4 ways to make your app feel more human

Every day you journal in One Year, a new plant grows in your memory garden. We drew all 365 of those plants by hand, one for every day of the year, and then kept going and drew every other icon inside the app too.

That meant embracing the wobbly lines and slightly weird proportions instead of smoothing them out. They feel a little child-like, and that’s the point: your garden should look like it was doodled, not generated.

We made our own font. We wrote out a full alphabet in Sam’s handwriting, drew every letter and symbol by hand, and turned it into a typeface you can actually use in the app.

It’s a small thing, but writing about your day in handwriting instead of a default system font makes your journal feel a lot more like a real notebook, and a little more like us.

We love adding tiny details and features that make us smile, even if most people will never notice them. Soft shadows, mood colors that tint your flowers, and little garden vibrations when you touch things all help make something digital feel a bit less digital.

Things you can *almost* touch. There are more of these on the way.

We’re humans and so are you (we think), so why change the way we talk to each other? Everything in One Year is written the way we’d talk to our friends: no corporate voice, no growth-hacky nudges.

It’s like talking to a friend, just with two or three rounds of proofreading :)