Designer & Creative Director
Designer & Creative Director
DNAinfo was known for its on-the-ground neighborhood reporting. After the company launched Neighborhood Square—a social network for neighborhoods—the product, engineering and design teams were tasked with rolling out a mobile app that combined the new service with its existing reporting arm.
Developing the app presented several challenges, including (1) effectively combine two brands into a single product while maintaining each as a separate entity, (2) differentiate between user-generated and editorial content so users can easily tell the difference, (3) design a clean, elegant news interface that incorporates the complex features and flows of a social app, and (4) create one design that is intuitive for both Android and iOS users.
To accomplish this, we followed an iterative design process and performed research wherever possible, from simple icon recognition to complex onboarding flows.
Design cherry-picked only the most meaningful elements from each identity to create a visually cohesive interface. Color and typography were used strategically to differentiate DNAinfo articles from user-generated posts. A bold labeling system visually tagged content types for quick recognition.
The result was clean and streamlined. The app’s customizable neighborhood feed married DNAinfo’s award-winning journalism with community-minded discussions, empowering users to stay informed about the neighborhoods they care about, engage with our reporters and connect with their neighbors.