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The Inverse Method
I don't wait for perfect. I build real things, put them in the world, watch what breaks, and redesign from truth.
Same product. Same expertise. Different theory of who the buyer is. Vivian assumed buyers wanted industrial vocabulary to feel professional. Grace trusts buyers to want clarity. The second theory was correct.
Ship the real thing. No waiting for perfect — a working version, in the world, fast.
Watch what actually fails. Real use surfaces the truth a plan never could.
Redesign from evidence, not assumption. Sharper every time. Repeat.
Every project on this site went through this cycle — including the one below.
The Inverse Method · Built. Broken. Rebuilt.
I spotted the opportunity, built the site, and ran the business — then watched real customers abandon the booking form and question the pricing page. Redesigned from what I actually saw, not a research panel. Season one: a handful of bookings. Season two: ~50, with a measured 12% booking lift and 20% better form completion.
First end-to-end UX project. I picked fintech because I wanted to learn the hardest domain. Personas, user flows, and design system are mine. The metrics in the original brief were class-project projections, not measured outcomes. Here's what I built — and what I'd do differently now.
Built three versions of the brand before this one stuck — each taught me something the last one got wrong. The fourth: brand, storefront, and a 238-page operations manual for a baking business I also run, kept anonymous by request. Still selling, still getting sharper.
Built from a decade running a cake business — smart intake, complexity-weighted pricing, dual internal-and-client quote views, a production grid that prioritizes by what actually matters. Still live, still getting rewritten wherever real orders reveal what the first version got wrong.
Three depths of The Inverse Method. Same cycle — build, break, rebuild — different scope.
From $2,000
You get: Visual identity (logo, color, type), one statement landing page, brand guidelines doc, and a working contact form. Two-week turnaround. Single round of revisions included.
Best for: launches, side projects, sharp first impressions.
Request a ProposalFrom $4,500
You get: Multi-page custom website (up to 8 pages), responsive design, UI/UX flows, brand system, basic e-commerce or booking integration (Stripe + Payhip wired), and domain/hosting setup. Four to six week build. Two rounds of revisions.
Best for: small businesses, service operators, productized brands.
Request a ProposalFrom $8,000
You get: Complete brand identity, multi-page website with custom motion, product or app design, ongoing art direction, and three months of post-launch support — watching what breaks after launch and rebuilding it, same as every project on this site. Eight to twelve week engagement.
Best for: established businesses ready to own their space completely.
Request a ProposalProductized, fast-turn engagements for when you don't need a full studio build.
From $750
Stuck on Wix or Squarespace? Get off cleanly. Modern stack, kept-or-improved content, working email, no broken links. Real handoff — not "here are the keys."
Tell Me About ItFrom $1,500
Print-on-demand store, set up to sell. From "I have product ideas" to "checkout is live" in under two weeks. Design, integration, file delivery — all wired.
Tell Me About ItFrom $500
Critique and recommendations doc. No rebuild — just a sharp read of what's working, what's not, and what to do about it. Best starting point when you're not sure what you need yet.
Tell Me About ItFrom $1,200
One page, designed to convert. Strategy session, custom design, copy, ship in 5–7 days. For product launches, lead capture, and single statements.
Tell Me About It"I build it real before I build it right."
Shattered Indigo is an independent design studio founded by Sloane Indigo. The work is brand systems, product and app design, and websites for small businesses, service operators, and founders building real things.
The studio works by The Inverse Method: build first, ship into the world, watch what breaks, then rebuild from truth. Every client engagement is treated the same way — Grace Mills, Sheffield Grave Care, Confection, all live, all iterated against real use.
Stripe + Payhip checkout, Netlify hosting, hand-coded sites that load fast and stay maintainable. No frameworks for the sake of frameworks. The work has to ship — and keep working after it ships.
Hiring as a designer for a role? See Sloane's personal portfolio →
Most designers imagine the problem. I've lived it. Two seasons running Sheffield Grave Care. A baking business I still operate today, under a different name for privacy. Every system I design, I've needed myself first.
What's live, what's being rebuilt, what's coming next.
Operations manuals for serious bakers. Fourth rebrand. Migrated off Wix to a static stack. Editorial pacing, e-commerce wired through Payhip and Stripe. Live site kept private by request — gallery available on the project card above.
Built it. Ran it. Now redesigning from operational truth. Sage palette, mobile-first booking, compassionate language. Real business with real customers — and real lessons from actually operating it.
View Live ↗Booking and operations system for custom cake businesses. Built by someone who knows the industry from the inside. Persona research complete, full task flow mapped, live deployment in active iteration.
View Build ↗The studio itself. Refining the cool gothic execution. Built. Broken. Rebuilt — applied to the studio brand the same way it's applied to client work.
View Work ↗Small businesses. Startups. Anyone who needs design that actually ships into the real world.
I respond within 48 hours. Real human. Real reply.
Build. I spotted the opportunity, built the site, and ran the business — booking flow, pricing page, the whole first version, live and taking real customers.
Break. Then I watched what actually happened. Customers abandoned the booking form mid-fill. They re-read the pricing page and still emailed to ask what it actually cost. Not a research panel's opinion — the real thing, happening in real time, on my own business.
Rebuild. Redesigned from that truth: mobile-first, sage palette, compassionate language, pricing made transparent up front. The biggest wins came from removing things, not adding them — fewer fields, fewer pages, fewer unanswered questions.
Results. Season one: a handful of bookings. Season two, post-redesign: ~50. A 12% booking lift within 60 days of launch, 20% better form completion on the same seven fields, 20% lower bounce, 15% fewer pricing-related support emails, 4.6/5 customer satisfaction. All measured, none projected.
First end-to-end UX project. I picked fintech because I wanted to learn the hardest domain — financial anxiety is real, trust is everything, and the design has to stay out of the user's way. The personas (Alex, Priya, Jordan), user flows, design system, and screens are all mine. The metrics in the original class deliverable were projections, not measured outcomes. Honest growth marker.
Build. Designed and built from the inside — a decade running a cake business, encoded directly into the product: smart intake with client history, complexity-weighted pricing, dual internal-and-client quote views, a production grid that prioritizes by what actually matters, not just size.
Break & Rebuild — in progress. Still live, still being used, still getting rewritten wherever real orders reveal what the first version got wrong. Not finished. That's the point — nothing on this site ships once and sits still.
Build. Built the first version of the brand. Then the second. Then the third — each one real, live, and actually selling.
Break. None of them stuck. Each version taught me something the last one got wrong — the wrong tone, the wrong palette, a promise to the buyer that didn't match what was actually being sold.
Rebuild. The fourth version, live now: the brand, the storefront, and a 238-page operations manual for a baking business I also run — kept anonymous by request. Still selling. Still getting sharper.
