Pond
Supporting intentional curation for creatives with Pond
TIMELINE
36 hours
SKILLS
Research
Product Design
Prototyping
TEAM
Self
Akane Heim
Adithi Amirtharaj
We were runner-ups in the Figma Make track for this project!
the brief
How might we design digital spaces that grow, decay, and adapt with the people who use them?
This was the prompt given to us at CreateSC's 2026 designathon. With the core theme centering around "Designing Beyond Efficiency", we looked to find ways to design with friction in mind.
Setting the Scene
THE CONSUMPTION PROBLEM
Creatives are saving inspiration more than ever, but often never come back to it.
Based on a survey sent out to 25+ designers, we found the following:
56%
of designers and creators rarely or never revisit what they save.
48%
said their saves often influence their work, and even then it's vague.
84%
are unable to describe their own taste.
The problem isn't collecting inspiration, it's utilizing it and making sense of it.
the current landscape
For inspiration tools such as Pinterest, Are.na, and Cosmos, the typical save flow includes selecting a source, categorizing that source, then pressing save.
From our survey and a look at the current landscape, we hypothesized the issue was a lack of reflection during and after saving a source.
the solution
Pond
Instead of a simple select and log, saving inspiration with Pond involves a reflection into what and why a piece caught your eye.
Design Decisions
design decision 1
The act of saving should include a moment of reflection
The current model of finding and saving inspiration followed a frictionless flow, where users could just pick and save their sources freely. In order to have users stop and think as to why exactly they're saving a source, we added a series of questions that are prompted right after a user saves. The idea is that this moment of reflection allows users to stop and think what exactly draws them to the piece.
design decision 2
A mechanism to prompt users to return to a source
Typically after a save, sources can just sit dormant their saved collection. With Pond, we wanted to prompt users to think about saves deeply before and after a save. After 72 hours, a user is flagged to "re-dew" a save - remixing the source into something new.
The Solution
the solution
We tackled our how might we question with three main ideas:
Select and Log
Jot down what caught your eye and save your inspo for the future
Explore a Ripple
See where you interests are the most prevalent and get more insight about your taste and how it’s changed over time.
"Re-Dew" It!
Put your own spin on the Drops you have saved.
Reflection
takeaways
After 36 hours and several cans of Celsius, we delivered and presented Pond, placing as runner-ups in the Figma Make track at CreateSC 2026! These are a couple take aways I had from my first hackathon:
Holding ideas loosely
With 36 hours to ideate, design, and prototype, we explored three directions and cut two fast. Dropping our initial concepts early to focus on creative overconsumption is what got us to a working demo.
Context over prompts
Figma Make would hallucinate or ignore instructions when we prompted loosely. Feeding it specific Figma screens turned it from a frustration into our fastest way to build.
