DePunks

Overview

DePunks is a self-initiated web3 NFT project I designed and built end to end. The concept: a collection of base character NFTs (“DePunks”) with empty attribute slots, plus separately minted attribute packs — caps, eye patches, pipes, and more — that owners equip to customize their character on-chain. Equipping burns the attribute and updates the DePunk’s metadata, so every character’s final look is a record of choices made.

The whole thing is an in-house solution — smart contracts, the web application, the design system, and supporting tooling all built by one person, with AI woven through the design and production workflow.

The On-Chain System

The contract layer is two NFT standards working together:

• DePunk NFTs (ERC-721) — the base characters, with a metadata system that supports dynamic updates when attributes are equipped.
• Attribute NFTs (ERC-1155) — collectible items sold in random packs, with rarities and supply limits, designed to be burned when equipped. An on-chain PRNG handles fair distribution, with MEV considerations built in.
• Equipment system — manages equipping, burns the attribute, and rewrites the DePunk’s metadata to reflect the new look, integrating with a post-mint reveal mechanism.

Built with Foundry and OpenZeppelin in Solidity, the project later grew to include a phased token launch, a claim flow with a single-sided Uniswap V4 LP and a 24-hour claim window, a treasury fee router, and a companion “Bots” collection — all coordinated through a single on-chain phase state.

The App

The application is a modern single-page experience built on RedwoodSDK with server-side rendering, Drizzle ORM over Cloudflare D1, and Viem + Wagmi for on-chain interactions. Authentication uses Sign-In with Ethereum, including EIP-1271 support so smart-contract wallets work alongside standard EOAs. It runs on Ethereum mainnet.

AI-Driven Design

DePunks was a deliberate experiment in designing and building with AI as a constant collaborator — generating and iterating on the pixel-art character language, producing the documented design system, and accelerating both the contract and app work. The design system itself is fully tokenized: semantic CSS custom properties for surfaces, text, accent, and borders, a neumorphic shadow language, and a pixel-art-nostalgia aesthetic with a neon-lime accent — captured as a copy-paste-ready reference so the visual language stays consistent across every sub-project.

What It Demonstrates

DePunks is the clearest example of my range as a designer who builds: a complete web3 product owned from the smart contracts up through the design system and shipped application, with AI used to move faster without losing craft.