I decided to build a note-taking app initially to expand my repetoire and learn new skills. Pairing my front-end experience with a project that would see me engage in a range of design, development, resourcing and product tasks. Scribe, the result of my efforts, is my first proper app effort.

I’ve always been a bit of a compulsive note-taker, and I wanted to play with some long-gestating ideas of a simple writing web app that could feel as easy to use as writing with pen and paper. I designed the brand and application from the ground up, which was really fun as my day-job leant towards development and technical architecture — the project gave me an outlet for my visual design cravings.

As I have worked on the project, I’ve learned loads. I especially expanded my understanding of back-end web development, building a Node API that uses GraphQL (utilising Apollo) and interfaces with a MondoDB database to power the application’s read/write operations. It was my first proper exposure to resourcing, as I explored hosting and architecture options, weighing up performance implications, costs, and maintenance considerations as I resourced the project in AWS. Among the technologies I explored were Terraform, Github CI, and the Serverless framework.

A writing application that is made expressly for those of us who feel the need to jot down everything they possibly can, Scribe is being designed to get out of your way and let you just write. I’m currently working hard on weekends (still have to make a living) to get a beta off the ground soon.