Tegami

Strangers Today, Penpals Tomorrow, Friends Forever...

Comment

Inspiration

The lost art of letter writing inspired us to create Tegami (手紙 - Japanese for "letter"). In our fast-paced digital world, we've lost the intimacy and thoughtfulness of handwritten correspondence. We wanted to bring back meaningful connections through slow, intentional communication - combining the nostalgia of cassette tapes with the personal touch of pen pal relationships.

What it does

Tegami is a digital pen pal platform that recreates the magic of traditional letter writing. Users can write invitation letters to find pen pals worldwide, exchange private correspondence with delivery delays that simulate real mail, maintain a personal journal with mood tracking, and record "Voice Vents" - audio memories stored on virtual cassette tapes. The platform emphasizes authentic connections over instant gratification, featuring a vintage aesthetic with paper textures, ink blots, and handwriting fonts.

How we built it

We built Tegami using a modern full-stack architecture: React 18 with TypeScript and Vite for the frontend, styled with Tailwind CSS and a custom vintage theme. The backend runs on Node.js with Express.js, using Supabase for authentication, real-time database, and file storage. Key features include real-time letter delivery simulation, audio recording and playback with visual feedback, country-based pen pal matching, and secure user authentication with Google OAuth integration.

Challenges we ran into

Creating an authentic vintage aesthetic while maintaining modern usability was challenging - balancing nostalgic design elements with accessible UI patterns. Implementing realistic letter delivery timing (2-minute delays) required careful state management and background processing. Audio recording and playback across different browsers presented compatibility issues. Managing complex relationships between users, letters, and pen pal connections in the database required thoughtful schema design.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We successfully recreated the emotional experience of traditional letter writing in a digital format. The cassette tape metaphor for audio memories creates a unique, cohesive user experience. Our vintage design system with custom fonts, paper textures, and subtle animations feels authentic without sacrificing functionality. The pen pal matching system facilitates meaningful global connections, and the journal feature with mood tracking adds personal value beyond just correspondence.

What we learned

We discovered the importance of intentional design in slowing down digital communication to create more meaningful interactions. Working with audio APIs taught us about browser compatibility and user experience considerations for media recording. Building real-time features with Supabase showed us the power of modern backend-as-a-service platforms. Most importantly, we learned that nostalgia can be a powerful design principle when thoughtfully implemented.

What's next for Tegami

We plan to add handwriting recognition to convert digital text into handwritten-style fonts, implement letter templates and stationery customization, create pen pal recommendation algorithms based on interests and writing styles, add multi-language support for global accessibility, develop mobile apps for iOS and Android, and introduce collaborative features like shared photo albums and virtual postcard exchanges between pen pals. Deploying it and scaling up!

Built With

Share this project:

Updates