Consumer
Picme
AI-powered platform that automatically delivers event photos to each guest.
Overview
PicMe uses facial recognition to automatically deliver event photos to each guest. It works like this: guests take a selfie, the platform finds every photo they appear in, and sends them a personal gallery, a simple idea with genuinely impressive technology behind it.
Role
Year
Can warmth coexist with technology?
The first conversation we had about color ended up setting the direction for everything. The client had some internal disagreement over what the brand should feel like - tech authority on one side, warmth and experience on the other. They leaned serious, but kept gravitating toward references that were warmer than they may have realized. I made the case that PicMe lives at events - weddings, conferences, birthday parties. It's a product about experience, and the brand should feel like it belongs in those moments, not just process them.
We explored a lot of directions before landing. Jewel tones felt too fashion-adjacent and potentially limiting. Heavier gradients felt celebratory in the wrong way - more party supplies than premium service. What held up was simpler: an achromatic base with a single warm accent. Coral, and only on CTAs. Never on backgrounds, icons, or decoration. That one constraint kept everything feeling premium without tipping into generic.
Can warmth coexist with technology?
The first conversation we had about color ended up setting the direction for everything. The client had some internal disagreement over what the brand should feel like - tech authority on one side, warmth and experience on the other. They leaned serious, but kept gravitating toward references that were warmer than they may have realized. I made the case that PicMe lives at events - weddings, conferences, birthday parties. It's a product about experience, and the brand should feel like it belongs in those moments, not just process them.
We explored a lot of directions before landing. Jewel tones felt too fashion-adjacent and potentially limiting. Heavier gradients felt celebratory in the wrong way - more party supplies than premium service. What held up was simpler: an achromatic base with a single warm accent. Coral, and only on CTAs. Never on backgrounds, icons, or decoration. That one constraint kept everything feeling premium without tipping into generic.
The Logo
After exploring many directions - uppercase, lowercase, icon-integrated, typographic only - we landed on the pinch gesture mark. It does two things at once: it references the "pic" gesture of framing a shot, and it carries the rounded warmth of the overall brand. The logotype in lowercase alongside it keeps it grounded.
We explored 10+ directions before landing on the pinch gesture mark.
The Guest Experience
The guest experience is a completely different product in feel from everything else - and intentionally so. Where the organizer app is light and functional, the guest hub should feel like the event it came from. The flow itself is simple: arrive, take a selfie, confirm it, the platform finds your photos, get your gallery.
What made it interesting to design was the context. The guest hasn't paid for anything. They got a link days after an event, and they're being asked to hand over their face for facial recognition. That requires a specific kind of trust - the kind you build through small, consistent signals rather than one disclaimer and a checkbox.
The Guest Experience
The guest experience is a completely different product in feel from everything else - and intentionally so. Where the organizer app is light and functional, the guest hub should feel like the event it came from. The flow itself is simple: arrive, take a selfie, confirm it, the platform finds your photos, get your gallery.
What made it interesting to design was the context. The guest hasn't paid for anything. They got a link days after an event, and they're being asked to hand over their face for facial recognition. That requires a specific kind of trust - the kind you build through small, consistent signals rather than one disclaimer and a checkbox.
The Marketing Site
The first thing to establish was who the site is actually for. The previous version was trying to speak to everyone at once - organizers and guests arriving on the same page with no clear signal about which one they were. A platform with two completely different user types needs to make that distinction from the first second, or it loses both of them. The site is built for organizers. That's the person with a budget,
an event to plan, and a decision to make. Everything — the hierarchy, the copy, the CTAs, the pricing - is written for them. The guest has their own entry point, clearly separated. Instead of leading with how the technology works, the site leads with what happens at the event. The "why" before the "how."
The Marketing Site
The first thing to establish was who the site is actually for. The previous version was trying to speak to everyone at once - organizers and guests arriving on the same page with no clear signal about which one they were. A platform with two completely different user types needs to make that distinction from the first second, or it loses both of them. The site is built for organizers. That's the person with a budget,
an event to plan, and a decision to make. Everything — the hierarchy, the copy, the CTAs, the pricing - is written for them. The guest has their own entry point, clearly separated. Instead of leading with how the technology works, the site leads with what happens at the event. The "why" before the "how."
The hard sprint.
This was the most interesting part to design, and the one that took the most thinking. The organizer dashboard isn't one problem - it's several distinct ones, each with a decision worth explaining. The first instinct was tabs. Photos, Share, Stats - a reasonable pattern until you think about how an organizer actually uses this product over time.
Before the event, they want the guest link. Right after, they're watching uploads come in. Weeks later, they might check analytics. Those aren't three equal options sitting side by side. They're phases. The final workspace was built around that shift - what you need now, not a flat menu of everything at once.
The hard sprint.
This was the most interesting part to design, and the one that took the most thinking. The organizer dashboard isn't one problem - it's several distinct ones, each with a decision worth explaining. The first instinct was tabs. Photos, Share, Stats - a reasonable pattern until you think about how an organizer actually uses this product over time.
Before the event, they want the guest link. Right after, they're watching uploads come in. Weeks later, they might check analytics. Those aren't three equal options sitting side by side. They're phases. The final workspace was built around that shift - what you need now, not a flat menu of everything at once.
Three surfaces, one system.
The project covers three distinct surfaces and a full design system, all built under a tight deadline and handed off to development ready to build. Working in sprints meant each part of the product got focused attention - nothing was half-finished. It's a method that suits projects with real time pressure, and most projects with real stakes have real time pressure.
Next Project
ReCar