One Anthem

One Anthem was born from a group of people deeply affected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, who wanted to actively bring people together rather than just watch from the sidelines. They wrote and recorded an original song of unity and had it translated into as many languages as possible to share with the world.

My role was to build the platform that housed it all. That meant processing translations in dozens of languages, writing formatting scripts to ensure consistency across all of them, and handling the particular challenges of right-to-left languages like Arabic and Hebrew — a fascinating first for me.

It was also my first serious attempt at UI design from scratch, which pushed me well outside my comfort zone in the best possible way. Getting a feel for typography, spacing, and visual hierarchy without a designer to lean on was genuinely humbling — and rewarding.

The project also included a time-sync feature that would play the song simultaneously across all connected devices anywhere in the world — a small but meaningful gesture of collective unity. That synchronisation challenge was particularly satisfying to solve.