Designer - Web | Graphics | UX/UI
Pop! Goes St. Louis
Designing a playful, hyper-local music discovery experience
What is Pop! Goes St. Louis?
Pop! Goes St. Louis is a mobile app concept designed to help users discover and attend local pop music events. The goal was to create an experience that felt distinctly local, playful, and community-driven, while remaining intuitive and easy to use.
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A key constraint (incorporating a cow mascot) became an opportunity to lean into personality and build a memorable brand experience.
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Concept project completed as part of UX/UI certification, focused on solving a realistic user scenario.
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Short on time? Jump straight to the prototype
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The Challenge
Design a mobile app that:
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Helps users quickly discover local pop music events
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Introduces them to new artists
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Reflects the unique, slightly quirky personality of the St. Louis music scene
The challenge was balancing: functionality (event discovery + usability) with personality (playful, unexpected, and local)
My Role
I owned the project end-to-end, including:
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Research and concept development
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UX flows and interaction design
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Visual design and prototyping
My focus was on translating a playful concept into a functional, working product experience.
Approach
Lean research + strong point of view
To move quickly while still grounding decisions in user needs, I used a lean research approach:
User insights:
Competitive inspiration:
Apps like Bandsintown and Songkick informed baseline expectations—but lacked the personality and hyper-local feel this concept required.
How It Works
The app is designed to support quick discovery and easy decision-making:
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A scrollable feed of local events using custom event cards for fast scanning
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Clear navigation prioritizing:
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Event discovery
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Saved favorites
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Ticket purchasing
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A streamlined flow from browsing → selection → checkout
The goal was to reduce friction while keeping the experience engaging and visually distinctive.
Key Decisions
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Bottom navigation was prioritized over more complex structures to support quick, repeat use
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Custom event cards were designed to balance visual appeal with scannability
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The visual system leaned bold and playful, but avoided overwhelming the core task of finding events
Tradeoff
I chose clarity and speed of use over adding additional social or discovery features, ensuring the core experience remained simple and effective.
Design
Designing for Personality
(Not Just Usability)
A major goal was creating something that felt distinct from typical event apps.
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Rounded shapes and bold colors reflect the energy of pop music
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A 90s-inspired aesthetic adds nostalgia and personality
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The cow mascot was used strategically:
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Splash screen → brand introduction
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Confirmation moments → reward + delight
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Instead of feeling gimmicky, the mascot became a tool for emotional engagement
Prototype
Prototyping the Experience
Prototyping played a central role in this project.
I focused on:
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Building high-fidelity, interactive flows
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Testing how users move from discovery → decision → purchase
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Refining transitions and interactions to feel intuitive
This allowed me to:
Validate the experience as a working system—not just a set of screens
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Click the button below to view the Pop! Goes St. Louis mobile app prototype.
Outcome
The final concept delivers a playful, functional event discovery experience that:
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Makes it easy to find and attend local events
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Introduces users to new artists
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Creates a memorable, personality-driven product
Where AI Could Enhance
Opportunities for AI integration include:
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Personalized event recommendations based on listening or browsing behavior
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Smart notifications for nearby events
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AI-assisted artist discovery
I see AI as a way to enhance discovery and personalization, while keeping the core experience simple and user-driven.
Reflection
This project pushed me to think beyond usability and into experience design as a system.
I explored how:
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Brand, interaction, and functionality work together
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Constraints can drive creativity
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Prototyping brings ideas to life in a meaningful way
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It reinforced my interest in building experiences that are not just usable but engaging, expressive, and real
