Project: End-of-year recap & card
Duration: 12 hours
Role: UX/UI Designer
For our holiday outreach project, I was tasked with crafting a New Years card to convey our appreciation for top traders. This case study explores the creation of this card along with the accompanying end-of-year recap, both executed in a remarkably brief timeframe.
Objective & target audience
Our objective was clear – engage our top 50 traders during the holiday season. The target audience comprised of high-value users and our goal was to deliver a memorable and personalized experience that would resonate with their year-end reflections and make them feel appreciated by TradeUp.
The idea for this project was introduced on very short notice. I needed to conceptualize and execute it in just a few days. First, I needed to design a physical card that would be sent in the mail. On this card, I needed to include a QR code. Second, I needed to design an end-of-year recap that would be located using this QR code.
Designing the holiday card
Front of card
This holiday card was designed to evoke a sense of warmth and fun. When people think of New Years, they think of things such as parties, fun, fireworks, and confetti. I drew inspiration from this, and aimed to create something that made recipients feel like this was a celebration. I wanted to use imagery to invoke that feeling while still maintaining the overall branding of TradeUp.
For the header, I arced the letters and created a 3D effect by adding a darker version of the text behind it. To offset the fun text on the top of the card, I added a clean, simple sentence below to ensure balance between the two. Additionally, I added an assortment of fun, colorful drawings throughout the card to achieve a festive vibe. This was also balanced by having a white background that allows the imagery to shine.
Back of card
Digital art
On this side of the card, I wanted to create an illustration to really tie this card in with TradeUp’s unique branding. Throughout their site, we use a particular style of art that features different characters and objects. Using this, I grabbed my iPad and got to work.
The concept of my drawing is around the idea of “growing your community”. In the drawing, a TradeUp character can be seen watering a plant. This isn’t an ordinary plant though - it’s full of life with people and buildings making up the plant. By creating an anthropomorphic plant, it’s as if watering the plant is growing the community itself. Although the idea is a bit whimsical, it perfectly matches the unique branding of TradeUp and adds a more personal touch to this holiday card.
Putting it together
For this side of the card, I went bold and decided to use the company’s signature orange color for a background that pops. I wanted to maintain the same colorful playfulness as the front of the card while making it even more eye catching. To this, I added my drawing, the QR code, and thank you message.
Designing the recap
Although time was very limited, I needed to first gather references and create a plan for the direction that I needed to go in for this portion of the project.
Essential information
I started off by brainstorming with my team to figure out what information needed to be included. We wanted to include statistics that were important to users. After a lengthy discussion on the matter, we came up with these important elements:
Profile picture
Username
Rating value
Top 3 cards received (most expensive)
Total value of all trades
# of offers sent
# of completed trades
Total # saved in fees
Invite Friends/share post
Exploration
Next, I wanted to gather some visual references for inspiration. After browsing online, I found that end of year recaps are usually eye-catching, data-driven, personalized, and have minimal text.
Designing the recap
Due to time constraints, I jumped straight into high-fidelity. This project demanded agile decision-making and rapid implementation. I also needed to make sure that it was simple enough for developers to implement quickly, keeping everything on one page. I wanted to emphasize statistics while still having eye catching icons and imagery. I achieved this by creating a colorful background and adding imagery for each statistic.
Conclusion
I really enjoyed the novelty of this experience. It was exciting being tasked with designing a card to mail to users, as this is a lot different than creating designs for things online. Additionally, it was lots of fun creating the end-of-year recap, since it’s generally a positive experience for users to look back on the things they’ve done.