sunbeam:
your comfort journal
for puppets project, 2025 — as a maker
the story
sunbeam was born out of burnout and the struggle to find a journaling space that felt gentle.
Most journaling apps we tried were noisy, filled with streaks, stats, and pressure to keep up. Journaling — something that should’ve been slow and kind, had turned into a task to complete.
That’s when my friend Aarushi and I started talking about creating something different in the current journaling space. Something soft. Something that felt like sunlight through curtains on a quiet morning.
We wanted to make something that went beyond the usual landscape of mobile apps. A source of comfort, a place of calm, a breath of fresh air. Something that feels like a warm hug when you need one.
We didn’t know what it would become yet. We only knew how we wanted it to feel.
The idea of sunbeam began as a journaling worksheet app in mid-2024, with themed templates and guided questions. It sounded structured and helpful, but it also felt too rigid, too defined. It didn’t have that sense of openness and ease that we dreamed of.
The second version took shape as we refined it, a daily journaling app with a set of prompts that stayed the same every day. But as we sat with it, we realized that wasn’t what we wanted either.
We didn’t want people to feel obligated to write daily. We wanted them to come back whenever they wished, not out of guilt, but comfort.
So we paused, looked at it again, and asked ourselves: what do we want people to feel when they open sunbeam?
The answer was clear — comfort.
This is the story of how my friend Aarushi and I, being designers, made our way through everything to release our first app on the App Store.
our daily reminder
— life already has too many expectations.
let’s not make an app that adds more.
We imagined sunbeam as a cozy space, a little corner to pause, breathe, and just write. No streaks, no stats, no reminders that make you feel guilty.
We moved from worksheets to cards with gentle prompts that you could swipe through and answer whenever you felt like it. Each card offered a small window to reflect, not with questions that demanded answers, but with words that simply invited you in.
sunbeam became the opposite of what most journaling apps try to be. It’s not an app that tries to fix you. It’s one that sits beside you.
Once we had the concept, the next big challenge was finding the right iOS developer. That process took months. Some builds never finished. Some timelines stretched endlessly. We went through uncertainty and self-doubt and even questioned whether it was worth continuing. There were moments when it felt like the project might never happen.
And yet, it stayed with us. Because we knew the world didn’t need another journaling app, it needed a softer one. So we kept going.
Then, in August 2025, we met Collins, a developer from Nigeria. He understood exactly what we were trying to create, and we began building sunbeam together.
It wasn’t easy, working across time zones, testing builds, debugging tiny micro-interactions, but we adapted. We shared feedback, Figma comments, and endless screenshots.
Through the process, we also learned restraint — what to keep and what to let go. That some ideas had to wait.
Our focus was to bring sunbeam into the world.
And after a year of resilience, and rebuilding, sunbeam was finally released on the App Store in August 2025.
🎶 here comes the sun…
we wanted the onboarding of sunbeam to feel like stepping into a different world; one that’s calm, soft, and quietly welcoming.
the onboarding speaks in sunbeam’s own voice, like a friend gently inviting you in. It comforts you as it tells you about itself, while guiding you through the simple gestures you’ll use inside; like swiping through prompts, or tapping a card to write.
choosing a prompt
you can swipe through 150 gentle prompts and tap on the one that feels right for you. each prompt is designed to feel inviting; not like a question, but a soft nudge that helps you begin writing in your own way.
most prompts come with a small hint below, to guide your thoughts when needed. prompts are arranged so they don’t repeat often.
and if you just want to write freely, you can tap the pencil icon on the top right to start a note without a prompt.
customization options
