CircleU
Campus talk that expires.
Overview
CircleU is a social app that belongs to one university at a time. Every conversation is a Circle: one opening post, a thread of replies, and a clock that runs out in 6 hours, 24 hours or 3 days. Students talk about what is happening on campus right now — the curve on a chem midterm, a sublet for spring, which floor of the library stays quiet during finals.
Hipster Studio, a team in Kuwait building for American campuses, came to us with the idea and an early Flutter prototype. We were the only studio on the product, from design to development: we redesigned the whole mobile experience, built the design system behind it and developed the app in Flutter for iOS and Android.
screens and states, designed end to end
build phases, each reviewed on a device
from one Flutter codebase
The challenge
The early app looked like a dozen others: generic purple, thin lines, nothing that said “this is for you” to an 18-year-old. It had to feel made for students, show at a glance which conversations are worth opening before they disappear, and keep two ideas apart that most apps blur together: proving you belong to a school, and earning other students’ trust.
Design system
Campus Signal: a dark system where every colour means one thing, and a serif is kept for what students say.
Colour
Violet
#7C5CFF
Primary action
Cyan
#22D3EE
Verified · live · new
Green
#34D399
Helpful · trust
Amber
#FFB84D
Expiry · access requests
Coral
#FF5C5C
Alerts · ends soon
Canvas
#08090C
Background
Type
Space Grotesk · Interface
University of Miami
Create Circle
Ends in 8h · Public · 24 comments
Question · Signal · Alert
Source Serif 4 · What students say
What’s the hardest final you’ve ever had to take?
Not yet. I applied last week too, fingers crossed.
Which floor of Richter actually stays quiet past midnight during finals?
Post types
- Question
- Opinion
- Signal
- Alert
Trust ladder
- New
- Reliable
- Trusted
- Expert
Geometry
- 20px gutters
- 16px card padding
- 20px card radius
- 44px min. touch
Inside the app
Eight key screens, from finding your school to running a Circle. Tap any of them for a closer look.
WelcomeReal campus topics orbit the logo before sign-in.
Find your schoolOnboarding starts with the campus, not a profile.
LiveYour campus right now: who is active, and what ends next.
Inside a CircleThe most helpful replies rise; trust sits beside every name.
Start a CircleName, type, duration and access: one screen, one button.
Your CirclesCreated, following and pending, with access requests surfaced.
Private accessHosts approve or deny before the clock runs out.
Profile & trustMentions, helpful marks and views.
How we approached it
We made four decisions early, and every screen follows them.
Time is the interface. Every card carries a ring timer. Amber means it is running; coral means it ends soon. Students see what is worth opening before it disappears.
Verification is not trust. A school email proves you belong. Trust is earned separately — New, Reliable, Trusted, Expert — from replies other students mark helpful. Two systems, two visual languages.
Don’t look like a bank. Dark apps drift toward fintech: navy panels, hairline ledgers, metric grids. CircleU uses chunky rounded cards, big type, real faces and one violet accent that glows only when you commit.
A serif for what people say. Space Grotesk runs the interface. Source Serif 4 is kept for posts and replies, so a student’s voice always reads differently from the app around it.
Built one phase at a time. We mapped the design onto the Flutter codebase in 14 phases — tokens first, then data models, navigation, shared widgets and one feature at a time — on Riverpod and go_router. Each phase was small enough to review on a device before the next began.
What we built
Campus-only spaces
Each university is its own community, and a school email proves you belong.
Circles that expire
Every conversation ends after 6 hours, 24 hours or 3 days.
Ring timers
Amber while a Circle runs, coral when it is about to end.
Trust ladder
New, Reliable, Trusted, Expert: earned from replies other students mark helpful.
Private Circles
Hosts approve or deny access requests before the clock runs out.
Four post types
Question, Opinion, Signal and Alert, each with its own tag.
Got something like this in mind?
We take products from a first sketch to the app store. Tell us what you're building and we'll tell you honestly how we'd approach it.