My goal was to build a minimalist, distraction-free travel blog. By prioritizing curation over content density, the design keeps the focus entirely on storytelling and photography.
Project Summary
The Project
Created as a personal diary after moving to China, this blog was built solely to document my experiences. The focus was on creating a structured, highly consistent post format with an organic, seamless flow between pages.
Create Post
To enforce strict curation, I intentionally restricted the CMS options—limiting image uploads and character counts to force selectivity in both photography and storytelling.
Conversational field labels
Plain language prompts within the text fields serve as simple, helpful cues to assist the post creation process.
Curated content limits
Hard limits on text and media to keep the focus entirely on high-quality content.
Why it worked
This rigid approach succeeded on two fronts: it completely eliminated unnecessary fluff to ensure high-impact content, and it made the platform instantly intuitive since every post follows the exact same structure.
View Post
To create a smooth transition between the homepage and post details, I used a full-screen design that reinforces a consistent content format throughout.
Typography
Clean, editorial typography that brings your story to life.
Image Gallery
Thumbnail clicks trigger a smooth gallery slide-in, revealing more photos.
Why it worked
Relying on a fixed full-screen layout removed the need for scrolling, creating an intuitive and frictionless flow from the homepage to the galleries. To anchor the experience, subtle transitions were added to intuitively guide the user's movement back and forth.
Mobile Version
The mobile layout adapts the desktop experience into a fluid, scrollable format built for single-handed navigation, keeping the focus entirely on content simplicity.
Why it worked
To eliminate friction on smaller screens, the multi-image gallery is pulled directly into the primary view—saving a click and delivering immediate access to core visuals.