Giving Squaft a rebrand and design refresh
August 2024 • Squaft.com
Background
Squaft (formerly MySpaceBnB) is an early stage startup offering a zero commission rental marketplace allowing users to list and rent out backyards, storage spaces, and short-term accommodations. When the founders first approached me, they were preparing to seek investment and needed their product to reflect the quality and clarity of their vision. The existing website and web app told a different story.
The Problem
The core challenge wasn't just visual. It was trust. A platform asking users to hand over their spaces or pay to rent someone else's needs to feel reliable and professional. This one didn't yet.
The product had real potential, but the experience was working against it. The website suffered from poor UX writing, unstructured layouts, and no visual hierarchy, making it hard for visitors to understand what Squaft actually offered. The web app had deeper issues: misplaced actions, cards that failed basic accessibility standards, and no consistent brand identity threading through the experience.
My Approach
Before touching visuals, I audited what existed and restructured the information architecture. The goal was to establish a logical foundation making sure each page had a clear purpose, content was prioritized by user need, and the flows made intuitive sense before any design decisions were layered on top.
Tasks
- Establishing the brand’s identity
- Building a scalable design system
- Redesigning key flows and features
Establishing a brand identity
I conducted a competitor audit to understand the landscape and identify opportunities to differentiate. From there, I worked closely with the founders to establish a brand identity that could carry through consistently one that felt trustworthy, modern, and distinct from the generic aesthetic the original product had defaulted to.
#FFB001
Yellow
#007A3F
Green
#003C20
Emerald
Building a scalable design system
With a brand direction established, I built an atomic design system from the ground up. This gave the product a shared visual language consistent typography, color, spacing, and components and ensured that accessibility issues like the broken card patterns and inconsistent buttons were corrected systematically rather than one-off.
Key Flows & Features Redesigned
Property Listing Flow: Redesigned the end-to-end flow for hosts creating a listing, reducing friction and making the steps feel guided and clear.
In-App Property Management: Improved the hosting experience so that tracking and updating listings felt organized rather than scattered.
Property Detail Page: Restructured the page so that critical information — property type, location, availability, and pricing is surfaced immediately. Users no longer have to hunt for the details they need to make a decision.
Search & Discovery: Refined the search criteria to be more intuitive, and redesigned the property cards to communicate everything a user needs at a glance: name, location, property type, rating, and price.
Conclusion
The designs weren't pushed to development due to internal team constraints, but the work delivered what the founders came for. In testing with the founding team, the redesign marked a clear step up in both usability and visual quality over the original, and gave Squaft a credible, investment-ready product story, which was the goal when we first engaged.
Adrian T. Otoo
ktotoo627@gmail.com
Giving Squaft a rebrand and design refresh
August 2024 • Squaft.com
Background
Squaft (formerly MySpaceBnB) is an early stage startup offering a zero commission rental marketplace allowing users to list and rent out backyards, storage spaces, and short-term accommodations. When the founders first approached me, they were preparing to seek investment and needed their product to reflect the quality and clarity of their vision. The existing website and web app told a different story.
The Problem
The core challenge wasn't just visual. It was trust. A platform asking users to hand over their spaces or pay to rent someone else's needs to feel reliable and professional. This one didn't yet.
The product had real potential, but the experience was working against it. The website suffered from poor UX writing, unstructured layouts, and no visual hierarchy, making it hard for visitors to understand what Squaft actually offered. The web app had deeper issues: misplaced actions, cards that failed basic accessibility standards, and no consistent brand identity threading through the experience.
My Approach
Before touching visuals, I audited what existed and restructured the information architecture. The goal was to establish a logical foundation making sure each page had a clear purpose, content was prioritized by user need, and the flows made intuitive sense before any design decisions were layered on top.
Tasks
- Establishing the brand’s identity
- Building a scalable design system
- Redesigning key flows and features
Establishing a brand identity
I conducted a competitor audit to understand the landscape and identify opportunities to differentiate. From there, I worked closely with the founders to establish a brand identity that could carry through consistently one that felt trustworthy, modern, and distinct from the generic aesthetic the original product had defaulted to.
