i·CANTO
Designing and building a language-learning product around the songs people already love.
- Role
- Founder & CTO
- Scope
- End-to-end design & engineering
- Timeline
- Dec 2024 – now
- Status
- Live, with paid plans
I designed, built and launched i·CANTO, which turns songs into lessons and vocabulary review. As founder & CTO, I own it end to end: product direction, interaction and visual design, the component system, full-stack engineering and day-to-day operation. Lyrics, translation and review cover 14 languages; lessons cover Spanish, French, Italian and Catalan. The product follows one loop: discover a song → understand it → remember the words → keep listening.
Dig into another language.
I wanted finding a song to feel like flipping through CDs, not scrolling a catalog. DJ mode deals six songs in the language you pick. Open one and its lyrics are ready to translate, line by line or word by word.
Turn a song into a lesson.
Tap a word to see what it means in that line. Or build a lesson: the app picks what’s worth learning from the lyrics and explains each item in context. I kept the final say with the learner, who chooses what to keep before anything is saved.
Practice the words. Keep the context.
Every saved word keeps the lyric it came from, so each card shows where you heard it. Each round ends by sending you back to those songs to listen again.
Someone knows your next favorite song.
Profiles show taste: the languages someone speaks and is learning, and their songs grouped by language. Message them to ask where to start, and they can reply with a song, ready to open.
An app I wanted to exist.
I learned most of my Spanish from Manu Chao. I wanted an app built around that kind of repetition. For the launch I drew on my brand campaign work at Interbrand, building every post from the app’s own type, accent colors and screens.
Decisions that shaped it
Keep the shelf steady
Dig again changes the music while the six cases stay in place. I prepare the next covers first, then update all six together, so the shelf keeps its gentle motion. The main controls sit at the bottom, within reach of your thumb.
Let people make it theirs
Learners choose an accent color, and the interface follows, from the controls to the tinted jewel cases. I built a shared color system with contrast checks, so the choice carries through the product without a separate design for every color.
Other product choices
Built and maintained
I build and maintain the full product, from the interface and lesson generation to accounts, subscriptions and deployment.
Core stack: React, Next.js, TypeScript, Postgres and Stripe.