Maisa Ranki

This website was created as part of a larger project: developing a brand identity for myself. As part of the project, I had developed a brand concept, logo, and a visual guide. The main function of the site, and the project as a whole, was to attract possible employers and commissioners. During the design phase, I strived to make the visual identity of the site striking while also keeping the overall look clear, readable, fit for purpose, and easy to skim through.

I did the programming using classic HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP, the latter of which I self-studied for this production. I chose to use these tools (as opposed to Next.JS, Tailwind, etc.) to focus on honing my web development fundamentals before adding on layers of abstraction. The majority of the site's graphical elements are realized with vanilla CSS, including all headings and hover effects, as well as responsivity to different screen sizes. I also implemented language selection, both to serve visitors from different countries and to show my ability in designing for an international audience.

Whether I achieved my goals or not is up for You to decide.

The theater association PahkiSpeksi needed a new website, as they preferred it were more modern and mobile responsive. I joined the development team as a web designer and front-end developer. I designed the website's visual identity to fit a theater association: playful yet easy to read and navigate. The design work itself was smooth sailing.

However, as coding progressed, several team members had to leave the project or lighten their workload, consigning me to taking on back-end tasks in addition to front-end tasks on my own, meaning I was now working outside of my expertise. While this was manageable for a time, one front-end developer working full-stack alone was not maintainable long-term. Thus, I was cleared to recruit more team members on my own, which mitigated my expanded workload significantly. Finally, when a good colleague of mine and I ended up as the association's webmasters, we ramped up development together, as I was finally able to focus on the frontend while he focused on the backend. The shipped website garnered us kudos from the association.

Undergrow was a casual gardening game for Android that was released on Google Play Store in 2020. The player bought and planted magical flower seeds, and after planting a flower, they had to guide its rapidly growing roots towards water and treasures, avoiding rocks and moles.

I worked as a UI designer and the logo's graphic designer in the project. We wanted the game's visual identity to be painterly, magical, and playful, so I used lots of organic shapes and Adobe Illustrator's brush strokes when making the UI graphics. I designed the logo on paper with pencil and inked it with a brush, after which I scanned, retouched, and vectorized it. The preserved organic imperfections from the ink brush added a ton of character without making the logo too kitchy.

The game is unfortunately no longer on Play Store, but I am nevertheless satisfied in my contribution to the game's UI and logo.