The Challenge
In a world of fast-moving apps and overstimulating notifications, there’s a growing need for technology that invites stillness. The challenge was to design a wellness experience that supports breath work, reflection, and emotional presence, while staying warm, minimalist, and human-centered. The app needed to feel personal, safe, and nourishing to use, even during anxious moments.
Goals
- Create a soft, intuitive interface that gently guides without pressure.
- Support a multisensory wellness practice (visual, emotional, auditory).
- Enable breathwork, reflective journaling, and inspiration with minimal friction.
- Avoid wellness clichés and over-commercialized aesthetics.
Design Decisions
- Visual Identity: Developed a soothing, hand-crafted design language using gold tones, cream backgrounds, and customizable breathwork colors (pale green, soft pink, lavender, etc.)
- Breath work Interface: I partnered with a wonderful software developer, Luqman, who brought my design and creative vision to life and built an expanding-glow animation to represent slow, intentional breathing with 4 breath work options including a custom timing (4–10 seconds) to reflect user pace.
- Whisper Drawer: Designed and created a physical drawer animation to reveal inspirational messages (called Whispers) in Rive. Includes a scroll-tap transition built in FlutterFlow for interactivity.
- Let This Go Feature: Allows users to symbolically “release” a journal entry after reflection. The feature animates a gentle fade-out, echoing the act of emotional letting go.
- User Customization: Created my own lantern illustrations using procreate to allow users to select between 3 lantern options to reflect mood and style preferences.
Conclusion
Lantern Light was built to offer a quiet refuge, a pocket of peace in a noisy digital world. Every element was designed to reduce pressure, increase calm, and reflect the emotional and sensory nuances of mindfulness. Rather than pushing productivity, the app offers presence.
See the App Section