#FFB001
Yellow
#007A3F
Green
#003C20
Emerald
Building a scalable design system
With a brand direction established, I built an atomic design system from the ground up. This gave the product a shared visual language consistent typography, color, spacing, and components and ensured that accessibility issues like the broken card patterns and inconsistent buttons were corrected systematically rather than one-off.
Key Flows & Features Redesigned
Property Listing Flow: Redesigned the end-to-end flow for hosts creating a listing, reducing friction and making the steps feel guided and clear.
In-App Property Management: Improved the hosting experience so that tracking and updating listings felt organized rather than scattered.
Property Detail Page: Restructured the page so that critical information — property type, location, availability, and pricing is surfaced immediately. Users no longer have to hunt for the details they need to make a decision.
Search & Discovery: Refined the search criteria to be more intuitive, and redesigned the property cards to communicate everything a user needs at a glance: name, location, property type, rating, and price.
Conclusion
The designs weren't pushed to development due to internal team constraints, but the work delivered what the founders came for. In testing with the founding team, the redesign marked a clear step up in both usability and visual quality over the original, and gave Squaft a credible, investment-ready product story, which was the goal when we first engaged.
Adrian T. Otoo
ktotoo627@gmail.com
Giving Squaft a rebrand and design refresh
August 2024 • Squaft.com
Background
Squaft (formerly MySpaceBnB) is an early stage startup offering a zero commission rental marketplace allowing users to list and rent out backyards, storage spaces, and short-term accommodations. When the founders first approached me, they were preparing to seek investment and needed their product to reflect the quality and clarity of their vision. The existing website and web app told a different story.
The Problem
The core challenge wasn't just visual. It was trust. A platform asking users to hand over their spaces or pay to rent someone else's needs to feel reliable and professional. This one didn't yet.
The product had real potential, but the experience was working against it. The website suffered from poor UX writing, unstructured layouts, and no visual hierarchy, making it hard for visitors to understand what Squaft actually offered. The web app had deeper issues: misplaced actions, cards that failed basic accessibility standards, and no consistent brand identity threading through the experience.
My Approach
Before touching visuals, I audited what existed and restructured the information architecture. The goal was to establish a logical foundation making sure each page had a clear purpose, content was prioritized by user need, and the flows made intuitive sense before any design decisions were layered on top.
Tasks
- Establishing the brand’s identity
- Building a scalable design system
- Redesigning key flows and features
Establishing a brand identity
I conducted a competitor audit to understand the landscape and identify opportunities to differentiate. From there, I worked closely with the founders to establish a brand identity that could carry through consistently one that felt trustworthy, modern, and distinct from the generic aesthetic the original product had defaulted to.
#FFB001
Yellow
#007A3F
Green
#003C20
Emerald
Building a scalable design system
With a brand direction established, I built an atomic design system from the ground up. This gave the product a shared visual language consistent typography, color, spacing, and components and ensured that accessibility issues like the broken card patterns and inconsistent buttons were corrected systematically rather than one-off.
Key Flows & Features Redesigned
Property Listing Flow: Redesigned the end-to-end flow for hosts creating a listing, reducing friction and making the steps feel guided and clear.
In-App Property Management: Improved the hosting experience so that tracking and updating listings felt organized rather than scattered.
Property Detail Page: Restructured the page so that critical information — property type, location, availability, and pricing is surfaced immediately. Users no longer have to hunt for the details they need to make a decision.
Search & Discovery: Refined the search criteria to be more intuitive, and redesigned the property cards to communicate everything a user needs at a glance: name, location, property type, rating, and price.
Conclusion
The designs weren't pushed to development due to internal team constraints, but the work delivered what the founders came for. In testing with the founding team, the redesign marked a clear step up in both usability and visual quality over the original, and gave Squaft a credible, investment-ready product story, which was the goal when we first engaged.
Adrian T. Otoo
ktotoo627@gmail.com