PROJECT:
BEST OF ANN ARBOR 2025
ROLE:
PRODUCT DESIGNER
DATE:
SEP. 2025
LOCATION:
ANN ARBOR, MI
Best of Ann Arbor
overview.
I co-designed The Michigan Daily’s “Best of Ann Arbor 2025”—a high-visibility, annual project that showcases the city’s top student-voted favorites. Tasked with a Monopoly-inspired theme and a two-week sprint, I built the full design system, including color, typography, and component library, and designed both desktop and mobile experiences. Collaborating closely with another designer, engineers, and product managers, we created a playful yet polished microsite that merged editorial storytelling with strong UX foundations.
week 1.
Foundation & Exploration
The first week focused on translating the Monopoly theme into a cohesive digital system. I pulled visual cues from the game’s board and cards to build the color palette, typography, and early wireframes for the landing page, main page, and footer. We also explored navigation concepts and designed the first versions of the property and information cards, focusing on clarity and usability.
week 2.
Systems & High-Fidelity Execution
In week two, we focused on structure and scalability. We organized the 24 winning categories into color-coded groups inspired by Monopoly’s property sets and built a component library for cards, icons, and navigation states. I refined desktop and mobile mockups, adjusting layouts for variable word counts and responsive behavior. The result was a flexible, high-fidelity system ready for handoff to developers.
results.
We delivered a responsive microsite that reflected the Monopoly theme through a clear, intuitive layout. The final design included a landing page for winners, a home page with map and image toggles, and a footer linking to archives. Each page emphasized hierarchy, consistency, and scalability across devices, creating an engaging experience that highlighted Ann Arbor’s best.
takeaways.
This project taught me how to design under pressure — translating a playful editorial concept into a cohesive, responsive experience in just two weeks. Working closely with PMs and the newsroom required adaptability: refining colors, layouts, and imagery to match content constraints like article word counts and photography limitations.
Ultimately, the sprint reinforced the importance of building systems that scale quickly, staying flexible to stakeholder feedback, and maintaining a balance between creative storytelling and functional design.
