Graffon, with visuals by Vaeg · 2025

Kuweniverse: a world you walk through

Kuweni's music carries social themes that are easy to listen past. Kuweniverse turns the catalogue into a place: a 3D world on the web where each song is somewhere you travel to, entered through a riddle and left with the story behind the music.

Role: UI / UX designer
Platform: Web, desktop and mobile
With: Graffon (Pvt) Ltd; visuals by Vaeg
Status: Launched; currently offline

01The idea

"We envision a world where art is not just an observer of society, but a catalyst for its evolution."

That is the project's own statement of purpose. The brief that follows from it is unusual for a music site: the aim is not to sell tickets or streams but to start conversations about social issues that usually go unspoken.

A page of text about those issues would be scrolled past. The decision was to make people move through the work instead, so that reaching each song takes a little effort and attention. My part was the interface around that world: how you get in, how you learn to move, and what you see when you arrive.

02User journey

From a riddle to the end of the tour

The experience is a single path with a world in the middle of it. Each stage asks for a little more involvement than the last.

01
A riddle at the door
The landing page plays a soundtrack and asks what you heard. The answer is the code that lets you in.
The visitorListens, then answers
02
An optional introduction
Name and email can be left, for those who want to hear more. Skip for now is offered just as plainly.
The visitorMay skip
03
The vision
The welcome page states what Kuweniverse is for, under an astronaut walking into light.
The visitorReads, then starts
04
Learning to move
One screen: W, A, S, D to travel, the mouse to look around.
The visitorTakes it in at a glance
05
The world
Songs appear as places. Arriving at one shows its title and year, and an Explore button.
The visitorWalks and chooses
06
Inside a song
About the song, a gallery of films and its collaborators. The tour ends with the making of Kuweni.
The visitorWatches and reads

03Design decisions

Designing the edges of a 3D world

The world itself is the visual team's. The interface has to get people into it, keep out of its way, and catch them when they come out.

The way in is part of the story

A login or a plain Enter button would treat the visitor as a user. This is an artwork about paying attention, so the first thing it asks for is attention.

How it works

A riddle instead of a gateA soundtrack plays, and the visitor is asked what they heard and saw. The answer is typed as a code.
On a phone, a player and a downloadThe mobile landing adds audio controls and a download, because phone audio is often muted or interrupted.
Details are optionalThe next screen asks for a name and email, with Skip for now directly beneath.

The landing page: a vision statement, a riddle about what you heard, a code field and Submit the Code

Teach the controls before the world

Most visitors to a musician's site have never moved through a 3D space in a browser. Dropping them in without instruction would lose them in the first ten seconds.

How it works

One screen, two diagramsThe four keys drawn as a compass, the mouse drawn with its directions, and a sentence under each.
A single way forwardGot it is the only button, so the instruction cannot be missed or half-read.
Sound stays in reachA sound control sits in the same corner on every screen, since the experience is built on audio.

How to Navigate Kuweniverse: W, A, S, D keys to navigate and the mouse to look around, with a Got It button

Inside the world, almost no interface

Every panel placed over a 3D scene makes it feel like a website again. The scene has to stay the subject.

How it works

One thin bandOn arriving at a song, a single band crosses the screen with its title, its year and a round Explore button.
The wordmark and nothing elseThe Kuweniverse mark sits at the top; there is no menu bar, no sidebar and no map.
Two moods from one templateThe same layout is drawn on a cold starfield and a warm one, so each part of the world can have its own atmosphere.

The reading happens outside the scene

A song's story, films and credits need room to be read. Floating them in 3D would make them hard to read and easy to walk away from.

How it works

A page per songExplore opens a flat page: about the song, a gallery of films, and the collaborators.
The astronaut comes with youThe same figure from the welcome floats beside the text, so the page still belongs to the world.
An endingThe tour closes on a Congratulations screen with the making-of films, so the visit has a finish.