Leading design at thebumdiary.com
Product Design
Identity
Strategy
Journalist
→ Leading the visual storytelling of Bum Diary
Challenging the stagnant formats of journalist interfaces with unique, user-focused experiences
Date
June 2024 - Current
Role
Head of Design
Tools
Figma, Framer, Notion
Design Challenges
New Environment, New Identities
Relocating from Riverside County to New York City meant navigating an unfamiliar cultural landscape while still holding onto our Inland Empire roots. The challenge was to capture and express this dual identity authentically.
Diverse Team Goals
Each team member had different summer commitments—internships, part-time jobs, personal projects. We needed a project that could unify our creative energy while respecting individual schedules and bandwidth.
Translating Spirit into Design
The Bum Diary wasn’t just another digital publication—it was meant to embody the Inland Empire’s unique voice and perspective in a way that stood out against NYC’s saturated creative scene. My challenge was to design a platform that visually communicated this spirit without losing journalistic credibility.
→ Story Page - Designer to uniquely host the material of our journalist expression via Framer's CMS
Objectives
Toward a scalable, cohesive design system
→ Answer this: How might we use our journalistic foundation to tell nuanced stories of regional identity and the American underbelly—while challenging the stagnant formats of mainstream media through more innovative, user-centered digital experiences?
→ Introduce a new CMS (Framer)
→ Introduce regional sectioning in Stories and Columns pages
→ Include an extensive tagging system for story content previewing
→ Create a template system for Story and Columns page to live
Focus
Designing a digital publication brand
→ Get the stakeholders (cofounders and writers) to agree on a visual direction for the publication
→ Make tech + design decisions that lay a solid foundation for future maintenance and growth
Competitive Analysis
Hearing Things → Indie Music Blog
Hearing Things is a new home for independent music journalism. They are writers and editors with many decades of collective experience covering music and culture at Pitchfork, The Fader, Vibe, Spin, Gawker, Jezebel, and elsewhere.
→ Breakdown of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats
Office Mag → Fashion & Culture
Founded as a print magazine in New York City in 2014, office is a global media network designed to subvert convention with an unorthodox approach to fashion and creative culture at large.
→ Breakdown of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats
No Bells → Underground Music Blog
No Bells originally began in 2021 as a bit of a catch-all for niche music blogging and pieces collecting digital dust. It’s since become a hub of the wider internet underground, looking forwards and backwards at the records that shape scenes and shake our bodies.
→ Breakdown of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats
The pure sensation of regularity that you could only find in the bottom of a rum glass — that is the sweet feeling that Bum Diary seeks to capture. Both in its visual storytelling and content.
→ Side Bar: Easy access to our stories using tags + topics, updated automatically with Framer's CMS
User Research
How are audiences reacting today?
→ Decline in Recreational Reading: Recent data indicates a significant decrease in reading for pleasure among young people. A survey by the National Literacy Trust found that only 34.6% of eight- to 18-year-olds enjoy reading in their free time, the lowest level in nearly two decades
→ Increased Reading Among Some Gen Z Segments: Conversely, certain studies highlight that 35% of Gen Z individuals are reading more than they did two years ago, suggesting a nuanced landscape of reading habits within this generation
→ Diverse Content Consumption: Gen Z readers show a preference for genres like humor (27%), self-help/psychology (25%), true crime (25%), and poetry (23%)
User Persona 1
Jada → Curious Reader
Age: 24
Occupation: Freelance Photographer & Bartender
Location: Brooklyn, NY
User Persona 2
Mateo → Emerging Writer
Age: 22
Occupation: Aspiring Journalist, Recent College Graduate
Location: Riverside, CA
User Persona 3
Devin → Community Builder
Age: 27
Occupation: Nonprofit Organizer & Podcast Host
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Site Assets
Because our publication values visuals just as much as our writing, our story graphics were leaned to inspire the web direction.
Design Solutions
A Shared Creative Anchor
We founded Bum Diary as a collaborative digital publication, giving each of us a space to contribute stories, photography, and design that reflected both our growth and our shared roots.
Regionally-Inspired Design Language
As Design Lead, I created comprehensive web pages that fused journalistic clarity with the cultural tone of the Inland Empire—balancing professionalism with grassroots authenticity.
Scalable Digital Infrastructure
By focusing on a flexible and accessible web platform, I ensured that the publication could grow with our storytelling, accommodating diverse media formats (articles, photography, event coverage) without fragmenting the experience.
→ Solution: Home page bento!