Designing the brand layer for a new ephemeral feature, from audit to MVP launch.
ROLE
Product Designer, TikTok Creative Studio
Product Designer, TikTok Creative Studio
CATEGORY
Product branding
Product branding
SCOPE
Color system, avatar treatment, creation iconography
Color system, avatar treatment, creation iconography
THE CHALLENGE
TikTok's core product is permanent, interest-graph content: videos surface because of what you like, not who you know. Stories flipped both of those. Content disappears after 24 hours, and during testing it was shared only within a user's social graph.
The feature needed its own visual identity. It had to feel clearly different from the core feed while still looking like TikTok, and users had to find it and understand it at a glance.
TikTok's core product is permanent, interest-graph content: videos surface because of what you like, not who you know. Stories flipped both of those. Content disappears after 24 hours, and during testing it was shared only within a user's social graph.
The feature needed its own visual identity. It had to feel clearly different from the core feed while still looking like TikTok, and users had to find it and understand it at a glance.
PROJECT GOALS
- Lower the bar for creation. Take the pressure off posting by making casual, short-lived content feel welcome.
- Build closer connections. Make Stories a social medium that strengthens relationships with friends.
- Bring people back. Give users new reasons to open TikTok, contributing to daily active users over time.
Audit and discovery. I reviewed color, avatars and icons, looking at both competitors and TikTok's own app.
- Color: Competitors leaned heavily on gradients across brand and product. In-app, TikTok used Razzmatazz, its signature pink-red, for primary actions and notifications.
- Avatars: Competitors usually marked ephemeral content with a solid ring around the avatar. TikTok's LIVE feature already used a linework treatment around avatars to signal live content.
- Icons: TikTok's iconography was simple and flat, with consistent line weights. I studied the existing create, notification and time-related icons.
Use color to tell the graphs apart. To keep the feature tied to the brand, I explored the two core brand colors. Razzmatazz would stay with the core interest-graph product. Splash, the brand's cyan, would mark the new social-graph feature, giving users an immediate visual cue for which mode they were in.
Explore three creative territories. Each territory combined a color, an avatar treatment and an icon around one idea.
- 24h time-based:
The ephemeral nature of Stories
-
Creation-centric:
How easy it is to create
- Social / sharing: The social side of Stories
Solution: the final MVP design combined the strongest parts of the territories.
Splash signaled the feature's ephemeral, social nature, and a creation-centric camera icon kept the entry point simple and action-oriented.
Outcome: The designs shipped in TikTok's MVP launch for in-market testing.
After testing wrapped up, Stories ultimately opened up to audiences beyond a user's social graph but kept its 24-hour limit.
Users embraced Stories, and as with any feature, they weren't shy about saying what they thought. One of my favorite moments was finding this unprompted review: Lizzo admits she was reluctant to try Stories at first, then explains how much she's come to like it.
Reflections
Early on, I proposed letting users share videos from their interest graph into their Stories, where only their social graph would see them. The idea was sharing without creating: a user could start a conversation with friends by passing along something they'd found, without filming anything.
The idea didn't fit the first goal, lowering the bar for creation, because nothing new would be made. But it would have helped with the other two:
The feature wasn't part of the MVP, but TikTok eventually adopted it after I left. 🥳
Looking back, the idea showed me that a product's goals can pull in different directions. An idea can be a poor fit for the headline goal and still be the strongest lever for the others. Naming those trade-offs early makes it easier to pick the right lever for each stage of a launch.
The idea didn't fit the first goal, lowering the bar for creation, because nothing new would be made. But it would have helped with the other two:
- Building closer connections. Shared videos give friends something to react to and talk about, so Stories becomes a social space even for people who rarely post.
- Bringing people back. Every shared video gives friends a new reason to open TikTok, which supports daily active users.
The feature wasn't part of the MVP, but TikTok eventually adopted it after I left. 🥳
Looking back, the idea showed me that a product's goals can pull in different directions. An idea can be a poor fit for the headline goal and still be the strongest lever for the others. Naming those trade-offs early makes it easier to pick the right lever for each stage of a launch.