Hi everyone,
My name is Rahil. I am a designer.
2025 was the year I did a lot of projects with and for Nothing, I had a blast doing them and listed in this post are all of them for record keeping purposes.
I also write at the end of this post why I am stepping back from the community for a bit to pursue some of my personal projects, so I wanted this to be a post to celebrate my journey with this community I hold so dear and all the special work I got to do while in this space.
Community Edition Software Entry - Retro Futurism
My first major work this year came in the form of the community edition entry - Retro Futurism. Read the detailed post here.
I really enjoyed working on this, especially the wallpapers. While I couldn’t get it done, I learned a lot along the way and improved my presentation skills by a mile through the process.
Phone 3a Pro Photography
I received a Nothing 3a pro courtesy of Nothing and I got heavily inspired by the great photography samples produced by the community here.
So I gave the phone’s camera a spin then collected and shared a few select shots.
Take a look here.
Fortunes Widget
I had the honor of conceptualizing the next widget for the community widget program which was kickstarted by the talented @Rahul
I had the great pleasure of working alongside @RapidZapper on this.
I am a big believer of the community widgets program, it introduced me to some great members of the community and I learned a lot about how shipping even the smallest of ideas takes a lot of preparation behind the scenes.
I loved this project, read more about it here.
Glyph Matrix Concepts
With the release of Phone 3 and the introduction of the Glyph Matrix I decided to create a few select concepts for it.
These are documented here.
I must admit this was a painstaking affair, I carefully curated each and every pixel of the matrix here for illustrative purposes.
CMF OS 1.0
I designed an entire OS level concept for CMF phones.
I loved this project, I worked on it on and off for about a year total. It came together perfectly at the end.
Read more in detail.
I have some ideas for CMF OS 2.0 - but I don’t know when I’ll get the time.
Creating a few Essential Apps
I got early access to playground and made a few widgets.
I am not a fan of this project to be honest. I would argue it’s not mine to begin with.
I was sceptical about AI, but reading and learning about it more, I have a strong dislike for the tech.
Like I mentioned above making the community widget with Rahul and Rapid was more fun, because I was having conversations with real humans having real knowledge in their different areas. It’s a different kind of fun, you have to experience it to understand.
I wanted to remove my widgets from the playground recently, but considering how many users are using them I decided against it.
Be rest assured I will not be making any new widgets, at least not in this format.
I understand AI has it uses. But I want to keep it out of human craftsmanship.
For record keeping you can read the post here.
Closing Thoughts and Moving Away For a Bit.
I have been actively involved in the Nothing Community space for almost 2 years now.
I have had 5 entries in the nothing community edition project. Plus many other concepts.
Over that time I have made a lot of good friends (shout out @Uday ) and I have seen the rise of some other talented members ( shout out @Thanish Thahir ) .
I am confident the community will always be full of creativity and enthusiasm like it has always been.
But in 2026 I want to take on more personal projects that fuel my own spirit, basically more legacy oriented work. My long term goal is to create human centered art that has the capability of making the earth a better place than how I found it. For starters I want to make things that increase the average attention span. I am still navigating through all that, it’s a process, it has to take time.
I no longer can divide my attention between projects of vast central & core differences.
I also have to admit that after being attached to this company I ended up becoming a little bit more materialistic. That’s a by product of following up closely with every product rollout in the tech space lol.
So I am stepping back a bit, you might still see me in some required capacity. I might still come in once in a while and share a review (if I am required by the community review program). All I know is I won’t be as actively involved as I have been for the past 2 great years over here.
I once again want to say thank you to everyone for making this run so special and memorable for me. I hope the community continues to achieve greater success moving forward along with the brand that has given us the platform for it. Grateful for it all.
Thank you, Signing off for a bit - Rahil.
