What, why and for who
Design Repo is a free platform that curates high-quality UI/UX and web design inspiration, patterns, and resources.
Our goal
Solve Fragmentation
Put the best resources in one organized place
Increase Efficiency
Help designers find what they need, faster
Primary audience
UI/UX designers, web designers, and product designers looking for inspiration and resources to speed up their workflow.
Secondary audience
No-code developers, freelancers, and small design agencies who want a structured library to streamline their design research.
The design
The design direction for Design Repo was about creating something that feels trustworthy and functional, while also bridging the gap between designers and developers.
Colors
We built a palette with a futuristic, clean, and trustworthy vibe. White for simplicity, Cotton White for energy, Tangerine for balance, and Near Black for readability.
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TYPOGRAPHY
DM Sans
Google fonts
DM Sans delivers a clean, modern, and legible foundation with low contrast, open shapes, and strong on-screen performance, signaling clarity and trustworthiness without visual noise.
Typography
For typography, the goal was to keep it scalable, modern, and clean.
Logo design
Icon-based: We explored library-inspired sketches to represent a repository or collection.
Typographic: We focused on finding a balance between creative and structured.
We tested both options with designers and developers. The typographic logo stood out. Feedback was that it looked clean, had a retro–intelligent vibe, and even sounded a bit like ‘Doctor’ making it easy to remember.
Research
We explored platforms like Mobbin, Case Study Club, Design Resources, and Tools for Design. A few patterns stood out:
Cards often included tags and short descriptions, making it easy to scan.
Navigation was kept simple usually through navbars or dashboards, which worked well for quick access.
wireframe and Iterations
One of the biggest efforts was curating and uploading the first 240+ resources. Each one had to be checked, logos pulled, tagged, and designed into clean, scannable cards.
Development
We built the site in Framer for speed, simplicity, and cost efficiency, streamlining everything including domain setup. A custom CMS with fields for tags, descriptions, images, and links made the library easy to scale, with small tweaks for books and podcasts. The design was simple to adapt for mobile and tablet, with only a minor burger menu glitch fixed before launch.
Launch & Growth
We did a soft launch by sharing the site in our design WhatsApp group, LinkedIn, and Twitter. From day one, we kept it active-adding new resources every week and engaging with the community to drive retention.
We later added Instagram, posting highlights 3–4 times a week. The real boost came from our
Product Hunt launch, which brought in a much wider design audience.
Monitoring & Analysis
Using analytics, we learned:
A major drop-off came from a category glitch, fixing it instantly improved retention.
50% of visitors were on mobile, contrary to our desktop-first assumption.
At peak, traffic hit 1,200 visitors in a single day.
Over time, the project even covered its own costs through tools and hosting savings.
