Quivy · design exploration

Ten directions, one product.

Quivy is a personal agent that watches your messages, email, calendar, photos, contacts and files, and acts before you ask. It runs on hardware you own: a small box at home, with the phone as its window. Every direction below is the same product with the same facts, the same twenty screens and the same soul moment: an unprompted nudge to call Marco, eight months quiet, with three times that already suit you both.

Each file is self-contained and opens straight from disk. All photography is generated for the project and shared through assets/. Light and dark palettes, motion and a token legend ship in every file.

10 directions20 screens each, S01 to S2024 photographs + 1 ambient looplight + dark, every file
  1. 01Vitsœ

    The calm system. A visible 4px grid, opaque shelves, hairline joints and one signal orange, with type carrying all of the hierarchy. The batched brief and the urgent interruption are visibly different object classes; this is the version you could live with for twelve months without muting.

    MuseDieter Rams' 606 Universal ShelvingMotionshelf-settle, snappy 180 to 260msNavtop segmented control, sheets over the thread
    Open direction 01
  2. 02Harbour Glass

    Panes of sea-worn glass floating over a fixed photograph of Kalk Bay harbour at first light. Hierarchy is material weight: the more a surface matters, the denser its glass. Cool, humid, calm; the agent condenses out of the fog.

    Musesea glass and harbour mistMotionfog drift, silky 400 to 600msNavfloating glass pill dock
    Open direction 02
  3. 03First Light

    Dawn as a material. A slow warm gradient field, thin veils of light over it, and a horizon rule that brightens gold when the agent speaks. The reconnection card rises like the sun. The most ceremonial direction in the set.

    MuseJames Turrell light installationsMotionsunrise, ceremonial 600 to 900msNavhalf-disc sun opening radial sheets
    Open direction 03
  4. 04Lamplight

    Dark-first and literary. The interface is a warm near-black room; whatever the agent touches sits in a pool of amber lamplight, and everything outside the current moment falls to ember-dark. A desk lamp, never a gaming rig.

    MuseWong Kar-wai film stillsMotionlamp-lit, 450 to 600ms fade-to-litNavslim top bar, scene-change destinations
    Open direction 04
  5. 05Riso

    The app as a stack of freshly printed sheets: grained paper, fluor pink and teal spot inks, hard offset shadows, and deliberate misregistration reserved for trust moments. Warm through craft, not polish; the most extrovert direction.

    Muserisograph print-shop cultureMotionstamp press, springy overshootNavdie-cut sticker strip, argued in the header
    Open direction 05
  6. 06Archive

    Quivy as Nina's impeccably kept field archive. Every agent item is a catalogued card with punched holes, a rust accession stamp and provenance typed in mono. The Memory screen is the reading room, and the proudest screen in this direction.

    Musenaturalist field notebooks, museum accession cardsMotioncard drawer, 280 to 380msNavindex tabs riding the right edge
    Open direction 06
  7. 07Ledger

    The register of an institution that keeps valuables. Cool bond white and structural navy, engraved double rules, guilloche frames around money moments, vermilion used once per screen like sealing wax. Approval is a 1.4 second hold that presses a wax seal.

    Musebank-note engraving, wax sealsMotionseal press, deliberateNavthe blotter, a bottom drawer
    Open direction 07
  8. 08Postcard

    The product is about keeping in touch, so the interface is mail. Agent messages carry the airmail chevron edge, timestamps are postmarks, and the reconnection arrives as a photographic postcard that flips to reveal the message on its back.

    Musemid-century airmail and travel postcardsMotionpost, 300 to 450msNavthe letter rack, pulled down from the top
    Open direction 08
  9. 09Board-formed

    Drawn with Nina's own professional eye: cast concrete slabs with visible board grain, hard unblurred shadows, drawing-office type, and a safety-yellow survey datum wherever the agent acts. The most severe direction, warmed by material honesty.

    Museboard-formed concrete, survey datumsMotioncast, heavy 300 to 420ms settleNavleft-edge datum rail
    Open direction 09
  10. 10Aperture

    The picture editor's light table. Photographs are physical objects: prints dropped on the table, contact-sheet frames with frame numbers, and everything the agent has noticed circled in chinagraph red. The reconnection is a pencilled circle around the 2013 print.

    Musephotography annuals, contact sheetsMotionlightbox, prints drop and settleNavfilm strip with roll counters
    Open direction 10