How Our Pinterest Posts Grew to 20K Monthly Impressions (And What We Learned Along the Way)
“We were posting illustrations on Pinterest, but no one was seeing them…” Sound familiar? That was exactly our situation just a few months ago.
We’re a small design studio in Tokyo focused on UI/UX. About half a year ago, we started drawing simple, clean illustrations to use in our proposals and internal materials. Nothing fancy — just something usable and consistent.
At first, it was just for ourselves. Then we decided to share them. And then… things took a turn we didn’t expect.
Getting Started with In-House Illustrations
None of us are illustrators. We’re UI/UX designers. So the first step was to create a system where even non-illustrators (like us) could draw consistent-looking people.
We set up rules:
- Men: 6.5 heads tall / Women: 6.3
- 3–4 colors based on our brand blue
- No facial expressions — just motion and context
We also watched a few Udemy videos on drawing figures. We followed the “stick figure → shoulders/hips → joints → muscle → details” flow. It started with pencil sketches, just like we used to draw people in elementary school. Then we refined them in Illustrator.
It wasn’t perfect. Some drawings still looked different depending on who made them. But we adjusted things later and kept moving.
Posting on Pinterest (with No Strategy at All)
Originally, these were for internal decks and social posts. But one day we thought: “Might as well post them on Pinterest too?”
So we did.
- Same title every time: “UX illustrations”
- Descriptions? Just our company intro.
- Hashtags? Zero.
We thought maybe the pictures would speak for themselves. Turns out, Pinterest doesn’t work like that. After a few months, we were still getting less than 100 views per pin. Honestly, we were close to giving up.
Enter ChatGPT: Shifting Toward Global Users
At some point we just asked ChatGPT: “Why is no one seeing these?”
We showed it a few sample images and got a solid answer:
- Descriptions and titles aren’t optimized
- No hashtags
- UX visuals might perform better overseas than in Japan
Fair enough. The first two made sense. But that last point — targeting international users — was something we hadn’t even considered.
So we figured: why not? Let’s go all-in on global. We rewrote all 20 posts with English titles, new descriptions, and 3–4 hashtags. ChatGPT helped with all of it.
We’re not kidding. Just 3 days later, impressions started rising. From 10–20 per day to 200–300. One pin got saved a few times, and then suddenly it hit 2,000 impressions in a week.
We were shocked. All we did was translate the text and write better hashtags. But Pinterest clearly picked it up differently.
After that, it became a habit to check impressions daily. “Is it going up again?” (Before, we didn’t even want to look.)
Who’s Looking at These?
Pinterest Analytics gave us a decent look at who was seeing the posts:
- Users in their 20s–30s, more female than male
- Android over iPhone
- PC over mobile
We thought English meant mostly the U.S., but the first saves came from India. That’s where it started spreading.
Apparently, UX-related content for presentations or educational use is in demand in those regions. At least, that’s what ChatGPT suggested.
Trying Gumroad Next
So far, we’ve made 35 illustrations. Since Pinterest took off more than expected, we decided to try selling them on Gumroad — a platform that lets creators sell digital content directly to users.
We’re preparing:
- A free 5-illustration starter kit (PNG)
- A 20-illustration pack with PNG,SVG + AI files for $5
Gumroad seemed like the right place — casual but trusted. Setting it up took time (PayPal business account, bank registration, preview images, etc.), but it was doable. ChatGPT helped with that too.
Honestly, none of us are great at “marketing.” But working through the platform and refining the flow, bit by bit, gave us some hope that this might actually work.
Still Figuring It Out (But Sharing Along the Way)
We’re planning to keep posting one new UX illustration per week, aiming for 100 in total.
We’ll also share what we learn: which pins perform, what gets clicks, and how the Gumroad sales go. It’s still very much an experiment.
If you’re in a similar place — trying things out, seeing what sticks — we hope this gives you a nudge to keep going.
Thanks for reading. Let’s see where this goes.
▶ Pinterest (ongoing series):
▶ Starter Kit & Volume Pack1 on Gumroad:
