Online Fraternity NFT Project – Nu Phi Tau

During COVID, while I was in college, my “big” came to me with an idea he’d been dreaming about for a while: an online fraternity that anyone in the world could be part of. Not some exclusive invite-only thing—but a digital brotherhood where people could share ideas, stories, and laughs from anywhere. And the gateway into this experience? An NFT. This was right when NFTs were exploding—people were flipping pixelated art for hundreds of thousands of dollars. But for us, it wasn’t about that. It was about building something real, something fun, and something creative.

He pitched it to me as a collaboration. He’d seen some of my digital work and thought I could bring the characters to life. I was immediately in.What followed was weeks of trial and error. We weren’t just creating one character—we were designing a modular system of layered assets that could randomly generate hundreds of unique “frat brothers.” The idea was to capture the ultimate frat vibe: backwards hats, solo cups, flannels, 3D glasses—you name it. Every item had to be designed, aligned, and exported in a way that could layer perfectly with every other piece. It was like designing a wardrobe for a digital party where every guest had to look both ridiculous and on-brand.

We went through countless iterations trying to pin down what the “ideal frat guy” would even look like. Was he chill? Rowdy? Ironic? Clean-cut? We didn’t want it to feel forced, but we also wanted it to be funny, nostalgic, and true to the culture. It was a creative challenge in visual storytelling—translating a very specific vibe into scalable, swappable assets that worked in a generative format.

Unfortunately, like a lot of great ideas during that time, we ended up losing momentum. Competing with the big-name NFT projects was like trying to out-scream a rock concert from a dorm room. We hit pause on the project, but we still have all the files, all the assets, and all the heart.

Nu Phi Tau may not have launched into the world yet, but the experience taught me a lot about design systems, creative collaboration, and how to take a messy idea and give it structure and identity. I’m still proud of what we built and I know it’s a project we’ll come back to when the time is right.