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Branding me and @Roman Cojuhari have done and won 1st place in competition!
1st place. la mama catita is a fun name.
yes, because of the granny who keeps it's museum and lives in there, she is Catita
While the concept of a house-museum rooted in Moldovan heritage has a lot of potential, this direction unfortunately feels disconnected from the tactile warmth, folklore, and historical weight of the actual culture.
To really elevate a project like this, a few key areas need a...
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I just joined Contra and I’m still figuring out how things work around here, so I thought I’d introduce myself instead of quietly lurking.
I’m Mariya, founder, strategist and lead designer behind Mariya Design. I’ve worked internationally since 2015, and today I run a boutique branding studio focused on brand identity systems for premium and luxury-led brands.
Most of my work sits somewhere between identity, packaging and the wider system around them. I’m particularly interested in what happens after the logo: how typography, color, packaging, digital applications and brand rules actually hold together as the business grows.
One project I’ve been revisiting recently is SAE-REN, a premium beauty and wellness identity system. I’m currently rebuilding some of my case-study presentation system, so it felt like a good one to share here first.
And since I’m genuinely new to Contra, I’d love to hear from people who have been active here for a while:
What actually helped you become part of the community here?
Was it sharing work regularly, joining conversations, applying to opportunities, or something else entirely?
Any early mistakes worth avoiding are welcome too.
great designs..
A look at the identity I’ve been working on for Sync, a car rental platform in Greece.
You pick the car you want and a local provider brings it to you. Pretty good starting point.
The goal was to give them a brand that could sit comfortably next to the big rental companies and still feel like people you’d actually want to rent from.
I kept their pink and built the layouts around a shape inspired by a car’s side mirror with real cars and Greek scenery inside it.
Big Greek headlines, plenty of space and a system their team can keep easily.
Impressive work, colors are great in use.
🧠 GROWTH TIP 06/30: DON’T START WITH WHERE. START WITH THE FEELING.
Most travel apps start with one question: “Where do you want to go?”
That works when the user already knows the answer. But a lot of travel discovery starts earlier, with a much less specific thought: I want to go somewhere, I just don’t know where yet.
That idea became Traveling Up, a travel randomizer concept.
Instead of asking users to work through dozens of filters, the product starts with just three signals:
🌍 how much time they have
🎭 how they want the trip to feel
☀️ what kind of climate they prefer
The destination stays a surprise.
Hypothesis: removing destination selection from the first step could move users faster from vague travel intent to genuine interest in one specific trip.
What I would test:
• Destination first search vs Mood first randomizer
• Randomize start rate
• Destination save rate
• Plan this trip CTR
• Time to first interesting destination
💡 Growth insight: in discovery products, uncertainty is not always friction. Sometimes it is exactly what creates curiosity and moves users toward the next action.
This concept came to me after a particularly inspiring trip. And I think it is the first mobile concept I have created purely for myself, rather than for a client project, in roughly three years.
So this one has a little more freedom, art direction, and product experimentation in it.
06/30 complete.
If you enjoy seeing mobile product experiments like this alongside the growth thinking behind them, follow along. And if this direction resonates, a reaction helps me understand which ideas are worth exploring deeper next.
#MobileAppDesign #TravelApp #TravelAppDesign #MobileUX #UXDesign #ProductDesign #GrowthDesign #TravelTech #InteractionDesign #UIDesign #ProductStrategy #MobileProduct #AsolDesign
Perfect
