About Salustian Creative Labs

The Programming Journey

At 15, I attended regular high school from 7 AM to 1 PM, then programming courses from 2 PM to 5 PM. Honestly, programming didn't immediately capture my heart—it wasn't the exciting world of creation I'd imagined. But starting early proved crucial. When I entered college for Information Systems, I already had programming experience, even if I wasn't particularly skilled yet. Everything changed when I discovered Java at 20. While my classmates struggled with its structure, I found the object-oriented approach intuitive and elegant. The way objects modeled real-world concepts, the satisfaction of clean architecture, the power of well-designed systems—it all clicked. Programming transformed from obligation to passion, from homework to hobby.

Programming transformed from obligation to passion, from homework to hobby.

Professional Growth

My first real development role came in November 2023 at age 22, requiring an immediate transition from Java to C# .NET Entity Framework. The first month was intimidating—workplace programming felt completely different from academic projects. Real codebases had legacy decisions, business logic complexities, and the pressure of production environments. But I persevered and couldn't have asked for a better learning environment. The variety of projects, different architectural approaches, and constant pressure to adapt rapidly accelerated my growth. I worked with both legacy ASP.NET systems and modern .NET Core, gaining valuable experience across the entire spectrum of enterprise development not only in frontend and backend but in complex SQL Server Databases as well. Within two years, colleagues considered me a solid mid-level developer, and I knew I was ready for bigger challenges.

The Turning Point

July 21, 2025 brought a scheduled vacation—30 days that would change everything. Initially, I planned to simply travel and decompress, but I knew this was an opportunity to create something meaningful. The idea started small: build a responsive React portfolio landing page to showcase my abilities, maybe add a basic backend API. But as I began coding, I realized I was thinking too small. This was about creating something that didn't exist yet, something that reflected the quality and innovation I knew I could deliver. That simple portfolio page was about to become Astra Vitae and by consequence lead to the foundation of Salustian Creative Labs.

Discovering Modern Stack

After creating a basic two-section React version, I stumbled upon a Reddit discussion about the best stack for static and dynamic pages, MPA vs. SPA architecture. That's where I discovered Astro, Tailwind, and MDX. The possibilities excited me—here was technology that aligned with my vision for what web development should be. I made a decisive choice: scrap everything and start over with tools that felt right. This wasn't just about being modern—it was about finding the joy in development again, that same excitement I felt when I first discovered Java years earlier.

The Seven-Day Revelation

With AI-assisted development through Claude Code boosting my productivity, Astra Vitae was ready to serve its original purpose as a portfolio piece within seven days. But when I stepped back and looked at what I'd accomplished in just one week, I had a revelation that changed everything: "This isn't going on GitHub for anyone to clone freely. This is going to be my foundation for future projects, and I'm going to sell this to developers who share my standards." I remember the exact moment—sitting at my desk at 11 PM, scrolling through what I'd built, feeling a mix of pride and disbelief. The project's scope transformed dramatically. Each day brought new obsessions: animation timing, gradient shades, the component that would make someone say "how did they do that?" The final product bore little resemblance to its humble beginnings.

"This isn't going on GitHub for anyone to clone freely."

Building the Product Line

August 31, 2025, after over 300 hours of development since July, the Astra Vitae line was complete: Premium, Lite, and the Component Collection. Each product underwent rigorous testing with developers, designers, and even my mother on her phone—discovering touch detection issues that I immediately fixed.

Building media components became a personal challenge. HTML and Tailwind make displaying images easy, but making them appealing is another story. I kept asking: "Why can't I close the lightbox by clicking outside?", "Why does it break in landscape mode?", "Why isn't there proper responsiveness for tablets?" These frustrations drove the creation of CommonImage, CommonVideo, and ImageCarousel—components where design and UX work together, not against each other.

Lightboxes with subtle glows, rounded modern styling, click-outside-to-close functionality, snappy animations, carousel area detection for intuitive navigation, thumbnail bars on desktop and large tablets, and proper responsiveness across desktop, mobile portrait/landscape, and tablet portrait/landscape. You don't have to sacrifice design for functionality—you can have both.

