Homies is a SaaS platform for short-term rental hosts that combines marketing with customized direct-booking sites. As founder, I led end-to-end product & visual design across brand, UI, and scalable systems.
Branding
End-to-End Visual Design
Scalable Architecture
Design Systems

Role

Founder & Lead Visual Designer

Date

2024 - Present

Platform

SaaS + Custom Direct Booking Sites for boutique short-term rental hosts

The Challenge

Boutique short-term rental hosts are trapped in a cycle of platform dependency. They rely heavily on Airbnb and VRBO, losing 15-20% of revenue to booking fees while having minimal control over their brand identity or guest relationships.

Key Insight

Hosts want to establish legacy brands, not just a direct booking site or to rely on Airbnb dependency.

Design Challenge: Create a complete brand platform that enables legacy building through conversion-focused visual design and marketing automation that attracts repeat guests.

Research

"My listing just got buried AGAIN! These algorithms are killing my business."

- Ethan, Boutique Short Term Rental Host

  • 7 Jobs-to-Be-Done interviews with boutique STR hosts

  • Analysis of 12+ video interviews capturing host frustrations with platforms

  • Competitive analysis of existing direct-booking solutions

  • Brand strategy sessions defining Homies’ unique value and market positioning

Key Research Findings

  • Emotional Investment: Hosts spend significant time and resources creating unique property experiences, but feel this care is invisible on generic OTA platforms

  • Financial Anxiety: Beyond booking fees, hosts worry about algorithm changes that could dramatically impact their visibility and income overnight

  • Relationship Frustration: Hosts want to build lasting connections with guests who appreciate their properties, but platforms prevent direct communication and repeat booking relationships

  • Competitive Gap: Existing direct booking solutions offer generic templates that don't reflect individual property personalities or support integrated marketing workflows

Solution

Hosts need more than just a booking website – they needed a complete brand ecosystem that could compete with or supplement online travel agency convenience while building lasting guest relationships.

Design Process & Approach

Brand Identity System

  • Logo Design: Created friendly home-inspired mascot that balances professionalism with personality, reinforcing the 'homie' brand connection to home, hospitality, and community

  • Color Palette: Warm, welcoming brand colors paired with neutral framing palette – enabling warm brand personality while allowing individual property aesthetics to shine across rentals from luxury cabins to urban brownstones

  • Typography: Selected BN Dime Display for playful, strong headlines on marketing materials, supported by IBM Plex Sans for optimal content readability across marketing storytelling and data-heavy dashboard interfaces. For client sites, custom headline fonts paired with IBM Plex Sans create property-specific personality while maintaining system consistency and readability.

  • Voice & Tone: Playful but capable, combining approachable personality with credible expertise to support hosts confidently

Motion & Interaction Strategy

  • Animated mascot GIFs (animated with OpenArt) that inject personality into marketing touchpoints while maintaining professional credibility

  • Scroll-triggered transitions and micro-interactions that guide users through conversion-focused storytelling flows

  • Interactive, motion-driven Figma prototypes illustrating best-practice component animations for SaaS flows.

  • Webflow production animations that enhance engagement without sacrificing site performance

Dual Platform Architecture

Challenge: Create scalable systems for both Homies platform and diverse client short-term rental brands

Solution: Modular design system with platform consistency + client customization

Core System Components

  • Typography system with scalable hierarchy and consistent application across contexts

  • Color token system enabling consistent brand application across distinct contexts

  • Component library with defined interaction states and responsive behavior patterns

  • Template architecture allowing 50% faster client site deployment through mix-and-match modular sections

Tools & Implementation

  • Figma: Component design, interactive prototyping, and design system documentation

  • Webflow: Production site builds with custom interactions and marketing automation integration

  • GoHighLevel: Workflow template creation for systematized guest communication at scale

  • OpenArt: Logo variations and animations

Key Design Decisions

1. Balancing Playfulness with Professional Credibility

Challenge: Create fun approachable brand personality without losing the clarity and trust of enterprise-grade SaaS.

