All // Work // Projects // Photography
Mari Sheibley is a graphic designer in New York City. Say hello via email.
-
Farewell Foursquare
In early December, 2008 I got an email from Dennis Crowley asking if I wanted to help him and his buddy Naveen out on a new “project”.
I said yes.
That “project” was called Foursquare. It was about recording where you’ve been, sharing with friends and discovering new places. For someone like me who used to record all the bars I had been to in a word doc, it was perfect. I could tell there was something special about Foursquare from the very beginning. The energy and excitement that Dennis and Naveen exuded was infectious and the product was addictive. It didn’t matter that they couldn’t pay me, I just wanted to be a part of something I believed in.
Almost four years later I’ve watched Foursquare grow from two guys working out of Think Coffee to a company employing over 150 people across three offices on two continents. In that time I’ve drawn hundreds of badges and icons, designed UI for web, Android and, most notably, iOS. I’ve watched the product evolve from a simple check-in service to a robust recommendation engine. I’ve designed t-shirts, hand cut fake tattoos, co-founded Tie Tuesday, and oversaw the design side of a massive company-wide app redesign. It’s been a wild ride, but like all good things, it must come to an end.
I’m so grateful to Dennis and Naveen for taking a chance on me. My time at Foursquare has been some of the most challenging, fun, and inspirational of my life. I’m grateful that every day I got to work alongside such smart and passionate people. It’s a bittersweet feeling to leave behind something that was so tightly woven into my life for so long, but at the same time, I’ve never been this excited for the future. I’m ready to tackle new problems and help other entrepreneurs bring their vision to life, just as I did with Dens and Naveen all those years ago. -
I know the new foursquare is totally old news now because it launched last week and in internet time that’s like 6 months ago, but I wanted to write a little something about it and was on vacation last week with internet that rivaled dial up in slowness. Also, I was on vacation.
For the past few years we’ve been iterating upon the same app — adding features and updating design. There wasn’t a lot of changes to the overall architecture or behavior of the app, and as we kept adding features, it got a little complicated. We decided it was time to take the app, tear it down and build a solid foundation that we can continue to build upon for years to come. We wanted to simplify the experience and de-emphasis the check-in. We wanted to make recommendations and search front and center and integrate features like tips and lists all throughout the entire product. We also wanted to evolve the visual layer. This was most important to me, as I’ve been working on that layer for the past 3 years and I relished the chance to update it. I wanted to make something beautiful, but more importantly useful. I wanted to evolve the design, but not lose the elements people have come to know and (hopefully) love about our product. The design team and I took careful consideration in colors, contrast, fonts and icons. We wanted the design to be smooth and seamless, so as not to overwhelm or outshine our product. Every piece has a purpose.
This is by far the biggest undertaking we’ve done as a company and by no means was it an easy process. We had 8 designers and an entire company of 100+ people working on iOS, Android, Blackberry and web simultaneously. It was amazing to see everyone come together on every front from product and design to engineering and marketing. I’m really proud to have been a part of this.
P.S. Read about the design process from Courtney, one of the other designers who worked on both iOS and Android.
-
foursquare 5.0
-
foursquare conference room: herbivore
-
4/3/2012 Then and Now
-
3/23/12 I drew a foursquare logo and timeline. Art school was good for something I guess.
-
4SQ DAY 2012 Logo
-
2/15/12 9:45pm
-
1/25/12 Screen Printing in the new office: An After School Experiment.
-
1/17/12 First company meeting in the new office
-
1/16/12 A new chapter in the foursquare story.
-
1/13/12 Closing Time.
-
1/10/11 Our last Tuesday Team Meeting at 36 Cooper.
-
1/9/12 This is the last week I’ll be sitting at this desk. We’re moving to Soho.
-
12/16/2011 foursquare’s First Annual Talent Show was amazing!
loading…
