Welcome back to Design Picks.
This week’s standout is Mayor’s interest setup flow — an onboarding screen where the background is doing the emotional work, not the controls. There’s also a health dashboard from Hephra where the green palette single-handedly sells the entire category, which is useful inspiration if you’re working on anything wellness-adjacent.
Let’s get into it.
Missed the last issue? Here’s a quick look at Issue #36’s picks.
#7 — Urban commute onboarding by yossee
The illustration here does all the heavy lifting — it sets a welcoming, safe-feeling tone for the app before you’ve read a word of copy.
+1 point · View on X
#6 — Wallet organizer interface by Pierluigi Fittipaldi
Pierluigi pulls off the Family app feel — clean, approachable, those rounded fronts — and pairs it with dark mode and vibrant accents to clearly tell you who this is for: crypto people.
+2 points · View on X
#5 — Book discovery hub by Iwu
The recommended-for-you section is the move here — book covers stacked inside the card shape rather than laid out in a grid. It feels immersive and tactile, like flipping through a pile rather than scrolling a feed.
+3 points · View on X
#4 — Crypto selling interface by Alfar
The little pill next to the send button showing the percentage is the standout — a microinteraction I genuinely don’t think I’ve seen done quite this way in a mobile money flow before.
+4 points · View on X
#3 — Health management dashboard by Hephra 🥉
The colour palette is what gets Hephra on the podium — that inviting green against clean white genuinely sells the “health” of the application, which is harder than it sounds in a category that constantly defaults to clinical blue or pharmacy beige. The sheet, card, and list arrangement scales well as you add more metrics, and the spacious craft density gives each vital its own room to breathe. The one nit: the text on the heart rate and blood pressure cards is a touch too light — green on a light background always wants a contrast bump to stay properly legible.
Steal this technique of leading with a single chromatic statement that does the work of telling users what category the app is in. You don’t need to write “wellness” anywhere if the palette is doing it for you.
+5 points · View on X
#2 — Compliance scanner flow by Nick Baked 🥈
Nick Baked has done something rare here — made a compliance flow you actually want to look at. The colours are what catch the eye first; the gradient palette pulls a B2B SaaS category that usually goes clinical-and-dense into territory that reads warm and trustworthy. The modern, elegant card stacks at spacious density mean you’re never bracing for cognitive load, which is the right call when you’re asking someone to do regulated work.
The lesson here is that “professional” and “pleasant to look at” aren’t opposites. A gradient palette and generous spacing can carry a category that thinks it has to be sterile — and the result feels more trustworthy, not less.
+7 points · View on X
#1 — Interest setup flow by Mayor 🏆
Design of the Week
Design of the Week goes to Mayor’s interest setup flow, and it earns it on a single design decision: the background is the emotional carrier. Most onboarding flows treat the background as a passive surface — a place to put cards, chips, and buttons on. Mayor’s pastel background is doing active work; it’s setting the mood the app wants you to feel before you’ve made a single selection. It’s calm, it’s quiet, and it makes picking your preferences feel like a small moment of intention rather than a tax you pay before the real app starts.
What pulls it all the way to #1 is the discipline. The radio buttons and chips are doing the visual work without ever fighting the background for attention. The wizard pattern keeps every decision small and one-at-a-time, so the calmness scales — you don’t get hit with five preferences at once, you get one. Onboarding screens have a tendency to be busy because designers feel like they have to earn the install. This screen earns it by stepping back.
Steal this technique of using the background colour as the primary emotional channel of an onboarding flow. Stop putting personality in your chips and your button states — put it in the air around them, and let the controls just be controls. It’s a more confident move, and it scales across every screen in the flow.
+10 points · View on X
📊 Leaderboard
Every design featured in Design Picks earns points based on where it lands — 10 for #1, 7 for #2, 5 for #3, then 4, 3, 2, and 1. Those points accumulate across every issue, building an all-time leaderboard that tracks who’s consistently producing the best mobile design work on X. Think of it as the ranking system behind the rankings.
This Week’s Points
🏆 #1 — Mayor (@mayowafalowo) · +10 pts
🥈 #2 — Nick Baked (@nickbakeddesign) · +7 pts
🥉 #3 — Hephra (@Hephrastan) · +5 pts
#4 — Alfar (@alfarsmari) · +4 pts
#5 — Iwu (@IwuDesigns) · +3 pts
#6 — Pierluigi Fittipaldi (@pierluigifitt) · +2 pts
#7 — yossee (@adeyossy_a) · +1 pt
Global Leaderboard — Top 10
Studio Sphere keeps pulling away — 100 pts across 23 features now, more than double second place, with three Design of the Week titles. Six of this week’s seven picks are brand-new entries to the board — Mayor straight to Design of the Week on debut, which is the strongest opening since Issue #31. Nick Baked is the only returning name this week, climbing into the top 30.
🥇 Studio Sphere (@0xSphere) · 100 pts · 23 features · 3 wins
🥈 Ranjith (@align_all) · 42 pts · 7 features · 2 wins
🥉 Stats Studio (@statsdesign) · 29 pts · 4 features · 2 wins
4. Marco Cornacchia (@marcofyi) · 24 pts · 5 features · 1 win
5. Steve Lauda (@stevelauda_) · 21 pts · 4 features · 1 win
6. Abati Samuel (@IHarbaty) · 20 pts · 5 features
7. Sajon (@sajon_co) · 20 pts · 5 features · 1 win
8. Dimitar (@dimitroweb) · 18 pts · 3 features · 1 win
9. Outpace Studios (@outpacestudios) · 17 pts · 3 features · 1 win
10. Yaroslav (@yaroslavhorbach) · 17 pts · 3 features
How did this week’s picks land?
Enjoyed this week’s edition? Forward it to someone who ships mobile apps. Have a design I should feature? Tag @handhelddesign or hit reply.
Congrats to Mayor, Nick Baked, and Hephra on making the podium this week.
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See you in the next issue.
About Handheld
Handheld is a weekly breakdown of the best mobile design work shared on X. Every issue is handpicked, ranked, and pulled apart so you walk away with techniques you can actually use in your next project.
Curated by Cam, a Product Designer who spends too much time looking at other people’s apps.