Echoes

A client came to me with a new product idea. In music right now, it's really hard to prove you're actually a fan, let alone get rewarded for it. VIP tickets and exclusive drops get scooped up by bots and resellers, and the people who really care about the music get left behind.

Their idea: what if listening itself could be the proof? They needed a prototype to pitch Echoes, and to get their core team on the same page about what it would be.

I was the only designer. The client brought the problem, and I came up with the product around it: the persona, the points system, the onboarding and the clay look.

Role

Sole designer

Client project

Year

2025

Output

Clickable pitch prototype

Onboarding + core mechanic

The client's problem was bots and resellers. Mine was that their answer, listening as proof, is invisible. Your listening history sits somewhere in Spotify. Nobody sees it, you included, and "proof of fandom" is a pretty abstract thing to pitch.

So the prototype had to turn it into something people could actually see, feel is theirs, and want to grow. It also had to stay well away from feeling like another rewards app, where points are basically cash.

Onboarding gives you a starter persona. It's very basic at first, just a colour and a letter. Connect Spotify and it levels up straight away, and you can see your taste start to shape it.

Points in a rewards app usually work like money: save them up, spend them on a cheaper ticket. That's not what we wanted here.

In Echoes, bands and artists reward real fans based on their XP. So points are more like a reputation score than a currency, and that's why they look like XP (a circle with a lightning bolt) instead of coins. If you could just spend them, you'd end up with the same buying and reselling the product is trying to get away from.

Onboarding ends with "Your Persona is ready to rock" and your first points, straight away. A small, satisfying dopamine hit before we ask you for anything else.

I tried a few styles before landing on clay. The glossy, glass-like 3D looked nice but didn't feel personal. The flat confetti, cartoon headphones and bright clay notes felt a bit too childish.

Textured clay felt more personal and more human. People connect clay with two stages of life. As kids it's playful and messy, and as adults it turns into pottery and art, something you make and are proud of. That fit the idea of a persona you build over time really well.

I also ran the main screens through an AI attention tool to check people would look where I wanted them to. The intro and perks screens scored 94 and 97 for focus. The email step only got 67, so that's the first screen I'd go back to.

The client used the prototype to pitch Echoes, and to get their core team aligned on what the product is.

The most fun part was using AI to create the clay personas. Instead of drawing a fixed set of avatars, I could play with a persona that changes as your music taste changes, and that made the whole idea much easier to get in a pitch.

The big question a prototype can't answer is whether fans actually care about being recognised for their XP, and whether artists would use it. That's the first thing I'd want to test with real people.