This past weekend we sponsored and were apart of a unique event, DC Start-Up Weekend. Essentially, 50+ passionate and energetic people who have a bit of the entrepreneurial bug got together to try to create and launch a web-based community service in just a couple days (over the course of a weekend).
We were surprised to see that the design community was very small; four people showed up on Friday evening and only two came back for the rest of the weekend (myself and Jesse Thomas). Hoping to play more of an adviser/moderator role in this social experiment, I had to roll-up-my-sleeves and get some sh*t done.
So, between the hours of 9pm and 1am on Friday night – (being the last man standing in the design group) I decided to be proactive and ended up developing the product name, brand identity, base wire-frame as well as the user interface design for both the homepage and the interior page (not bad for four hours on a Friday night).
Homepage Design Concept
Interior Page Design Concept
The site, holaneighbor.com has been said to of officially launched – however, after playing around with it for a bit, I think that might be an over-exaggeration.
While we might not be a fully functional site — it was one hell of an experiment! A lot was learned, friends were made, and at the end of the day everyone was a part of a great answer to the “what did you do this weekend” question. There was a lot of chaos, but through it all came clarity — probably at the same time of the reality check that Sunday night is right around the corner.
I must send out a special thank you to Rana Sobhany for helping me with idea generation and keeping the laugher in full supply in an effort to combat the natural chaos.
