Byte was a short-form video app and a spiritual successor to Vine.


The project was led by Dom Hofmann, and launched in January of 2020 for iOS and Android.
I was the only designer for the first year of development and designed most of the app interface, iconography, and brand materials.



Bytes were 8 seconds long, later extended to 16, and looped seamlessly. Creators could post their bytes to categories called Channels, with new channels added regularly for emerging communities.


Some of Byte's channels, such as Comedy, Pets, Food, and Dance.

Your Mix
Spotlight
#FeaturedHashtag
Latest
Parents
Byte Beats
Morning Routine
My Audition For..
Byte@Night

Large channel tiles were used for algorithmic feeds or events.

I made all of the 3D channel icons for Byte by hand in Cinema4D. Eventually, we had to change to a different system because the demand for new channels far exceeded my capacity to make them. We also decided it didn't make sense for my art to represent every community!



Designing user profiles with customizable color schemes was one of my favorite parts of working on Byte. Users could select a color scheme and invert it by tapping again, and each combination was chosen to ensure legibility in either configuration.
The best part of Byte wasn't something I could have designed: the community. To everyone who used our app and made videos for it, thank you. I had an amazing time seeing the creativity that blossomed on the platform!

I left Byte at the end of 2020. It was acquired by Clash a few months later and rebranded. The original app no longer exists. Thanks so much to everyone who made Byte possible, especially Dom and the Byte team. It was an amazing ride! RIP.