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Matthew KenneyForward-Deployed Creative, BORN ON SUNDAY®
PROTO DAILY · SELF-INITIATED CONCEPT

A tech-news app that tunes itself in the open, as a clickable prototype.

THE PREMISE

News apps hide why a story appears, and readers cannot steer their stream.

WHAT I DID
  • Drew the mark, set the masthead and type
  • Designed every surface on one token set
  • Prototyped the flows between them
CLIENT
Self-initiated · no client
ROLE
Design + prototype, solo
YEAR
2026
STACK
Paper · clickable prototype
LAUNCH THE PROTOTYPE ↓

Show the reader why a story appears

  • Every story in For You carries the reason it reached you, adjustable in place.
  • The controls sit beside the story, so tuning happens where the reading happens.
  • A working ranking engine was out of scope. The prototype tests the interaction and the identity.

Split the feed into three surfaces

  • For You holds the stream. Discover makes following a field deliberate. Reader carries the long read.
  • Onboarding asks which fields to follow, so the first edition starts from a stated choice.
  • Serif type reads, a compact sans carries the controls, and mono marks figures and weights.

Take the geometry of 1980s Memphis

  • The brand draws on 1980s Memphis design: bold primitive shapes, squiggles and dots used as objects.
  • The PD mark is built from those primitives, two bars and two circles.
  • Corporate Memphis, the flat cartoon people of tech marketing, stays out. The figures carry the shapes: arcs, sine waves and nodes.
  • Memphis color is loud. Here one lime accent on bone keeps the page calm enough to read.

What it proves, and what it does not

  • One token set carried three surfaces with no second design pass.
  • A concept has no readers, so there is no adoption or engagement number to report.
  • The open question is whether an explanation makes a reader trust the feed or ignore it.
The Proto Daily prototype on the For You screen, standing in a bright study

THE PROTOTYPE — the reason it reached you.

The For You feed as drawn in Paper, screen by screen

DRAWN IN PAPER

LEARNED
Skimming, following a field and reading long are forced into one feed.
DECIDED
Three surfaces: For You for the stream, Discover for fields, Reader for the long read.
DESIGNED · IN PAPER◁ DRAG ▷PROTOTYPED · IN REACT, FOR THIS SITE
Prototyped half: the same For You screen running in ReactDesigned half: the For You feed in Paper

DESIGNED · PROTOTYPED — drag.

WHAT TUNES THIS STREAMAdjust
WEIGHTED BY 142 STORIES READ · 6 FIELDS · LAST TUNED 3 DAYS AGO
Because you follow Quantum Computing
QUANTUM COMPUTING
Why trapped-ion qubits just hit a wall
AN EXPLAINABLE FEED · TOGGLE A FIELD
FIG. 01 · QPU-7 · DELFTDRAG ↔
Two-qubit interference fringes across the array.φ +0.11
THE READING CHART · DRAG THE MARKER
COLOR · CONTRAST
AaThe frontier, examinedEDITORIAL · WCAG-CHECKED
9.88 : 1AAA ✓
BACKGROUND
TEXT
COLOR · EVERY PAIR CONTRAST-CHECKED

THE SYSTEM, LIVE — three pieces of the prototype.

A hand holding a phone on a lap, single raking light, near-black
Reader, the long-read page: category and read time, headline, standfirst, byline

READER — serif reading view, figure plates, and type controls.

TODAY
Today, the edition front page, on a phone standing on a plaster plinth before a wall-size figure plate
DISCOVER
Discover, with the inference graph and the field in focus, on a phone on a plinth among paper planes
SAVED
Saved: continue reading, saved articles and highlights, on a phone on a plinth beside a chartreuse sphere

TODAY · DISCOVER · SAVED

SPLASH
Splash: the PD mark and Proto Daily masthead, on a phone on a plinth
YOUR FIELDS
Onboarding, your fields: choose what to follow, on a phone on a stepped plinth
YOUR RHYTHM
Onboarding, your rhythm: when your edition should arrive, on a phone on a plinth

SPLASH · YOUR FIELDS · YOUR RHYTHM

TAKEAWAYS
  • Tokens first, then screens. Showing the why of the feed, in the feed, is the product’s edge.
  • Validate the tuning model with reader testing: are the explanations useful, do the controls make sense.
MKDC skull-key mark on maroon
NEXT PROJECT

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