<aside> <img src="/icons/partly-cloudy-day_pink.svg" alt="/icons/partly-cloudy-day_pink.svg" width="40px" /> I’m Quynh, a second-year Cognitive Science Design and Interaction student!
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Prior to VDA, I had almost zero design experience (no, Canva flyers for my high school club don’t count) and I would describe my background as more rooted in digital art / illustration.
Going in, I was very excited to learn about the nitty gritty of design and the process of designing for a specific purpose. I joined to learn about graphic design and whether this or UI/UX design was something I’d pursue further in the future. My goal, at the very least, was to conquer the great beasts known as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. I am proud to say I have made a lot of progress in this regard! I still have much to learn design-wise, but I’m glad to have been given the opportunity to participate in VDA :]
fig. 1: Me!! But I’ve since cut my hair :’)
fig. 2: My logo rendered in black and white. Though red seals were my inspiration, I like these color schemes the most—they remind me of linocut prints.
fig. 4: The process of creating A1, from moodboarding (left) to sketching (middle) and first draft in AI (right).
fig. 3: My logo rendered in red. These are much more reminiscent of the red stamps after which they were designed.
For my logo I was inspired by red Chinese seals, and wanted to replicate the image of those using the letters of my name as the characters of the seal. The negative space resulting from my layout is filled in with two quỳnh (night-blooming cereus) flowers, after which I am named. After sketching, I used Adobe illustrator to create the logo. My biggest challenge was figuring out the pen tool, since it was my first time using AI.
After receiving critique, I used Photoshop to add the distressed texture in order to make it feel more like a stamp. It took about 5 hours to make, start-to-finish.
fig. 5: Goodreads landing screens.
fig 6: Goodreads Log In (left) and Create Account (right) screens.
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fig. 7: Goodreads UI screens flowing left to right, including assets and fonts.
My goals for the UI were:
- [x] Revamp the Goodreads app design into something more sleek but still elegant and classic
- [x] Incorporate a more engaging color palette
- [x] Create an icon logo for the brand
- [x] Make it friendly to all readers
The final result was created on Figma.
My initial drafts had backgrounds that were either too busy or not dynamic enough; in the end, I settled for an angled gradient background. I also revised the CTAs and interactive buttons to make them more engaging and accessible. The final design took me about 6 hours to complete.
To the right are the scrapped landing screens.
fig. 8: I decided the background was too busy.
fig. 9: Almost there!
fig. 10: Final Moon Goddess Festival Poster!
fig. 11: Scrapped coloring.
fig. 12: Another scrapped coloring of the poster that I’m very fond of :,)