Sorted's brand emerged from early conversations with the founders and a brand sprint workshop facilitated in the outskirts of Denmark. It became very clear that Sorted was all about saving time and reducing repetitive work and clicks. From those repetitive clicks, our brand identity sprouted. Repetition became the main visual theme throughout the brand system.
We carefully curated a collection of photos and incorporated elements from the early days of personal computing, creating a versatile visual system that allowed for endless combinations, always with an emphasis on repetition. To further empower the founders, I built a social media asset generator (Mechanic Design) allowing them to generate content in a breeze.

The landing page needed to follow the classic startup format – it had to sell while also maintain the brand's unique personality. By sticking to a straightforward tone, harnessing striking brand visuals, and incorporating interactions that echoed our brand, I not only preserved Sorted's identity but also delivered product market fit towards users, customers, and investors.

For the design of the product, a lot of the attention has gone to the user flows and logic. Supported by a minimal but solid design system, this pragmatic approach served as the perfect foundation to build with speed, yet maintain consistency without compromising on UX. With the help of the design system I designed and prototyped the core flows. This to get the foundation right. However, all additional flows were per usual in flux and of mixed fidelity to match the operational speed we needed to build but also to make sure my time was spend on the most crucial aspects of the UX.

Instead of going with a full size design system, we decided to build our own. Only focusing on the tokens and components we needed at hand.  A small investment to build components from scratch, but a great foundation to be able to keep things under control and navigate the chaos of building a product without too much overhead. Since the product was going to contain loads of colour from all the tools, we also opted for a black and white interface supported by 2 semantic colours to indicate error and success states. With the help of my accessibility cheat sheet, we also made sure that even with such a simple colour base, accessibility standards were met.

Sorted's one-year journey, though it ended, played a pivotal role in shaping my identity as a designer. Taking charge of branding, the landing page, and the product sharpened my passion for seeing the bigger picture in the user journey, rather than just focusing on one touchpoint. It fueled my creative direction once again and proved that even with small budgets, big things can happen. Throughout the process, like in any startup, change was unavoidable. Adapting and evolving wasn't always a walk in the park, but a robust design system, open collaboration, and effective communication were the keys to overcoming these challenges.