SOOT

Most people know the incumbent file system: grids of files and folders nested inside folders, paged through one level at a time. The web is full of unstructured, high-dimensional information, but the database technology underneath how we reach it is old, so using a computer still feels one-dimensional and slow.

For a creator that shows up as a library of references buried in folders named for whatever made sense that day. Folders and metadata record where a file sits and when it arrived, not what's in it, and keyword search only finds a file if you remember what you called it.

I started from carbon, the element in soot. It has no fixed shape until geometry gives it one, which fit a product that connects people to their files.

The working principle was From folders to fluidity, and the design system, Liquid Metal, is named after it.

We prototyped for months with UNNAMED and Two.much Studio on two questions: what parts a self-sorting library needs, and how to show depth on a flat screen. I owned APP.SOOT (the Mapper tool and core experience), Liquid Metal and design operations.

Focus mode was built for creators: look at one piece closely, find anything quickly, share it.

SOOT is a self-organizing, spatial visualization system, fast enough to map a library as it loads. Multimodal vector search places related work near each other, so finding something becomes browsing: you move through what's related instead of recalling a filename.

SOOT runs across three domains: APP.SOOT, the Mapper tool; PLAY.SOOT, for playgrounds; and SOOTWORLD, for discovery. The app works in four modes (Admin, Play, Focus and Search) and rests on four actions: add, delete, transition and share.

Around those sit eight parts: Spaces, Views, search, focus, metadata, upload, selection and sharing. Drop in a Drive link, a Figma file, an Are.na board or a whole YouTube channel and it maps as it loads. See Similar searches by color, composition and feel.

Underneath are Liquid Metal, a parts library loose enough to prototype a screen in an afternoon, and the Z-index, which stacks things in depth so position tells you what something is.

Shipped design operations documentation, an improved core navigation UI, and a Discord integration that brings community feedback into the product. Liquid Metal stayed in use after the engagement: new screens are assembled from its parts, so controls stay consistent as the product grows.

The bigger finding came from the people who kept coming back. Most of them weren't searching a private archive. They were building collections to publish to an audience they already had, and they cared most about how those collections looked once shared. SOOT WORLD, the public directory of Spaces, grew out of that.