From academic research to a creative product ecosystem
Transforming a graduation research project into a brand and product ecosystem designed to help creatives turn ideas into structured, actionable work.
Gridify started as my graduation project, where I investigated how people who work with their own image build personal brands and transform identity into value.
What began as research gradually revealed a broader opportunity.
Creative professionals have access to endless inspiration, content and tools, but their actual work is often fragmented between references, methods, templates, documents and improvised processes.
The opportunity was not to create another source of inspiration.
It was to create structure for creativity.
Gridify evolved from an academic project into an independent brand and product ecosystem, combining branding, digital products, tools, educational content and services around one central proposition: Your creative partner.
Tools
Figma · Adobe Creative Suite · User Research · Miro · Framer · Hotmart
Skills
Product Strategy · Product Design · Brand Strategy · Visual Identity · Information Architecture · Product Architecture · UX/UI Design · Design Systems · Content Strategy · Creative Direction
THE CHALLENGE
How might we help creatives structure their work without restricting the creative process itself?
Creative work rarely suffers from a lack of tools.
The problem is often the opposite.
There are references everywhere, methodologies everywhere, templates everywhere and increasingly more AI-powered possibilities. Yet creatives still need to connect all of those resources into a process that makes sense for the way they actually work.
The challenge was therefore not simply to create content or sell digital assets.
It was to define what role Gridify should play inside the creative process.
The product needed to provide enough structure to reduce friction, while remaining flexible enough to adapt to different disciplines, experience levels and ways of working.
At the same time, the brand needed to communicate expertise without becoming institutional, educational without becoming academic, and useful without feeling like another productivity platform.
Key Work
Building the brand and the product as parts of the same system.
I led Gridify from concept and positioning to its visual identity, product architecture and digital experience. On the brand side, I developed the strategic positioning, verbal direction and visual system around the idea of Gridify as a creative partner rather than another tool.
This led to the proposition “Sua dupla criativa” — “Your creative partner”: a brand designed to work alongside creatives, helping organize the parts of the process that often become chaotic.
On the product side, I structured Gridify as an expandable ecosystem rather than a collection of isolated PDFs. Products were organized around different creative needs and formats, including educational guides, frameworks, organizers, strategic documents and creative services.
I also designed the digital experience connecting these products, including the website architecture, product discovery, landing pages and commercial journey.
The goal was to make each individual product useful on its own while ensuring that every new release strengthened the larger Gridify ecosystem.
Strategic Approach
The product was designed around a simple principle: structure the process, not the creativity.
Instead of defining Gridify by what it sells — ebooks, templates, frameworks or services — I focused on the problem these products solve.
That shift changed the architecture of the brand.
Gridify became less about formats and more about moments inside a creative process. The experience was designed to help users move from uncertainty toward action:
Chaos → Structure → Direction → Creation
This principle informed both brand and product decisions.
From a branding perspective, the identity needed enough personality to participate in creative culture while remaining flexible across multiple subjects, formats and future products.
From a product perspective, the system needed to accommodate different solutions without turning the platform into an unstructured marketplace.
This resulted in a modular ecosystem where positioning, visual language, navigation and product logic reinforce each other.
From brand to product
The brand architecture became an important part of the product strategy.
Rather than building Gridify around one flagship product, I designed a structure capable of continuously receiving new solutions.
A branding guide and a business planning tool can solve completely different problems while still belonging to the same ecosystem because both respond to the same larger job:
Helping creatives move their work forward.
This allowed Gridify to expand beyond educational content into tools, organizers, diagnostics and strategic resources without constantly redefining what the brand is.
The result is a product architecture designed for evolution.
Product Experience
Designing a storefront around creative problems rather than file formats.
One of the main UX challenges was helping users understand what Gridify could do for them without requiring them to already know which product they needed.
The information architecture therefore moved toward needs and stages of the creative process. Instead of communicating only:
ebook · spreadsheet · service · template
the experience could answer questions such as:
I need to structure my brand.
I need to organize my process.
I need more direction.
I need to turn an idea into a project.
This reframed product discovery from browsing files to finding solutions. Individual landing pages were then designed to explain the problem, demonstrate the value of the methodology and reduce uncertainty before purchase.
The same principle guided Gridify's broader experience: less catalog, more guidance.
Why this project matters
Gridify represents my approach to design at its broadest level. I did not enter the project with a predefined interface or deliverable. I started with research.
I identified an opportunity, defined the problem, developed the positioning, designed the brand, structured the product ecosystem and translated that strategy into a commercial digital experience. It required moving continuously between Brand Strategy and Product Thinking.
More than designing how Gridify looks, I designed what Gridify is, how it behaves and how it can grow.
Outcome
Gridify moved beyond its academic origins and became an active commercial brand with its own positioning, digital platform and growing portfolio of creative products. The project established a scalable structure capable of supporting different product categories while maintaining a coherent experience and recognizable brand.
More importantly, it turned the original research into something usable. Instead of ending as a graduation project, the research became the foundation for a product that continues to evolve alongside the needs of the creative community.
For me, Gridify became an ongoing exercise in designing at the intersection of brand, product and business — where the role of design is not simply to create an interface or identity, but to give structure to an entire idea.