The TestimonialsCarousel is a fun little component I built inspired by many solutions that exist today. It's certainly nothing crazy, but it's elegant and fluid—a staple of landing pages these days. It couldn't be missing from Astra Vitae.

Creating SmartNavButtons

While the templates showcased technical capability, I'm particularly proud of SmartNavButtons—a smart intelligent navigation solution component born from real frustration. Every landing page has "back to top" buttons, but why stop there? SmartNavButtons provide intelligent, directional navigation that adapts to user behavior. The "next" button detects your scroll direction and position, seamlessly guiding you through sections. Laptop users without a mouse can easily navigate via keyboard arrows or button click, and desktop users can appreciate these features as well. Tablet users escape tiresome scrolling on large screens. The component was challenging to perfect—handling full-viewport sections was straightforward, but what about pages with multiple visible sections? The FAQ page on this website became my testing ground for refining the component, and when SmartNavButtons worked flawlessly there, I knew it was ready. A friend told me that after using my website, he instinctively looks for these navigation buttons everywhere else, only to be disappointed when they don't exist. That's when you know you've created something special.

"You solved a navigation problem that I didn't even know I had, this should be in every website." — Tester

Building SCL Platform

September 2, 2025 marked another pivotal decision. Traditional marketplaces didn't align with my vision. If there wasn't an appropriate platform for what I was creating, I'd build my own. The SCL website needed to embody what it was selling. This meant continuing to work nights after my day job, sometimes until 3 AM. I remember one night at 2:47 AM, exhausted but unable to stop because the navigation animation was *almost* perfect. I sacrificed weekends, social events, and hobbies for months. Another 300 hours added to the project with SCL and improvements to the Astra Vitae line of products. There were moments of doubt—was I crazy to spend this much time on something that might not work? But every time I opened the website and saw it coming together, the doubt vanished. The result, well... is what you're experiencing now.

"Around 600+ hours of work put into the entire project across 100 days."

Looking Forward

The roadmap ahead is exciting. The next SCL project is a small one as I need rest from Astra Vitae as it was an herculean effort for my first side project, but the next one will be very different from Astra Vitae, it will be published under the SCL brand, I will keep it as a surprise but it should be out before December 31, it targets a very different kind of public than what I'm going for with Astra Vitae, if you play games on your PC and likes to share high quality screenshots in Steam and social media, keep an eye out for more!

Don't worry about bugs or updates to Astra Vitae, I will take care of them and provide support to these products for a long time.

After the project I mentioned before, I plan to start work on a project for content creators of all kinds and influencers who want beautiful, modern websites without deep technical knowledge—Instagram influencers, YouTubers, artists who want to showcase a more premium or intimate aspect of their work in a website of their own. I should be starting this around January 2026. Following that, I'm planning a comprehensive marketplace template that I hope to start development in April 2026. Shopping online often feels frustrating—slow loading times, outdated flows, unintuitive browsing, and search functions that rarely deliver what you're looking for. My solution will prove that performance and beauty aren't mutually exclusive. I want to build a foundation for marketplaces that I wish existed when I shop online.

As for individual components, my philosophy remains simple: if I create something useful during a project that others might benefit from, I'll separate and sell it. Otherwise, it remains exclusive to the template.

For now that's what the future ahead looks like for SCL, however, I will be exploring ideas and ways to bring backend solutions and dynamic content websites, such as admin panels and dashboards. Whatever the future holds, SCL will continue exploring and developing solutions that push boundaries.

Personal Note

Thank you for taking the time to read my story. This journey from a vacation idea to a full product line represents not just months of code, but a transformation in how I see my craft. You're among the first to experience what happens when a developer builds what they've always wished existed. Every decision reflects not market research or trend following, but simply what felt right to me. I invite you to explore the demos, test the components, and see if you feel that same spark of "this is different" that kept me coding until dawn.

If you have questions, feedback, or just want to connect with someone who shares your passion for craftsmanship, I'd love to hear from you. Welcome to Salustian Creative Labs—where engineering meets artistry.