We’re now halfway through 2026, and most of the way towards launching Neighbo. For that I thank Lyn Tran who has spent the last three months as Neighbo’s UX/UI Designer shaping how Neighbo will look and work, capably taking on responsibility for design while Andrew and I get all the underlying tech up and running. Lyn wraps up her time at Neighbo this week and so I’m taking this opportunity to thank her for the great work she’s done… and give you a sneak peek at what we’re launching soon.
Lyn is not just a designer but also a keen illustrator so we’ve used lots of her illustrations throughout Neighbo. We hate AI slop here so every illustration on Neighbo is hand-drawn by Lyn. We’ve even snuck in a few animations of Lyn’s drawings like this one on the homepage:
There is a lot more to the design than how it looks; how it works is the harder and perhaps more important part. I haven’t made things easy on ourselves because I want Neighbo to cover everything in Brunswick. It turns out that everything is quite a lot! That has resulted in Neighbo having hundreds of categories from bagel shops to vocal coaches. To prevent that being overwhelming, Lyn studied our categories and sorted them into five areas that we call Eats, Explore, Services, Shop, and What’s on. I’ve found the areas a useful way to structure what we’re adding to Neighbo and I’m sure you’ll discover that they make it easier to find what you’re looking for.
Speaking of discovery, we’re making pages that collate related places together so that you can discover what makes each part of Melbourne special. You can see a few in the screenshot above; as we’re starting in Brunswick we’re highlighting the bridal precinct on Sydney Road, the indie stores, and the eco-friendly shops. We’re not journalists, not influencers, and I’m not sure that anyone wants to hear my opinion… but we do know quite a bit about this area, and thus these pages let us start you off with a little local knowledge so that you can go out and discover the rest for yourselves.
There are still many, many details to work through before we can launch Neighbo, but Andrew and I are speeding towards that goal right now. With the design settled it feels close. Thankyou Lyn for getting us to here! I’m looking forward to sharing Neighbo with the rest of you soon.