Letters From Friends

LLMs meet human connection

Year:

2023

Type:

Digital

Web Design, UI/UX

Contribution:

Asset Creation, Interactive Web Design

Letters From Friends is an interactive web experience that explores how widespread AI adoption affects what it means to be human.

Challenge

While the increased adoption of Large Language Models (LLMs) has sparked extensive discussion about economic impacts, the sociological effects remain largely overlooked.

Solution

An interactive website where users can read personal letters exchanged between two long-lost friends, with all correspondence written by ChatGPT and letter pages created digitally to appear scanned.

Letters From Friends is an interactive web experience that explores how widespread AI adoption affects what it means to be human.

Challenge

While the increased adoption of Large Language Models (LLMs) has sparked extensive discussion about economic impacts, the sociological effects remain largely overlooked.

Solution

An interactive website where users can read personal letters exchanged between two long-lost friends, with all correspondence written by ChatGPT and letter pages created digitally to appear scanned.

Design

In designing the final version of Letters From Friends, I aimed to recreate the intimate experience of spreading old letters across a surface — like discovering cherished memories from a keepsake box — in a fully digital format.

Design

In designing the final version of Letters From Friends, I aimed to recreate the intimate experience of spreading old letters across a surface — like discovering cherished memories from a keepsake box — in a fully digital format.

Process

For Letters From Friends, I created everything digitally without using any physical source materials. The entire experience was crafted using LLM prompting and visual design tools.

Process

For Letters From Friends, I created everything digitally without using any physical source materials. The entire experience was crafted using LLM prompting and visual design tools.

Research

While AI and LLMs clearly have economic implications, I noticed that many overlooked their potential impact on our daily lives and human connections.

Precedence

Both pop culture and the tech industry had established clear precedents—from digital assistants confined to unemotional, task-oriented interactions, to films like Her that explored intimate human-AI relationships.

In Her, the main character's profession of ghostwriting deeply personal letters became a key inspiration for this project.

LLM Prompt Development

To generate the letters' content, I adapted an LLM prompt from Reddit and used two separate ChatGPT instances to manage the correspondence. By maintaining consistent prompts across both agents, I ensured a natural conversational flow despite the lack of a dual-agent interface.

Typeface Selection

Rather than using handwriting, I opted for digital text to align with the project's technological nature. Graphik, a sans-serif typeface, was chosen as the universal font for both letters and website. Its neutral character complements the anonymous quality of the letters, as readers remain detached from the fictional "friends."

Paper Texture Replication

After recieving the LLM outputs and creating the basic letter layout, I used Photoshop to apply scanned paper textures—the project's only physically sourced asset—to give the letters an authentic appearance.

Final Asset Development

The final letter assets were developed using a multi-layered approach in Photoshop, combining the typeset content with carefully adjusted paper textures, subtle aging effects, and minor imperfections to create a convincing illusion of scanned correspondence. Each letter required individual attention to maintain authenticity while avoiding repetitive patterns.

Interactive Web Design

After completing the letter assets, I designed the web experience using ReadyMag, incorporating shadows, scroll animations, and movable elements. I optimized the site exclusively for desktop viewing—not only because it's the primary platform for document viewing, but also because it offers a more immersive experience than mobile devices.

Tools

ChatGPT LLM, Figma, Adobe Photoshop, Readymag

Team

Independent project

Tools

ChatGPT LLM, Figma, Adobe Photoshop, Readymag

Team

Independent project