Ostra

Overview

Ostra is a retail investing app: stocks, ETFs, crypto and Treasuries in one balance, with fractional shares from $1, recurring buys and interest on idle cash. I built it as a concept brand to show how I take a consumer fintech product from brief to launch: positioning and copy, visual identity, interaction design and a production-ready front-end.

The Brief

Investing apps have to sell trust and simplicity at the same time, and most of their landing pages fall back on a phone mockup and a list of features. The goal was a site where visitors can feel the product — watch a portfolio move, run the numbers on a recurring buy, place an order — before they ever reach the App Store button.

The Approach

The page is built around the phone. In the hero the portfolio is live: the chart draws new points, the balance updates and holdings flash as prices move, while alerts and dividends float around the device. As you scroll through stocks, ETFs, crypto and bonds, the phone stays pinned and its screen changes to match each step.

The visual language is calm on purpose: a soft grey canvas, large inset cards, tight grotesk headlines with one italic serif word, and a single electric lime accent that doubles as the “up” colour in charts. Each section carries one idea and one interaction.

Motion That Explains

A recurring-buy calculator redraws ten years of growth as you change the amount. Insight cards slide sideways as you scroll down. The pro-tools panel switches between a live candlestick chart with a crosshair and indicators, an alerts list that switches itself on, and an order ticket that slides to buy next to a Level II order book. Apart from Lenis for smooth scrolling, it's all hand-written in vanilla JavaScript and CSS, and visitors who prefer reduced motion get a calm, static version.