Quell
INDUSTRY:
LIFESTYLE AND WELLNESS
CLIENT:
PERSONAL
YEAR:
2026
EXPERIENCE:
PRODUCT DESIGN
about.
Quell is a breathwork and meditation app I designed and prototyped solo from blank canvas to React prototype in 5 days.
The brief I set myself was simple: most wellness apps feel clinical or "new agey". Quell sits in the middle, calm and considered, without the incense.
The design covers end-to-end product thinking: information architecture, a semantic token system built from primitives up, interaction design for breath-paced animations, and a component library. I also used this project to improve my Figma Make skills which allowed me to take this from static frames to a functional React prototype in an afternoon. The prototype exists as a proof of concept and dev hand off document showing user flows, interactions, and more.
Quell is an MVP. The core experience works, the foundations are solid, and there's a clear roadmap for what could come next.
problem.
Where to start with my gripes about meditation apps — I'll admit up front these are the problems of someone who has spent way too much time thinking about this —but I can't be alone.
The meditation app market is dominated by Calm and Headspace; broad wellness platforms that do many things adequately but breathwork poorly. Meanwhile, breathwork as a standalone practice has grown significantly, driven by renewed interest in nervous system regulation, sleep, and focus.
Most meditation apps are designed for beginners. The guidance is heavy, the hand-holding constant, and for anyone with an established practice the experience quickly becomes patronising.
The tone compounds it. Western wellness narration has a very specific voice, breathy, affirming, spiritually vague, that might work for newcomers but actively breaks the spell for anyone who knows what they're doing.
Quell is built for the practitioner who wants an environment that supports their breathing practice, and for anyone who simply wants to create a personal space for stillness, without being talked through it.
solution.
Quell strips the experience back to what matters.
For breathing, five techniques covering a range of practice: from accessible entry points like Box Breathing and 4-7-8, through to more advanced methods like Cyclic Hyperventilation. Users can choose their ambience and the amount of help they want. Breathing patterns are communicated visually as well as with sounds.
For meditation, a library of ambient layers you control. Curated scenes for when you want something ready to go, and a full mixer for when you want to build your own; layering up to 10 sounds, balancing each one independently, and saving the combinations that work for you and when you aren't meditating you can create soundscapes for sleep, study and more.
