Mention Branding and Design System
Bringing Design Fundamentals to a VC Backed Startup
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Mention is an end-to-end encrypted messenger for businesses, designed to compete with tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams. When I joined the startup, the product was still in development and had no public-facing identity. To support launch efforts, I designed Mention’s marketing landing page and laid the groundwork for a scalable design system. The goal was to create a clear, modern brand identity that communicated trust, security, and usability while ensuring consistency across both marketing and product experiences.
TIMELINE
- December 2024 - May 2025 - Part Time Internship
MY ROLE
- Branding and Content - Landing Page - Design System - Product Design
MY TEAM
- Jeenu Lee (CEO) - Arvi Haxhillari (CTO) - Peter Hu (Founding Engineer) - Me (Solo Designer)
As the only designer on the team, I focused on building strong design foundations that could scale with the product: - Design System Foundations – Built a design system from the ground up, tokenizing font sizes, weights, spacing, and color palettes to ensure consistency across product and marketing. - Color Theory & Theming – Applied principles of color theory to develop Mention’s themes, balancing trust (blues, neutrals) with vibrancy (accent colors) for brand differentiation. - Typography & Hierarchy – Established font tokens and type scales that improved readability and created a professional tone aligned with Mention’s security-first positioning. - Landing Page Design – Designed a responsive, high-impact landing page in Figma, showcasing Mention’s core value propositions: security, productivity, and ease of use. - Collaboration – Worked closely with co-founders to refine messaging and ensure design decisions aligned with product roadmap and investor expectations.
The new landing page and design system gave Mention a professional, trustworthy public presence and established scalable foundations for future product growth. Key Results: - Delivered Mention’s first marketing website, enabling the company to begin early lead generation and outreach. - Established a design system with tokens for typography, color, and spacing, ensuring consistency across web. - Applied color theory and theming principles to create a brand identity that conveys security and reliability while remaining approachable. - Improved team efficiency by standardizing components, making future design iterations faster and more consistent. - Positioned Mention to compete visually with established players like Slack and Teams while differentiating through a clean, modern identity. This project demonstrated how solid design principles and systems thinking—even in an early-stage startup—can create not just a landing page, but a scalable design foundation that supports growth and builds credibility with users, investors, and partners.