What it's like being the only designer on a two-year project

When I started working with Cashare, I thought it was going to be a quick website redesign. A few weeks, maybe a couple months tops. Two years later, I was still there, and I had designed basically everything the company had with a screen on it.

The beginning:

It started simple. "We need a new website." Cool, I can do that. But then it turned into "actually, can you also do the landing pages?" and then "what about the email campaigns?" and then "we need an internal portal for our agents." One thing led to another, and suddenly I was the designer for the whole company. Brand, website, product, emails, marketing materials. All of it.

The lonely part:

Being the only designer means there's nobody to bounce ideas off. No one to say "hey does this button look weird to you?" at 11pm. You just stare at it until you either fix it or convince yourself it's fine. Spoiler: it's usually not fine and you go back and fix it at midnight anyway.

The good part:

But here's the thing. When you're the only designer, everything is consistent. There's no "who designed this page because it looks nothing like the rest of the site." It all looks the same because it all came from the same brain and the same Figma file. And there's something really satisfying about that.

The weird part:

You start caring about the product like it's yours. I caught myself getting emotionally attached to dropdown menus. I had opinions about table row heights. I once spent an entire afternoon on the spacing between status badges. This is not normal behavior, but it's what happens when you live inside a project for two years.

The growth part:

I walked in knowing how to design websites and logos. I walked out knowing how to design dashboards, data tables, email automations, agent portals, onboarding flows, and how to work with developers across three languages. You learn fast when there's no one else to hand things off to.

The ending that wasn't really an ending:

The project didn't end with a big launch party or a dramatic goodbye. It just evolved. The website went live, the portal got built, the emails went out. And I moved on to the next thing. But every time I open that Figma file, it still feels like mine.