Editorial Design, 2025
Affinity Publisher 2, Photoshop
Affinity Publisher 2, Photoshop
For this design, the brief was:
Create the visual direction for a 1,500-word feature article (three body pages + title page) exploring how social media fuels irony poisoning and Mean World Syndrome, contributing to cultural cynicism and emotional detachment. The design should visually match the tone: intelligent, modern, sharp, culturally aware—but not academic or cold.
Establish a strong visual identity for the piece
Reflect themes of digital overwhelm, emotional fatigue, and distorted perception
Use typography and layout to support a grounded, thoughtful narrative
Editorial style should feel current and culturally fluent, not corporate or sterile
With this assignment, I wanted to bring an element of warmth to a hyperdigital design, communicating the isolation that social media can trigger without making the piece look too visually icy or robotic.
To achieve this mission, I used a glitch photo that has elements of bright CMYK colors, playing with opacity and cutting up the parent image in order to distort the design just enough to give it a hint of the human. What results is a contemplative representation of the internet world, one which allows the viewer to ponder alongside the reader the way in which technology has integrated itself into our social lives, and our sense of what it means to be human.