Solution: Paired playful mascot and warm colors with professional typography and SaaS-standard information architecture to balance approachability with business credibility

  • Designed mascot and color system that feels welcoming while maintaining professional authority

  • Balanced playful with serious fonts pairing BN Dime display headlines with serious IBM Plex Sans content for optimal trust-building

  • Created interaction patterns that feel engaging without overwhelming hosts making important business decisions

2. Scalable Brand Customization Process

‍Challenge: Create distinct brand identities for different properties without sacrificing creativity, speed, quality, or consistency.

Solution: Develop systematic client brand creation methodology that generates distinctive property identities through scalable customization process

  • Custom color palette generation based on property aesthetics and target guest demographics

  • Logo design process that creates unique identities within template framework constraints

  • Brand application system that maintains visual quality and consistency across diverse property types

  • Launch checklist to set the brand styles, add the favicon and social preview, swap in the right images, wire the primary CTAs, then QA for responsiveness, contrast, links/forms, SEO, and performance.

3. Cross Context Design Integration

Challenge: Maintain brand integrity across marketing, SaaS dashboard, and client sites

Solution: Unified design language that flexes across contexts

  • Applied consistent typography hierarchy (IBM Plex Sans system) and grid structure across Homies platform and client booking sites

  • Paired warm brand colors with a neutral palette to integrate the Homies identity with a neutral palette framework and systematic spacing that adapts to individual property aesthetics

  • Maintained unified component patterns, left-aligned layouts, and interaction standards across both platform and client contexts

Outcomes & Impact

Buisness Results

  • Complete visual identity system spanning SaaS platform, marketing site, and customizable client templates ready for market deployment

  • 65% reduction in template setup time through modular component architecture and systematic brand creation process

  • Production marketing site with conversion-optimized interactions and clear brand differentiation from corporate SaaS competitors

  • Scalable workflow templates in GoHighLevel that systematize guest communication and marketing across diverse client needs

Design System Success

  • Comprehensive design system maintaining visual consistency across marketing site, client templates, and future dashboard development

  • Modular template architecture enabling customization and rapid scaling for growing client base

  • Component library with 20+ reusable elements and defined interaction states supporting efficient development workflows

Leadership & Collaboration

  • Mentored junior designer in design system principles and component library implementation

  • Led collaborative template development with apprentice to scale client brand creation processes

  • Built structured feedback loops with apprentice to strengthen design execution and professional development

Strategic Outcomes

  • Brand positioning that differentiates from corporate SaaS competitors through playful yet professional personality

  • Design-to-conversion framework connecting visual identity to business outcomes and guest relationship building

  • Template deployment system ready for diverse client base with proven scalability across property types

What I Learned

  • Systems Thinking at Scale: Building for multiple contexts (marketing, SaaS, client sites) taught me to think systematically about visual consistency while allowing flexibility for diverse user needs.

  • Design Psychology: The playfulness vs. professionalism balance taught me that visual design decisions directly impact user confidence in business-critical contexts, requiring careful psychological calibration beyond aesthetic choices.

  • Motion as Strategic Brand Tool: Strategic animation and interaction design can differentiate SaaS products in crowded markets while enhancing usability rather than detracting from core functionality.

  • Design System Evolution: Building systems that can evolve based on user feedback and business needs requires planning for flexibility from the initial architecture, not retrofitting scalability later.

  • Entrepreneurial Design Leadership: Wearing both business strategy and visual design hats deepened my understanding of how design decisions directly impact user behavior, conversion rates, and business outcomes.

Next Steps

  • System Evolution: Planning dashboard interface design and host onboarding experience to complete the end-to-end visual ecosystem based on early user insights.

  • Client Deployment: Launching with initial host clients to gather real-world feedback on template effectiveness and booking conversion rates.

  • Team Expansion: Continuing to mentor UX apprentice in advanced component implementation and expanding template development capabilities.

See More Projects

Select work that showcases a variety of design direction and skill.

10K Athletics

A training platform helping athletes track progress and build consistent habits.

View

Casa de la Cruz

A luxury short term rental direct booking brand in northern New Mexico.

View

Cumulus AI

A design exercise exploring quantum computing and neuromorphic AI themes

View