designer / illustrator / berkeley, ca

Hello! My name is Alina Buevich and I’m a designer & illustrator—sometimes my work lives online but other times you can spot it in print, at events, or even on some merch. Outside of that, I also spend my time drawing, taking on freelance projects, and collaborating on lump shop. In a lot of these projects you’ll see examples of work from my time as an in-house designer at Discord and Chronicle Books.

Any questions . ?

CASE STUDY: Gen Z Apps

/ 2023
To celebrate the launch of 4 new branded apps in the Discord App Directory, the marketing team requested a visual asset that would 
  1. appeal to Gen Z aesthetics,
  2. show off some of the functionality of these apps,
  3. and most importantly, convey an overall feeling of friends hanging out. 




Part 1: The Brief



Every project begins with a brief and thankfully this project came with a very extensive creative brief, along with slides upon slides of marketing decks for project context. The most important information that was directly relevant for my purposes I’ve heavily summarized here:

DESCRIPTION:
Discord is excited to announce the launch of 4 new branded apps in the App Directory (Chani, Memrise, Motivation and Cappuccino), with a strong focus on Gen Z users.

PRIMARY AUDIENCE: Gen Z

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE:
Get Gen Z Users to use these fun 4 new apps by promoting on blog and social

KEY MESSAGE(S):
  • 4 new ways for your server to have fun together
  • 4 new experiences to stay connected with the people that matter most to you
  • 4 fun additions to keep your server engaged
DELIVERABLES:
  • Blog Header (1800x720)
  • Social Asset (1080x1350)
  • Linkedin Asset (1200x627)
Some notes I jotted down from our initial kickoff meeting:
  • Logos of the apps don’t have to be featured, focus should be more on the use case
  • We don’t have to refer to previous design assets
  • Overall vibe should be cozy but playful
  • Emphasis on the inherently social aspect of the apps
  • Apps are being released over the summer so the messaging could possibly be summer themed


Part 2: The Concepts



Working off my notes from the brief and understanding the context of the final deliverables, I got to work on concepting out 4 basic thematic ideas and rough sketches. Each concept was presented alongside a visual moodboard, an explanation of the rationale, some possible red flags for moving forward, and some ideas for solutions/workarounds for those flags. Excerpts from the concept pitch deck below:

Part 3: Revisions



We decided to move forward with the Online Sleepover concept since it felt like the most direct translation of the “friends hanging out” objective; the next step was to refine the rough sketch into a more finalized illustration. At this point color has not been addressed but feedback for the character art, easter egg details, layout, and scale was encouraged. This is also the point at which the very different aspect ratios needed to be addressed in the designs—how would this art be scaled for both very horizontal and very vertical layouts? Thankfully this didn’t prove to be too difficult since each character lived inside their own window and could easily be shifted around into different orientations.



Part 4: Final Assets



Social asset that emphasized the 4 main slash commands connected to each app
A Linkedin asset w/ text
Simplified blog banner with no text