Minivillage—Designing Across Touch Points

UX/UI, Visual Design, Web Design, Graphic Design
A laptop showing the hero area of a page on the Minivillage website
Overview

Minivillage is a Vancouver-based technology company with the goal of bringing neighbours and communities together. I worked with them during my practicum placement in post-secondary and continue to do freelance projects for them on a rolling basis.

During my time with Minivillage, I have become familiar with designing across various touchpoints from making UX/UI improvements for their platform to marketing materials to webpage designs.

Duration

2024-Present

Role

Visual Designer, Visual Design Internn

Tools

Figma, Photoshop, Canva

Team

Project Managers, Developers, Design Mentors

UX/UI Audit

Creating a unified and consistent design system for the Minivillage website and platform

Many designers have worked on the Minivillage website and platform at different stages without a firm design system to reference.

I familiarized myself with the website and community platform before completing an audit for both of them. This project led me to propose clearer, firmer guideline suggestions and presented areas where improvements could be made.

An image showing the current colours found during the audit and the suggested colour palette
UX/UI Audit

Championing for best practices and accessibility in UX/UI

By conducting this audit, I was honed in on the smallest of details. I made suggestions to ensure the visual style was consistent and I strived to ensure best practices and accessibility were taken into account.

An image showing the current modals found during the audit and the suggested changes for the modals
Webpage redesigns

Minivillage’s website had key pages needing an update to match the updated visual style guidelines

In addition to redesigning those key pages, I created several new pages for a case study, new initiatives, and other aspects the company wanted to bring attention to.

Before and after of the about page on the Minivillage website
Before and after of the residents page on the Minivillage website
A side by side of the top portion of four different webpages on the Minivillage website
Updated Brand Guide

Keeping a cohesive style whether designing for corporate or for community

Minivillage works with both corporate stakeholders and community members. It became important for the branding to reflect that and to have firm guidelines to follow for both styles.

A comparison of corporate and community marketing collateral pieces
Marketing Collateral

Creating marketing collateral

This is a small snapshot of some of the projects I worked on for Minivillage, such as report layouts, banners, and infographics.

An impact report cover, the first page of a case study, and an infographic detailing the Minivillage system
Three banners stacked in a column showing different Minivillage initiatives
Reflection

Working with a different project managers, developers, and designers

Working on a wide variety of projects, from posters to webpage designs to a UX/UI audit, helped me understand the company on various levels and I’ve become comfortable keeping the branding cohesive across all these touch points.

With each project I worked on, I collaborated with different members of the team and learned how to communicate effectively with them whether they were a developer, designer, or played another role on the project.

Thank you for reading until the end of this case study!