Intro

This is the story of One Quest and why it’s more than my personal brand or design portfolio. Although part of it was a personal rebrand project, it quickly expanded into something much more magical and meaningful. It just so happened that a lot of the questions and experiments I had been working on for years (including my personal rebrand) ended up colliding into what you see here now. This is the story of One Quest and how it all happened.

If you came from my branding page you might have already read something similar, but in case you haven’t, here’s a quick summary.

One Quest is my personal brand but it’s more than that. It’s also my digital identity and the beginning of a redefined digital experience and system. I think it’s a really unique approach to digital identities, social media, and many of the digital systems that exist today. Although it’s difficult to share all the ideas, questions, and beautiful things in my head, I’m going to try. I hope things will start to connect as the story unfolds.

There’s a few guiding principles behind the One Quest brand and experience:

• A flexible system that evolves with me
• Personalized to my interests, values, and aesthetics
• Connected to onequest.me as much as possible
• Using open source tools and systems as much as possible

One Quest isn’t a one and done thing because at it’s core it encapsulates the spirit of discovery, evolution, and change. Even now there’s so many other possibilities I’m exploring and questions I’m excited about answering! I’m just getting started! But why the name One Quest, and what does that even mean?

Discovery: Brand Name

Why One Quest?

There’s 3 core parts of me that helped the One Quest brand come to life!

• My core value of minimalism (one)
• My deep love for fantasy, wizards (Gandalf ftw), and magic (quests)
• My core value of always asking more of life (questions)

I find it fascinating that both quests and questions share so many similarities and that they’re both tied to core parts of myself. I’ve noticed that all I need is to start with one question or one step on a “quest” in my life, and it always leads to more. It opens possibilities to re-frame or see things differently. I ask one question and pretty soon I’m asking another, and another and going on a beautiful adventure into so many unknown realms! You could say this is my brand slogan and I think it’s pretty clever. 👇

Quests and questions. Some of the things I love about both quests and questions are:

• They both start with a dream or a longing for something more
• They challenge what’s around them and break down barriers which might have seemed set in stone before
• They help people explore, achieve, and grow

I’ve been asking questions my whole life and I don’t plan to stop any time soon. There’s so much for individuals and society left to learn and change. If we get stuck in traditions and cultures that we think have to be maintained then how will we find even better cultures and societies? What beautiful things might we lose if we’re unwilling to evolve past what we currently know and understand about ourselves, society, the world, the universe, or anything else?

It’s been incredibly rewarding to weave quests, questions, and so many pieces of myself into an identity that I think is absolutely stellar and matches so much of my vibe. For right now I use the identifier “onequest” in lots of different places, but in the future I hope individuals can have more control of their digital identity and experience.

Hopefully the name is starting to make some sense, but what about the look and feel for the brand? It’s kinda whimsical and fun, but how did I make it and why does it make sense for me.

Discovery: Brand Look & Feel

How did I create the brand look and feel for One Quest?

Because of the deep roots of fantasy I plan to keep that as a constant pillar of the brand, but currently the aesthetic is a mesh of fantasy and vintage vibes (70’s ish) and my favorite color which is a super warm and cozy yellow.

But how did this interesting amalgamation of things come together? Fantasy and vintage aren’t exactly the most related topics. I sketched a lot, asked lots of questions, and explored tons of different ideas to land where I am now. I love how the logo itself even captures the feeling of vintage, whimsy, and for me even nostalgia. It’s happy, vibrant, and fun which are things I really value and always want in my life.

The fantasy part I already mentioned and I really want that love I have to be infused in my digital identity. Plus, with a name like “One Quest”, how could it not be?

The vintage part was fun to tie in and mostly is because right now I’m in a very nostalgic era. Remembering memories from the past can be very cozy. I also really like 70’s vibes right now, especially 70’s fashion. All the knit clothing with bright colors that were accented by a cozy off white or cream. It feels magical for some reason and I want to capture that magic. ✨

Here’s some of the concepts that I explored early on while working on the brand aesthetic and feeling as well as the logo.

It’s very fun to look back at everything I’ve explored and all the questions and ideas I’ve had.

My ultimate goal really is to create an entirely customizable and flexible digital system that matches both the aesthetics I like and the way I like things organized and structured. The more my environment is customized to match the way I live, the more I can live instead of getting stuck or blocked. And if that’s not magic, I dunno what is. 😁

Discovery: Shifting Mental Models

Why do I want my own digital identity and system when there’s already so many?

Honestly when I say shifting mental models, I mean it! For the past 9 years I’ve been heavily invested in my digital experience and crafting it in to something beautiful that I love using and that matches my values and vibe. During that time I was almost exclusively focused on using Google’s system of digital experiences. In many ways it still matches so many of the things I value. It’s simple and streamlined with one account that can access so many core digital tools and experiences. And although they’re certainly not without flaws, Google experiences are genuinely quite polished overall (especially over the last few years).

But back in December 2023 I started exploring alternative options and learning much more about the open source community and the possibilities of open technology and digital experiences. Things like the Fediverse (which I had an account since 2022 but didn’t use much), Fairphone, and others. I started questioning if Google really was the best solution for me and so many people in the world. I was asking why so much tech had to be based around one group’s vision of what tech could be? Why were there so few types of experiences out there with any real differences? Why couldn’t I create a phone (pocket computer) to match my needs in both hardware and software? And what if I could swap things out depending on my needs? What if technology could truly adapt and evolve with us as we grow as individuals and society? Why do companies continue to pump out new devices every year, when they’re really quite polished and mature now? Why not instead explore how to enhance and improve them as needs arise and but hold on to the main components longer? Couldn’t there be systems like this?

I was curious about the privacy aspect of it all as well, but ultimately that didn’t really vibe with me much and I realized it’s because I don’t want to own and control everything about my digital life. I don’t want to manage all the technical details and configurations or learn about how it all works together. I would rather let experts take care of those things (at least for now).

But as I continued thinking about it I had an epiphany moment where I realized the reason it mattered to me to make this change now.

For me it really came down to the fact that I wanted something much more personal and customizable. Something that really speaks to me and speaks loudly to others about who I am. I felt I was lacking the magic that technology promises and I knew that if I could personalize it and create something with it for myself that I could feel that magic again. And I was right! More on this to come….

How is One Quest my personal digital identity?

Its an identity that’s not tied to an outside company or brand, but that’s totally personalized and created by me. Just like I can make an identity on a social media platform or with a big corporation and they’ll assign their identifier, handle, or brand to it, I flipped the script and made a digital identity all my own. It uses my domain, my identifier and instead of being tied to one platform, brand or company, One Quest is all me. This is just the beginning and I have so many incredible ideas of how I think the digital world can better represent individuals and be personalized for who they are and who they’ll become. A flexible and customizable system that’s not tied to somebody else’s vision of what my digital experience or presence needs to look like, feel like, or how it has to function. SO stoked for this journey!! 🔥👑✨

Here’s some of the notes I took while exploring, including some of the domain names I looked at before deciding on onequest.me as “the one”. I was genuinely curious about one.quest, but since it was $2,000/year that was a definite no. 😂 I think onequest.me worked out better anyway for the vibe I want.

It’s so satisfying to have a digital identity, brand and presence that’s fully customizable by me. One that accurately represents who I am, what I value, the aesthetics I like and that will be flexible to come with me throughout my life. It’s not tied to someone else’s vision of how a digital experience needs to look and feel. It’s something built for me and an extension of who I am in the digital realms. I feel that as technology continues to evolve and grow, people are going to continue to want to personalize and customize their experience more deeply. This is my way of exploring how that might happen in a future where tech is more open to all.