Process & Approach

What I design.
How I build.

For me, design and development aren't separate disciplines with a handoff between them — they're the same job done in the right sequence. I design the system before I open a code editor, and I write code knowing exactly what the design requires.

Design
Color
Type
Aa Aa Aa
Space
Radius
Dev
:root { --primary: #443d69; --accent: #28b8e0; --ink: #2d2448; --blue: #3c6187; --orange: #f6742a; --space-2: 16px; --radius-md: 10px; }
Manning Stinson
Manning Stinson
Full-Stack Engineer · Founder, Train5D

I'm a Full-Stack Engineer with 18+ years building digital products end-to-end, currently architecting Train5D — a self-built digital health platform delivering coaching content on movement, nutrition, sleep, posture, and mindset for adult beginners.

I combine hands-on full-stack engineering (React, Node.js, Python/Flask, PostgreSQL, DigitalOcean) with a practicing wellness-coaching background — giving me a genuine, lived understanding of the health-behavior-change products I build, not just a theoretical one. I currently work inside a hospital system (Saint Francis Health System) in a coaching capacity, adding direct clinical-environment context to my digital health work.

Read the Train5D case study
What I build
Five types of work, one approach
The output changes by project. The thinking underneath it doesn't — problem first, system second, screens third.
Product UI

Dashboards, data views, admin panels, and app interfaces designed around actual user workflows — not around what's easiest to build.

Design Systems

Component libraries, token architecture, and pattern documentation. The layer that keeps everything consistent as the product scales.

Web & Marketing

Landing pages and marketing sites that hold the brand and drive action — built to work at every screen size, every time.

Flows & Onboarding

Multi-step flows and onboarding sequences that reduce friction where users typically drop off — transitions, empty states, first-use moments.

Brand & Identity

Visual language that travels — typography systems, color, and identity that works across every surface, at every size, in every context.

How I get there
The process in three phases
01
Understand Before Exploring

Before any screen is opened, I need to know what the user is actually trying to do, why the current solution doesn't work, and what done looks like. A well-defined problem makes every design decision faster and easier to defend. Jumping to screens before this is done is the most expensive shortcut in design.

02
Explore Wide, Decide Once

Multiple directions — not just variations on one idea. The goal is to find the edge of the solution space before committing to anything inside it. That exploration is where the real design thinking happens. Picking a direction is straightforward once you've seen them all laid out honestly.

03
System First, Screens Second

The explorations collapse into rules: color, type, spacing, interaction, component patterns. That system is what gets built. Individual screens are just instances of it. When the system is right, implementation is fast and predictable — and the product stays consistent as it grows.