← Back to work Case Study 02 · Side project / SaaS

History, in parallel.

Product: Chronos — my own SaaS
Role: Everything — idea → design → code → back end
Scope: Product · Brand · UX/UI · Front-end · Back-end · Launch
Status: Live — in daily use

1/ Context

Chronos is my side project — a comparative-historiography tool built on one idea: history reads differently in parallel. One date, four lenses — philosophy, architecture, art and politics lined up on a single rail, so the connections teach themselves: the Parthenon rises while Socrates still walks Athens; Corinth falls and Hellenistic art stops mid-sentence.

It started as an educational and research experiment, then grew into a running SaaS. I use it daily myself and opened it to a narrow circle of people who care about the subject — a deliberately small audience that actually uses the thing.

2/ The work

No client, no team, no hand-offs — this is what my process looks like when one person carries all of it:

The idea and the method. From a reading habit to a product concept: comparative timelines as the core mechanic, not a feature.
Brand and system. A Bauhaus identity — circle, square, triangle as the discipline marks — carried from the logo into a full component system.
The product. Two readings of the same data, one switch apart: a grid that reads across disciplines, and chains that follow a single thread of consequence. Underneath both, an event opens into sourced prose and hand-written links to what caused it. Plus the public landing and an iOS companion.
The build. Front end and back end shipped in AI-assisted code sessions — my AI-first workflow doing production work, not demos. Deployed, monitored, operated by me.

3/ Screens

Chronos grid view: philosophy, architecture, art and politics as four columns aligned to one BC date rail, with a Grid / Chains switch in the header — The grid — four disciplines against one date rail. The layout is the argument: what happened *next to* what.

Chronos event panel: the Parthenon entry with a sourced photograph, linked people and places in the text, and a connections rail listing what it follows from and what it leads to — An event, opened — a credited photograph, prose that links out to the people and institutions involved, and the connections rail: what this *follows from*, what it *leads to*. The links are written by hand, not inferred.

Chronos chains view: a pinned chain of events on a vertical rail with coloured arcs and labels explaining each causal link, from Solon's reforms through to Aristotle's Lyceum — Chains — pin an event and the rail keeps only its lineage, every arc labelled with the reason it exists: Solon's civic code becomes Cleisthenes' demos, democratic Athens funds the Acropolis, the young democracy puts Socrates on trial.

Chronos landing page: 'History reads differently in parallel' headline, a live timeline preview and the four discipline lenses — The landing — the product explains its method in one screen, with a live preview instead of marketing renders.

Chronos on iOS: large-title screen for the Ancient Greece board, underline tabs for the four lenses, and the philosophy events as a plain dated list — iOS — the native large-title read: board name up top, four lenses on an underline tab bar, one lens at a time.

Chronos on iOS: compact header with board and lens on one line, the four lenses as numbered colour-coded segments, and events as cards with a black date chip — The compact variant — board and lens collapse into one line, the disciplines become numbered colour segments, events become cards.

Chronos on iOS: poster treatment with a full-bleed blue header, the lens name set large, and its date range above the event list — The poster take — the lens itself becomes the headline, carrying its count and date range. Same list underneath.

These are stills of the running product. Switch to Live demo to open the landing, walk into the board and pin a chain yourself. The web app is built for a desktop screen, so it needs a wider window — open the prototype full‑screen to try it. The iOS screens above are the phone story.

4/ Outcome

Chronos is what my client work looks like with no client: the same system thinking, the same design-to-code discipline — carried from first sketch to a deployed, running product by one person. It is also the proof behind my AI-first claim: an entire SaaS — brand, interface, front end, back end — shipped and operated solo.

Curious what one person can ship end to end?

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