This is a hypothetically-done project. I was not hired by NaNoWriMo for this design.

About National Novel Writing Month

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) began in 1999 as a daunting but straightforward challenge: to write 50,000 words of a novel in thirty days. Now, each year on November 1, hundreds of thousands of people around the world begin to write, determined to end the month with a first draft.

Source: NaNoWriMo's Website

The Problem

NaNoWriMo's new color palette—while consistent—consisted of desaturated colors. This made the website look antiquated, but also dull.

Dull isn't a very motivating vibe for writing a 50,000-word novel.

What if we could have a more vibrant palette to infuse more fun?

Approach

Gathering Design Guidelines

As a hypothetical design, I didn't have access to NaNoWriMo's brand identity or style guide.

So, I took a look at their website and noted their:

• Design elements (e.g. use of illustrations)
• Typography (Serif fonts for headers and body copy)
• Colors (desaturated shades of blue, dark green, and brown)

Several keywords to describe NaNoWriMo include adventure, fun, communities, stories, and writing.

Re-Designing the Logo

I love NaNoWriMo's full logo—it perfectly encapsulates caffeine-fueled writing.

The "viking helmet" used for social media profile pictures, however, was a little plain.

So I asked myself:

How can I infuse more meaning to the "viking helmet"?

After brainstorming and randomly sketching for a while, the answer came from infusing adventure with writing:

• Fit a pen into the helmet's vertical "frame"
• Use a typewriter (monospace) font for the main typography

Since this logo was more modern and simplistic, I also modernized the palette and typography:

• Swapped the baby blue for an attention-grabbing shade of cyan
• Used Open Sans, a sans serif font, for the body copy

Re-designing the Homepage

The homepage—especially the first section—had too much text. So, signing up for NaNoWriMo doesn't feel as inviting as it should be.

Writing a novel alone can be difficult, even for seasoned writers. NaNoWriMo helps you track your progress, set milestones, connect with other writers in a vast community, and participate in events that are designed to make sure you finish your novel. Oh, and best of all, it’s free!

From the current homepage, the target audience seems to be:

People who want to start writing (their novels)

Unfortunately, I ran out of time to work on this project at this point in time, so I only re-designed the first section of the homepage.

I tried to make it more inviting to sign up by:

• Using a front-facing perspective for the typewriter to invite visitors to "sit down and write". The original aerial perspective puts me in the perspective of an "observer".
• Adding statistics ("700k active novelists", "360k novels written") to showcase NaNoWriMo's active community.

Statistics

• Tools: Figma (Free Plan), Pen & Paper for brainstorming
• Time Taken (including ideation): 3h for logo design; 2h for homepage design
• Engagement & Reach: N/A since this was hypothetical and not released

Reflection

This project exposed some skill and knowledge gaps.

1) Not knowing how to illustrate limits my creativity.

• At that time, I could only "draw" icons or objects by combining basic shapes; anything in the hand-drawn style of NaNoWriMo is beyond my skill level.
• This skill gap limited the designs I could think of during brainstorming sessions.

Perhaps AI will help me with this in future.

2) What makes an effective landing page design?

The homepage re-design here is definitely not the most effective one out there.

As mentioned earlier, I was in a time crunch, so I didn't think very deeply about the design.

Human behavior is also evolving with technology, so I have to keep myself updated on the best practices of landing page design.