Hinge
Role: Art direction, strategy, and asset design
Team: Branding/Marketing
Overview
At Hinge I worked on a variety of high-converting projects, creating cohesive sub-brands that echoed the principles of Hinge’s style guide. I also audited our existing systems and content, oversaw and signed off on visual assets from partners, developed an evergreen hiring test for illustration freelancers, art directed illustration and photography, built out our photo library, and worked extensively with our social team – leading to a Webby Award and a high-performing Podcast launch.
I branded Hinge’s successful Ghost Stories podcast – creating a clickable modular identity based directly on best conversion practices for podcast covers.
During the month Ghost Stories was published, the Hinge app received the greatest number of international conversions it had ever received, to that date. As well as, to that date, the largest number of overall downloads in the company's history among LGBTQ users. We reached number three in the love and dating charts in the US. And topped charts in several countries internationally.
Illustration Art Direction & Onboarding System
One of the best parts of my job was working with talented freelance contributors on commissioned assignments. Our illustration style guide was complex. And in order to both assess alignment for hiring, as well as get an illustrator up to speed during the hiring process, I developed an illustration onboarding assignment that both taught and tested at the same time. I also worked closely with our legal team to develop a nuanced assignment contract, and to ensure applicants were paid for their test time. The system consistently delivered an excellent art direction/contractor relationship from the get-go, efficiency, and beautiful final work.
The following illustrations were created by Aster Hung.
Test result of front-view woman next to lamp by illustrator Aster Hung
Hingie Horoscopes Social Series
I branded our cheeky social series of rude horoscopes. This work was created before Instagram allowed certain types of motion files in stories. And so I came up with a stop-motion UX concept, where a user would flick through each of the 12 instagram story slides posted at the same time, and in doing so, would move a gold highlight square around the horoscope wheel like a physical flipbook. The combined action resulted in the illusion of a sleek animation and was a visually striking, unique way to experience a story.
