Responses by Samuel Day.

Background: The Quest of Evolution is an innovative collaborative storywriting platform that utilizes blockchain technology. The platform lets writers—referred to as “architects”—to contribute to an evolving story. I can’t reveal much more than this just yet, but the idea is just the beginning of the project and it is already evolving into something much bigger, so watch this space to see how it develops.

Design core: The design draws inspiration from the myths and art of storytelling. Embracing various historical periods, I aimed to bring something memorable and distinctive to the Web3 space with etching styles, fanciful creatures, phenakistoscopes, alchemical drawings and ornamental designs. I wanted to create an abstract amalgamation of eras and aesthetics that transport users to the extraordinary realms of imagination.

Each illustration is referenced from my own collection of archival books. Specifically, the opening animation is inspired by Victorian phenakistoscopes, the navigation is based on the alchemical tree, and the illustrative layout is inspired by etchings from the 15th to the 17th century.

Navigation structure: The navigation is one of my favorite features of the site, based on an etching of the alchemical tree. The tree symbolizes the alchemist’s mental growth as he becomes more enlightened throughout the alchemical process. This reference is used to symbolize the site’s structure and the journey of discovery as the user navigates through and their quest begins.

Process: The platform’s branding and design was created using Figma, while illustrations were developed using a combination of Adobe Illustrator and Procreate. The animated elements were brought to life through Adobe After Effects, and the platform itself was built using Webflow. The internal team created the Web3 functionality in the platform.

The most time-consuming aspect was the illustration, but the most challenging part—and something that was new for me—was creating the ink/smoke effect for the page transitions and getting that to work with other custom aspects of the site.

Alternate paths: Overall, I wouldn’t change much on the site but would perhaps spend more time breaking out the about page to show the information in a way that explains it more visually. In the end, I chose scalability and made it easier for the client to update and expand it in the future.