creating blend
a description of Jyotsna's thought process
Inspiration
The idea for blend spawned from youtube channels such as The Code Dose and Nashallery who build stimulating projects that lie in the intersection of creativity and technology. Further more, I have been wanting to create something that would require me to fully test my state-management ability and while testing out different tech stacks. This motivated me to build a game that would challenge me to meet these two goals in a wholesome and meaningful way.
So why coffee? Apart from the apparent reasons of loving its flavour, there are two other sides to coffee that I would love to introduce you to: "Ask a working individual when they last attended an educational class. Two weeks ago? Two months ago? Two years ago? Now ask them when they last went to a coffee shop. It was probably that morning."
 1. Coffee as a cultural staple: Coffee is a universal drink, especially among university students like myself. At a recent career fair, someone said something that stuck with me:
 2. Coffee as a personal connection: I'm from Bangalore, India—a city often called the "OG of coffee" by locals. In my family, coffee isn't just a drink; it's a way to say "I'm here for you," "Don't stress," or even "I'm bored." Something as significant as coffee truly deserves more recognition, and I wanted to celebrate its role in our lives.
To bring my coffee-vision to life, I used these books as references: The World Atlas of Coffee: From Beans to Brewing by James Hoffmann (2014) and Coffee: A Dark History by Antony Wild (2004).
Design Process
Step 1: Research and Inspiration
I began by researching designs that caught my eye and saved them to a notebook on GoodNotes. Here you'll see a screenshot of some of the most inspiring designs I found:
Step 2: Wireframing
Next, I created a simple wireframe to outline the structure and flow of the website. This helped me visualize the user journey and plan the layout.
Step 3: Figma Design
With the wireframe ready, I moved to Figma to design the website. Since this was a game, I knew it had to be visually engaging and image-heavy. I started with the landing page, generating a background image and designing different coffee cups for the various coffee options users could make. Here is a link to my Figma!
AI-Generated Assets
To save time and focus on coding and state management, I decided to use AI tools to generate the visual assets. This also aligned with my goal of exploring AI, given its growing role in modern design and development. I explored various tools including Leonardo.ai, Kittl, and Canva AI. I considered Midjourney, but didn't believe it was worth paying for.
The tool I found most effective was Krea AI, thanks to its real-time generation feature, which produced accurate and high-quality images that matched my vision.
Art Style:
I used the phrase "anime art style with a subtle pixelated effect" in most of my prompts to create images that were both realistic and game-like. After generating the assets, I used Canva to remove backgrounds and make them versatile for the project.
Tech Stack
I chose Svelte and TailwindCSS for the project because:
 1. Svelte: Its reactivity and simplicity made it perfect for managing the game's state and interactions. I have used Svelte minimally, and have been meaning to use it in a bigger project to get a better understanding of how it works and if it could be a better idea to use it more often.
 2. TailwindCSS: Its utility-first approach allowed me to style the website quickly and efficiently.
For chatbot assistance, I used DeepSeek and Zed's built-in Claude 3.7 Sonnet to brainstorm ideas, debug code, and solve problems along the way.
To bring the musicality to my website, I used this Youtube link for the background audio as well as short audio samples from freesound.org!
Current Progress
For now, this is where I'm at with blend. This project has been a fantastic learning experience, combining my love for coding, design, and coffee. I hope Blend not only educates users about coffee but also brings a smile to their faces as they brew their perfect cup. I'll continue to update this section as I make progress and add new features. Stay tuned for more updates! :))