Apricity: A Photo-Based Gratitude Journal
Role
Design, Front-end development
Timeline
October 2025 – two week design sprint
Team
Independent developer - Arthur Chan
Toolkit
Flutter, Figma, Illustrator
01 CONTEXT
Taking photos reminds me to live intentionally
Up until maybe a year or two ago, I would describe myself as a "sheep living on autopilot". During the trenches of my last year in the International Baccalaureate (IB) program, I started gratitude journalling on Notion.
I took photos on my phone, then added it to a Notion page along with a short caption. Whenever I felt myself beginning to spiral, I would look at my gratitude journal and it helped me feel a lot happier.
This is an app I designed, and developed by my brother. We are aiming to get it on the Google Play Store by May 2026!
02 SOLUTION
A photo-based journal
Apricity is a photo-based gratitude journal that prompts users to take photos of things they are grateful for, and acts as a digital archive for users to revisit and share the warm moments in their lives.
Apricity: the warmth of the sunlight in the winter
Capture moments
Snap pictures of the little (or big moments) that you are grateful for to notice them in real time.
Revisit moments
Create a custom curated album of memories.
Share with loved ones
Let your loved ones see your cherished moments.
03 pROBLEM & RESEARCH
Gratitude journalling is amazing but doesn't fit into many lifestyles
Gratitude journalling has been found a highly effective method to improve mental health and mindset. The next step was to see if there is a demand for a gratitude journalling app. I conducted 20+ user surveys and had an extensive conversation with 10+ people to see what they thought. I synthesized my findings through an affinity map.
20+ surveys
participants ranged from students, new grads, and parents.
10+ chats
to truly understand pain points when it comes to gratitude journalling and iterate on potential solutions
Narrowing it down to 3 pain points
01
Staying consistent with journalling & writing
Many people want to start journalling, but have found it difficult to stay consistent and end up stopping after a few weeks.
02
Cluttered camera rolls
Many camera rolls are generally unorganized, with 8/21 survey participants saying they regularly look through their camera roll for satisfaction
03
Gratitude is thought of in hindsight
Journallers reported feeling grateful for the things they see after reflecting back on their day, rather than in the moment.
Competitive analysis
After coming up with the idea and explaining it to my brother, he thought it was a good idea that has potential. Before pursing it further, I first wanted to see if there are similar apps on the market.
After doing some research on various maps and then looking further in the most similar apps and the biggest journalling apps in the market, we discovered that there has yet to be an app on the market that focuses primarily on personal photo-based journalling.
04 INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Thinking about the app layout
From user tests and feature suggestions, me and Arthur developed a general structure for the gratitude journal.
I created a preliminary set of wireframes for core screens, and made minor refinements during my first iteration as I spoke to more interested users.
05 KEY DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS
Photo layouts
I considered multiple layouts for displaying photos.
Personal journal or social media?
An accountability partner has been found to be highly effective in maintaining commitment, however, I wanted to ensure that the app remains authentic. I listed different app options with varying social levels and went with option 3 – "Social Circles".
06 BRANDING
Visual Design
The word "apricity" means the warmth of the sun during the winter. Keeping this definition in mind, I wanted to incorporate both warm and cool tones, while giving the overall app a warm yet minimalistic feel. I explore various fonts and graphic styles.
After A LOT of mood boarding, and light hearted sketches, I arrived at the final branding & visual component system below! The graphics I created are only used in the initial sign up process since I felt the app itself should be more minimal and act as a neutral archive.
07 REFLECTION
Visual Design
Always keep the big picture in mind.
It was really easy to get caught up on small details and to over think every design decision. Whenever I found myself struggling to make a decision, I asked myself how significant this issue is, and sought to resolve the issue through more user testing.
Flutter UI
My prior experiences with front-end development have primarily been with React, or pure HTML and CSS. Although it's been hard to learn a new framework, having a project that I am super passionate about makes it feel much more rewarding!
