Kore
Increasing on-screen representation of historically excluded populations remains a directional North Star for the media industry, and progress is being made. That progress, however, is measured using a very general lens. There is an increasing need for our community to convey our uniqueness and find each other in our homes away from home. This personal project tries to find a solution to bridge this representation and community gap.
Tools: Figma, Photoshop, Illustrator, Claude for prompting
The Challenge
The South Asian diaspora is one of the largest and most culturally rich communities in the world yet there is no dedicated digital space that reflects their experience of living away from home. Existing social platforms are generic, culturally agnostic, and fail to serve the nuanced needs of a community that spans languages, traditions, cuisines, and creative practices across dozens of countries.
As a South Asian woman living in Europe, I experienced this gap firsthand. Finding community, discovering cultural events, or connecting with South Asian artists and professionals in your city felt fragmented and accidental dependent on word of mouth rather than design.
The User
Primary: South Asian diaspora members living in Europe and beyond professionals, creatives, students, and families seeking cultural connection and community
Secondary: South Asian artists, musicians, dancers, and event planners looking to promote their work and find collaborators
Tertiary: People genuinely curious about South Asian culture, traditions, languages, and cuisine
The Goal
Design a platform that helps the South Asian diaspora living abroad find each other, share their culture, discover events and collaborators, and feel at home wherever they are.
Creating the brand and interface design
The South Asian diaspora isn't just large it's culturally generative. In many Western countries, diaspora communities are actively creating fusion cultures, blending South Asian heritage with their adopted home's influences. What's missing isn't interest it's infrastructure. A platform that treats South Asian culture with the same depth and intentionality that the community itself brings to it. After collecting and creating a moodboard of south asian advertisements, graphic design work, album art, movie posters, campaign images it was clear the communication language is vibrant, energetic and eye catching. The visual language needed to feel warm, contemporary, and culturally confident — neither exoticising South Asian aesthetics nor stripping them away in favour of a generic tech look. Typography, colour, and iconography were chosen to feel familiar to the community while remaining accessible to those discovering South Asian culture for the first time. The platform architecture was designed around three core needs: Connect (find people like you), Discover (events, artists, collaborators), and Share (stories, traditions, experiences) — reflecting how South Asian diaspora communities naturally build bonds.
Creating a user flow helped design a seamless and user-friendly experience. I mapped the user's journey to identify and address potential issues early on, optimize task completion for cross-functional communication and allow for data-driven iterations. This ensures that the design is centered around user needs and expectations, leading to a more intuitive and satisfying experience. The playful patterns and graphic elements of the design give opportunity for dynamic brand collateral, ranging from vibrant and energetic, to refined and focused. Kore is brave, groundbreaking, and powerful. The interface created matches that energy. It’s dynamic, loud and active tone is balanced with playfulness to evoke a homegrown, approachable, yet credible feel. This is a platform for those seeking information, find their people and be a part of their large community away from home.
The interface includes filters for location, date, and type of event, and offers options to save or share events. It showcases South Asian art forms such as traditional dance, music, and visual arts through videos, galleries, and articles. Highlights famous artists and their contributions to the community. There is even a fun horoscope section that provides humorous projections and satire based on the Indian community’s dedication towards astrology.
Establishing a vibrant design system
Kore's design system was built around a central tension: How do you create a visual language that feels authentically South Asian without reducing a continent of cultures to a single aesthetic? Rather than building another generic social feed, Kore aggregates cultural touchpoints into a single resource reducing the friction of finding community across fragmented platforms.
Color & Cultural Resonance The palette draws from South Asian visual traditions — deep reds, vibrant oranges, royal blues — used as emotional cues rather than decoration. Colors carry cultural meaning while keeping the interface warm and accessible to anyone discovering the platform.
Information Architecture The platform organises around three core pillars that reflect how diaspora communities naturally connect:
Discover — playlists, podcasts, community takeovers
Connect — events, artists, collaboration opportunities
Engage — articles, peer conversation, community questions
