✽ 19 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Drop Out of Design School

An interview series with 19 professional designers by 19 design students aimed at inspiring future students to explore and pursue the diverse world of design.

I am Reason #17, interviewing and designing a tabloid newspaper for Mitchell Johnson, the Director of Product Design @ Meta.

An interview series with 19 professional designers by 19 design students aimed at inspiring future students to explore and pursue the diverse world of design.

I am Reason #17, interviewing and designing a tabloid newspaper for Mitchell Johnson, the Director of Product Design @ Meta.

An interview series with 19 professional designers by 19 design students aimed at inspiring future students to explore and pursue the diverse world of design.

I am Reason #17, interviewing and designing a tabloid newspaper for Mitchell Johnson, the Director of Product Design @ Meta.

An interview series with 19 professional designers by 19 design students aimed at inspiring future students to explore and pursue the diverse world of design.

I am Reason #17, interviewing and designing a tabloid newspaper for Mitchell Johnson, the Director of Product Design @ Meta.

Skills Product Design, Content Design, Editorial

Software Figma, Adobe InDesign

Course Advanced Typography

Duration 5 weeks

▼ View Process

Tabloid

Because Mitchell worked largely within the entertainment industry, I wanted to reflect this vibrant and lively personality through spot illustrations found on the cover and throughout the newspaper.

Since Mitchell had an extensive career, it made the most sense to structure my design into three sections:

Introduction, Design School & Transition to Industry
Designing for Microsoft, Walt Disney, & Meta
Advice for Design Students

Mobile Translation

Final Interview

To keep the interview engaging, I animated the spot illustrations as floating and included gifs of his work, staying true to my original tabloid design while taking advantage of the screen medium.

Designing the Interview Portal Page

01 Interview Tags

Interview Tags enable users to find interviews within a specific category that they're interested in more easily.

02 Search and Filter

Search & filter tools help users to quickly search for interviews

03 Connect Back to UW Design

The site is designed to help inspire prospective and current students to also easily find information about the UW Design program.

Tabloid Process

PROMPT

Design a tabloid publication that feature an interview with a professional designer.

I wanted to interview a product designer who had worked in entertainment, so I decided to interview Mitchell Johnson.

IDEATION

I wanted a professional, sleek look that reflected Mitchell's career breadth and background as an industrial designer.

The feedback I received on my covers and initial drafts was that they were too boring and didn't reflect Mitchell's personality.

Mitchell wasn't a business analyst or working in finance — he chose to work in the entertainment industry, so I my cover needed to reflect that.

ITERATION

Pivoting to color and illustrations!

My breakthrough in this design was inspired by Mitchell's work themselves: colorful, playful, and fun. I experimented with spot illustrations to help break up the text and add visual interest throughout the spreads.

REFLECTION

Breakthroughs can happen — it just takes time and a little bit of sweat.

Throughout this project, I struggled to design for a designer who is now more of a strategist rather than a visual person. This meant that I didn't have much of a sense of Mitchell's work or personality through his work, and so I had to find other ways to make my design visually compelling.

Special thanks to Professor Karen Cheng for critique and Mitchell Johnson for all the advice I learned.