Designer Highlight: Ivan Ermakov | Codrops

Hello, I’m Ivan—a Dubai-based designer targeted on fintech merchandise and branding. I run Moonsight, the place we craft considerate digital experiences and sharp visible identities for monetary firms around the globe.

Background

My path into design wasn’t a childhood calling—I wasn’t drawing wireframes at age ten or dreaming of Helvetica (are you able to think about XD). I simply knew I didn’t need the everyday workplace life. I wished freedom, motion, and a strategy to create issues that felt helpful. Design turned out to be the candy spot between independence and affect.

So I studied design at college by day, and took on company work by night time—what you may name the full-stack scholar hustle. That rhythm—examine, work, repeat—taught me self-discipline. I additionally stored studying on the facet, exploring instruments, tendencies, and strategies to sharpen my craft.

Ultimately, I discovered myself gravitating towards fintech.

Why fintech? As a result of it’s actual. It’s private. Everybody interacts with cash. And once you construct one thing that helps them really feel extra answerable for it—you’re not simply enhancing UX, you’re enhancing lives.

You’re designing belief. That’s a duty I take severely.

From there, I explored either side of the business: in-house roles at product firms, and fast-paced company work. Later, I shifted into consultancy—partnering with fintechs throughout Europe, the Gulf, and Asia. That chapter taught me rather a lot—not nearly design, however about folks, tradition, and the way totally different groups take into consideration belief and cash.

All of that led me to start out Moonsight—an area the place I may carry all these experiences collectively. Right this moment, we associate with fintechs and monetary firms to create sharp, helpful, brand-led digital experiences. And whereas I nonetheless keep hands-on, I’m additionally constructing a staff that’s simply as obsessive about readability, thoughtfulness, and execution as I’m.

Featured Work

Monetto

A game-changer on the planet of freelancing. Designed to simplify and elevate the monetary journey for freelancers, Monetto is extra than simply an app – it’s a holistic answer that empowers creatives like me to handle their funds with confidence.

BlastUp

Blastup’s mission is easy—assist customers develop their social media presence, quick. We crafted a daring, dynamic identification that displays Blastup’s energetic and pleasant character as nicely is their web site.

Alinma Financial institution

This venture for Alinma Financial institution concerned a complete redesign throughout all model touchpoints: the brand, bodily playing cards, web site, and cellular app. The aim was to modernize and streamline the visible identification whereas sustaining the financial institution’s core values.

Coinly

Coinly is greater than only a banking app — it’s a full-fledged monetary literacy ecosystem for youths, designed to empower the following technology with cash expertise that develop with them. Constructed round an attractive coin mascot and a colourful 3D world, Coinly blends gamification, interactive storytelling, and actual monetary instruments.

Design Philosophy

Design must be extremely useful and intuitive, fixing each enterprise and consumer issues whereas delivering an attractive expertise that customers need to return to.

Design is readability. And readability builds belief.

Particularly in fintech—the place most of my initiatives occur—you don’t have the luxurious of imprecise. Your design has to work, at the beginning. It has to really feel good, reliable, easy. When folks belief your interface, they belief your product. And once they belief your product, they’re extra doubtless to make use of it once more. That’s the place design actually proves its worth.

My job is to make issues helpful first, lovely second. However ideally, each without delay.

The way in which I method initiatives is structured however adaptable.

I begin with full immersion—understanding the enterprise, the viewers, and the issue we’re fixing. From there, I search for a singular angle, one thing that provides the product or model a definite voice. Then I push that concept so far as I can—visually, functionally, and emotionally.

And no, I don’t consider in reinventing every thing 🙂

Use the patterns that work. However when one thing feels off or underwhelming, be daring sufficient to rethink it. That’s the place the true artistic work lives—not in chaos, however in thought-about evolution.

I don’t need to be recognized for a mode. I need to be recognized for vary.

For each venture, I attempt to discover a distinct visible language. Meaning experimenting—pulling in 3D, movement, illustration—no matter it takes to carry the idea to life.

And I not often do it alone.

I collaborate intently with animators, builders, movement designers, illustrators—the sort of people that not solely help the imaginative and prescient, however develop it. When everybody brings their strengths to the desk, the result’s all the time richer, sharper, extra memorable.

What issues most is that the tip consequence has presence. That it feels alive, intentional, and constructed with care.

And I care deeply about how work is offered. Each venture—consumer or private—is framed with context, rationale, and craft. As a result of good design solves issues, however nice design tells a narrative.

Course of In Bits

My course of is structured, however not inflexible. Often, it seems to be one thing like this:

Polish and current
Clear storytelling. Clear handoff. Assured rationale.

Perceive the enterprise
What’s damaged? What’s wanted? What are we actually fixing?

Perceive the consumer
What do they count on? What’s acquainted to them? What do they worry?

Discover the visible angle
Moodboards, movement cues, structure patterns, sudden instructions

Construct and iterate
Quick suggestions loops with purchasers and the staff

One benchmark I exploit: if I don’t perceive what I designed, how can I count on a consumer to?

For me, good design begins with intention. Each display, each button, each microinteraction—there must be a cause it exists. So when a function’s constructed, I stroll by way of it in my head as if I’ve by no means seen it earlier than. What would I click on? What would I count on subsequent? Can I clarify what every half does with out second-guessing?

After engaged on monetary interfaces for thus lengthy, you begin to internalize these flows—you virtually know them by muscle reminiscence. However that doesn’t imply you skip the take a look at. You continue to undergo every stage. You continue to assume nothing.

Typically, one of the best insights come from a teammate asking, “Wait, what does this do?” That’s your cue to look nearer.

And in terms of working with purchasers?

I stroll purchasers by way of each stage—from moodboards to microinteractions—so there aren’t any surprises and no last-minute pivots.

It’s about mutual belief: they belief my course of, and I belief their imaginative and prescient.

This construction helps me handle expectations, forestall scope drift, and ship considerate work—on time, with out the drama.

What retains me impressed? Wanting exterior the bubble.

I don’t have a listing of designers I religiously observe. What conjures up me is nice work—wherever it lives. Typically it’s a slick piece of internet design, typically a brutalist poster on the road, artwork model from a online game, or the typography on a jazz file sleeve.

Music performs an enormous position in my artistic life—I sing a bit, and I believe that type of rhythm and construction naturally finds its approach into how I construct interfaces.

I’m additionally an enormous gamer, and I’m fascinated by how sport mechanics affect consumer habits. There’s rather a lot designers can study from how video games information, reward, and shock customers.

Typically I’ll see a cool impact, a personality design, and even only a movement element and instantly assume:

That may very well be the anchor for an entire expertise

Not essentially for the venture I’m engaged on within the second, however one thing I’d like to construct round later. So I kind, I accumulate, I sketch.

I’m typically searching for inspiration for one venture, however bookmarking concepts for 2 or three others. It’s not simply moodboarding—it’s sample recognition, and planting seeds for future ideas.

Inspiration can come from anyplace—however provided that you retain your eyes open.

What’s Subsequent

Proper now, I’m absolutely targeted on constructing Moonsight right into a studio recognized for daring, strategic fintech design—particularly throughout the MENA area.