melanie joy tabroff

work

1. 

   

   

   
   

   Somethings 2025-2026

   i believe mental health support deserves a rebrand, in how it feels and who it comes from. that's what drew me to Somethings, which connects teens with mentors who've been through similar struggles. rather than traditional therapy, the relationship itself is the support.

   i joined at seed stage and led design. the core problem was retention: teens drifted when their mentor was offline, and since insurance only covers active teens, that meant no revenue.

   so we re-architected the app around two spaces: chat, and a shared "hub" to reflect, share, and connect asynchronously. teens who used the hub exchanged 50%+ more messages with their mentors and said they felt more connected.

2. 

   

   

   

   
   

   Somethings 2025

   to keep newer teens from drifting after just a few messages, we launched Photo Swaps. we'd found that the strongest mentor relationships formed when mentors opened up first, and swaps made that easy.

   a mentor and teen each send a photo to the same prompt, and it reveals for both at once. mentors used it as an icebreaker, and it was especially helpful for quieter teens still warming up to their mentor.

   the harder problem was making it scale for mentors juggling 20+ teens, some dealing with high-risk situations, so the whole feature had to be lightweight.

3. 

   

   

   Somethings.com
   

   Somethings 2025-2026

   when i joined Somethings, we were redesigning our website with the agency Love and Money to build credibility as we expanded into new markets. what started as a website overhaul grew into a full brand evolution.

   i partnered on art direction, then translated the new brand into our product and marketing surfaces, building a mobile design system and marketing kit along the way.

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   Titan 2025

   Titan is a mobile-first wealth management platform. over my three years there, we expanded into sophisticated territory, from alternative investments to DIY stock trading.

   this project was the swing back to simplicity: a more human, advisor-led experience, right as Titan crossed $1b in AUM. the challenge was one clear feeling: i trust these people with my money. simple enough to feel like you're in good hands, detailed enough for savvy investors to understand their money.

   as design lead, i shaped the early direction (research, inspiration, and architecture options) and partnered with two very strong designers through the end-to-end redesign. our research and rapid prototypes gave the company more confidence in the pivot.

5. 

   
   

   Titan 2024

   to give ambitious 20-somethings a reason to choose Titan in a crowded investing market, we launched a full rebrand and swapped asset-based fees for a $250/year membership: investing tools, events, and a white-glove concierge. the bet was that perks would help us stand out.

   my job was to make the new membership work in the app. i aligned leadership on how the app should be organized, designed the first version of the concierge, and led design for a referral campaign built around access to Titan's suite at Madison Square Garden, shipping alongside marketing and partnerships and iterating on client feedback in near real time.

   clients saw the concierge as a nice extra, not a reason to invest. they needed to feel confident about where their money was going. that lesson brought our focus back to wealth management and set up the advisor-led redesign that came next.

6. 

   
   

   Titan 2025

   Titan partnered with the agency Collins to evolve our identity into a luxury investment brand, setting us apart from casual investing apps and signaling long-term credibility.

   as the most senior designer on the team, i translated their guidelines into the product and built our design system alongside our lead engineer.

   then i extended the brand into two new visual systems: app-wide icons, and illustrations for our investment strategies and money movement flows. i hired and directed an icon designer and worked closely with a Collins-recommended illustrator, and that work became part of the system itself. it pushed me past my usual product lane and gave me a real appreciation for what goes into a sophisticated brand.

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   Titan 2023

   Smart Cash was Titan's cash product: like a high-yield savings account, but higher-yielding and more tax-efficient, automatically moving clients between money market funds for the best post-tax rate, with an easy path into investing.

   working with our head of design, i designed the landing pages for funded and unfunded clients, plus the referral and money movement flows, each with its own small details and edge cases. it taught me to zoom out and think about everything a new product touches on its way to market.

   Smart Cash became one of Titan's most successful launches, driving over 30% of our AUM.

8. 

   Allarahealth.com

   
   

   Allara 2025

   Allara is a telehealth platform for women navigating hard-to-treat hormonal and metabolic conditions.

   they brought me in to build a design system for their client-facing portal. with no in-house designer (just a PM), prototyping new ideas was slow. a system meant polish and speed, and a way for non-designers to contribute too.

   i built it entirely by hand, using ChatGPT only for naming conventions. today i’d lean on AI much more, but building it manually first is a big part of why i trust myself with systems now.