“When the world connected on Skype”

Rest of World | 2025 | Design

When Skype officially shut down on May 5, 2025, we asked readers to share their favorite memories of the platform. I wanted to honor its legacy by leaning into the nostalgia of early Skype communication. I pulled the anecdotes together into a cohesive and delightful experience by using its iconic blue color scheme, cloud motifs and classic animated emojis. Throughout the story, I also riffed on the original Skype interface by emulating the experience of making audio and video on the service throughout. That meant including the classic call buttons and adapting Skype’s iconic dial tone jingles too. I featured contributors' original Skype profile images where available, too. The result is both an ode to a now-defunct platform and a warm reminder of how technology brought us together across distances during a transformative era of digital communication.

Story: Isra Fejzullaj, Rina Chandran and Michael Zelenko; Design: Joanne Lee; Development: Anna Rasshivkina and Lily Lou; Additional reporting: Kinling Lo and Lam Le