Eliminating design debt through systemic architecture

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"Not just the end result, but the way Janne works is amazing. He integrates seamlessly with the team, understands the core problems, and consistently delivers high-quality, well-thought-out solutions."

Joonas Tuompo

Serial entrepreneur, FREE.fi & Superify

Summary

Client

FREE.fi

Helsinki, Finland

My role

Lead Designer

Frontend Consultant

Tech stack

Wordpress

Challenge

Unifying a fragmented digital presence plagued by design debt during a high-profile brand refresh and nationwide marketing campaign.

Outcome

Pixel-perfect launch with a documented, scalable design system that resolved inconsistencies and significantly accelerated the future product roadmap.

Visit

free.fi

FREE.fi's marketing site was plagued by design debt just as it was stepping into the national spotlight

FREE.fi was entering its most ambitious marketing phase to date, featuring Finnish comedian Heikki Silvennoinen. However, the existing marketing site was dated and struggling with significant design debt. Inconsistent layouts and mobile display issues posed a major risk to brand credibility during this period of projected high traffic. I was brought in to provide a fresh start and ensure the digital presence matched the premium nature of the national campaign.

Eliminating chaos through a strict, token-based design architecture

With a hard deadline tied to the campaign launch, I bypassed traditional surface-level fixes and focused on a systemic refactoring of the marketing site. I audited the existing codebase and introduced a strict Design Token architecture to unify the UI programmatically.

Acting as the bridge between high-fidelity vision and production code

I embedded directly with the internal team to ensure the transition from new designs to code for the marketing site was seamless. This involved debugging complex CSS layout issues and refining component logic to ensure every page was truly pixel-perfect on every device. My role was to reduce decision-making overhead for the developers by providing documented logic and reusable patterns instead of static images.

Shipping a system that outlasts the campaign and speeds up the roadmap

The marketing site launched successfully alongside the national media buy, handling the traffic surge with total visual and functional stability. The project did more than just fix a few pages; it provided the internal team with a documented, scalable design system for their web presence. By making the site feel coherent and the shipping process faster, I left the team with the infrastructure to build future marketing features without re-introducing technical or design debt.

After years of scaling the platform into a cornerstone of the Finnish freelance economy, FREE.fi closed its operations at the end of 2024. While the business journey concluded, the systems we built together stood the test of massive scale. By the time the platform wound down, the infrastructure had successfully processed over 350 million euros in total invoicing. It managed the data and workflows for more than 39,000 registered users and facilitated the delivery of over 550,000 individual invoices.