Brand identity and an iOS launch for a food-budgeting app built by NYU students

Background

Leysi is a free iOS food-budgeting application designed for independent young adults — specifically college students learning to manage grocery and restaurant spending for the first time. The app was founded by NYU students and built around a focused premise: rather than overwhelming new earners with full financial portfolios, narrow the scope to food and build real money habits from there.

The startup came to Varfaj Partners for design support, and I was brought in as a freelance designer to lead two workstreams: brand identity and MVP product design.

My Role

I was responsible for the brand logo and color system, and for completing the iOS app screens needed to reach launch. A Varfaj designer had established early directional work on the user flows before I joined, so part of my job was picking up an existing system thoughtfully — understanding the intent behind prior decisions and extending them rather than starting over.

I worked within Apple's Human Interface Guidelines throughout to ensure the product felt native, polished, and consistent on iOS.

Leysi MVP screen flow — dashboard, analytics, bank linking, and Leysi Map

Logo Design

The logo brief was open-ended: create something that captures both food and budgeting without leaning too heavily into either. Finance-forward marks tend to feel cold; food-forward marks lose the utility story. I wanted something that lived naturally in both.

My concept was an orange being peeled, with the inner slice shaped as a coin. The orange is familiar, warm, and food-adjacent — and the coin reframes it as something financial without any jargon. It felt like a metaphor that users in their early twenties could actually connect with.

My initial design centered on just the peel and coin. Through feedback from the Leysi founders, we evolved it to include a fork, knife, and plate — grounding the mark more explicitly in the food experience. The final logo holds both ideas in balance and became the foundation for the app's broader visual identity.

Final Mark

Product Design

Leysi's core screens centered on a real-time dashboard showing daily spend, budget progress, and a Spend Per Day metric — all designed to give users an at-a-glance read of how their choices were affecting their budget in the moment. The app also included an analytics view for weekly and monthly trends, bank linking via Plaid, and a social discovery layer called Leysi Map for finding and sharing local restaurant recommendations.

My focus was on completing the MVP — filling in the remaining core screens and edge cases needed before the developers could build. Designing for this user meant keeping financial concepts approachable: clear hierarchy, plain language, and a gamified tone that made consistent tracking feel rewarding rather than disciplinary.

Leysi launch composition across multiple iPhones

Outcome

Leysi launched on the App Store and was used within the NYU student community. The project has since wound down, but it was a tight, focused engagement — a good example of freelance design work that required both brand thinking and product execution within a short runway.