Niteo is a speculative redesign of Instagram developed in response to primary research investigating user needs and behaviours within the platform. The project identifies a growing demand for a more controlled, less overstimulating digital environment, particularly in relation to personal use. In contrast to the high-intensity visual language of the existing platform, Niteo introduces a calmer and more restrained design system, using a softened colour palette and simplified interface structure to support more focused interaction.

The redesign explores key interface areas, including the feed, profile, notifications, and discovery, to evaluate consistency across everyday user journeys. Emphasis is placed on content hierarchy, navigation clarity, and micro-interactions, examining how subtle feedback mechanisms influence user engagement and perception.

Niteo prioritises personal experience over performance-driven features, proposing a system that supports more intentional, accessible, and sustainable interaction with digital content.

This project responds to the International Society of Typographic Designers brief Power, investigating how power is expressed through spatial control using the checkpoint as both a physical condition and a conceptual framework. It draws on race spaces during the Cold War, where borders, surveillance systems, and restricted zones structured political tension and defined movement. These environments are examined as designed systems that organise behaviour, visibility, and access.

Part of research explores how power is communicated through spatial control. Focusing on Cold War race spaces, it analyses archived materials such as maps, documents, and signage to understand how typography structured authority, access, and movement.

The project develops this research through expressive typography, treating type as an active mechanism of control rather than neutral information. Historical visual languages are reinterpreted using contemporary technologies, including user interface design, where digital systems such as authentication and verification act as modern checkpoints.