredible. The animation was smooth and I think the sound effects matched it perfectly. Progress! There’s still a huge amount to look at and fix: the current hardware doesn’t have the processing power we’d need (right now, everything is running on an emulator still). But slow and steady!

In terms of the creative side of things, we’ve also been experimenting with animation, character concepts, development footage, and the device itself. I haven’t had the time to create more content oops.

In terms of production, the factory situation has been a bit complicated. Communication isn’t always as efficient as we’d like, and we’re starting to realize how much work goes into translating an idea into the physical. Might have to look at alternative factories at this point, but let’s see. We can stick to our 3D-printed models for now.

One of the videos I uploaded on TikTok crossed roughly 1.2K views! Super exciting. I need to start creating a library of things that people can look at and reference. It’s a bit tougher to get content when C is literally halfway across the world, but he said he’ll be coming into town for a few weeks in October. We might have to think about moving to be in the same city for a bit too, and once production starts, maybe we’ll both have to live closer to the production sites? Just some future considerations…

We’re now talking about how to introduce the physical product more clearly, because the content is attracting attention, but I’ve yet to actually introduce the device lol. And we haven’t created the website yet. I should make a waitlist alongside that as well. It seems like this is very typical startup though - marketing something while simultaneously still making the thing.

At the same time on C’s side, the hardware is still being redesigned and the device connection is still being tested.

In terms of characters, we decided to scrap the human-esque characters from before and just make them more animal-adjacent. I created the rough sketches while doodling at a birthday party. I’ve started thinking about this project even during times while I’m supposed to be focused on the people around me… Anyways, after creating the characters, started digitizing them on pixelart and then creating GIFs out of them! There are 4 characters thus far: Baby Bear, Tired Cat, Troll Horse, and Boss Bunny.

The Horse is my personal favorite since I modeled his personality after my brother lol. I’ll see if I can attach the gif I made of him mogging.

C said we have to start building the animations around actual interactions too. Of course, all of my crude animations will eventually be re-done by a professional, but I have to animate the: drop, fall, landing, and movement of the characters across the screen. It also means… every cute little interaction needs like, 15+ animations. Help.

C is working on rendering the characters into 3D models. Then see if we can rig and animate them automatically.

The first generated models were chopped af lol. The proportions were questionable and because my animations had all the characters slightly tilted in the first place, they ended up having strange proportions once we tried rendering them. It seems like the animation tools were built more for humanoid models than tiny digital animals. Might end up having to do them from scratch yet again.