My most ambitious design project yet.
Since June last year, I've been hard at work on my most elaborate, ambitious design project to date - a web design company called Mint.
How did we get here? Let's take a look back.
Part 1: An idea
During the first half of 2024, I began to hone my design skills - I became really connected with colour schemes, typography and design language. As such I would start to play with ideas out of habit sometimes.
This habit inspired the first logo, which was made entirely on a whim.
This logo was very slap together maybe - compiled from little more than an engineered colour scheme and a leaf element on some bold typography. But it sparked the idea. The idea that would start it all.
Part 2: Something to Prove
Over the next few weeks I began to create a simple landing page, following my brand design language. This page is actually still live:
That's right, I had it hosted on a small subdomain - I treated it as little more than a cool concept at first.
So what made me take it seriously?
I needed something to prove to people.
At the same time, a dream job opportunity had come up at a leading Australian fintech -Up. I poured everything I had - including every random skill, internship, and hobby into my application, and then had a thought a day before the spontaneous interview.
I need to show that I am passionate about creation.
I needed proof that I valued what their company was doing, and show my own skills in the process. So, I took myself seriously. I quickly bought a domain, set up emails, deployed an improved landing page, and made some more assets.
I may not have gotten that job due to location, but it gave me the boost I needed.
It proved that I also had something to prove to myself.
Part 3: Ramp everything up
Over the next month, I began to move fast. I expanded the main site, created fully custom assets to replace the stock hero images, and worked on pricing. I had many supportive friends giving me feedback and praise along the way:
Around this time, I began to begin looking for clients - and a friend of mine happened to mention they wanted a site. So I jumped to action, and made a concept site for them.
We began to work on it together slowly, and while it may be still on the cooker, there is a very polished preview here:
I also began work on custom React-based application form to control data and scale while saving money. I used Quillforms-react to build my base, and learned React on the fly - with the assistance of my friend Patch, to make a basic form for both Mint and Mint+ that would feed the data to a webhook for me to action.
At this same time, I got my first completed job - A friend wanted a page for their open source Supabase install script. It now lives over here:
Things slowed down a little after this - but I didn't stop.
Part 4: Distribution
After this, I hit the issue of finding clients. To fix this I began to prepare many different things:
- Transactional Email
I registered my emails with Spacemail, ensured deliverability, and made some modern email templates that I would send to users when they complete my application forms using fastAPI.
- Distribution Channels
I opened a Dribbble, company Twitter and a Fiverr page that I later closed down.
I made custom assets all along the way, and now I have chosen to target local markets, and attempt to build a portfolio that way.
What's next?
In truth, who knows?
I'm going to keep trying to scale this, and I say a massive thank you to everyone who has supported me thus far. I have such an optimistic outlook for my design talent because of this 💚
