arweave.com
Overview
Arweave is the permanent memory layer of the internet - powering decentralized apps, AI training datasets, public records, and more. As the official protocol site, Arweave.com had to clearly communicate the platform’s value while appealing to developers, founders, and everyday users.
We built a retro-future brand that pays homage to Arweave’s role in preserving the past and safeguarding the future. The visual identity blends archival aesthetics with modern type and layout, creating a timeless but forward-looking feel.
Nostalgia as a Trust-Building Mechanism
Arweave’s mission — permanent data preservation — can feel abstract to new users. Our hypothesis was that familiarity creates comfort, and comfort creates trust. By surfacing culturally and historically recognizable imagery, we aimed to ground Arweave’s value in emotion rather than technology.
Nostalgia served as a bridge: if users recognized what they were seeing, they would more intuitively understand why preserving it matters.
Translating the Idea into a Webflow Experience
To operationalize this idea, I designed an interactive collage paired with a flashlight-style cursor effect. As users move their mouse, hidden images are revealed, encouraging exploration and moments of recognition.
The interaction mirrors Arweave’s core value: important memories are uncovered, preserved, and never lost. Built directly in Webflow using layered assets and custom interactions, the experience translates an abstract promise into a tangible, emotional interaction.
Website assets uploaded to Arweave
Beyond narrative and interaction, we reinforced trust through live demonstration. Images featured on the landing page were not mock assets — they were files actually uploaded and stored on Arweave.
On hover, users could see metadata indicating when each image was permanently stored. Clicking through took them directly to ViewBlock, where the asset could be verified on-chain. This removed abstraction and replaced it with evidence: users weren’t being told that Arweave preserves data — they were shown.
Impact
- Official protocol site securing 22B+ transactions, 119.15 PiB of data, and 300,000+ wallet addresses
- Unified the brand with a lasting visual identity and voice
- Helped communicate Arweave’s real-world use cases across AI, storage, and permanence