WEBTOON
ROLE
Visual Design Intern
TIMELINE
10 months
(Mar - Dec 2025)
TOOLS
Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Procreate
Creating eye-catching, elegant designs that align with the global brand style guide to promote content and growth across the WEBTOON platform, social media, email, and external channels.
Overview
01
about
Empowering everyone to discover, create, and share their stories
WEBTOON is a global storytelling platform where creators and users across the world discover, create, and share their stories. Initially launched in South Korea by Naver Corporation in 2005 and then globally in 2014, WEBTOON is the global leader and pioneer of the mobile webcomic format and has since become the world's largest webcomic platform.
role
Designing for growth and user engagement in a fast-paced environment
Design
02
READING EVENTS & COLLECTIONS
Back to school, back to WEBTOON reading events
Once in a while, the WEBTOON platform will host reading events, where users can earn coins by reading a certain number of episodes from select series. Regreso a clases, or Back to school, was one such reading event for WEBTOON LATAM that I was able to design from scratch — art direction, illustrations, and all!
The Regreso a clases' info and completion braze modal pop-ups, from initial sketches to the in-app view!
Given the theme, I knew I wanted the modal pop-ups to immediately immerse the user in school. My initial sketches varied from lockers, chalkboards, and class notes before I settled on the latter and promptly set about drawing the desk, typical school supplies, and other WEBTOON easter eggs. The handwritten font — Shantell Sans Bouncy — paired with playful doodles and scribbled questions (suggestions, really, to read everything) make for a lighthearted promotion of a short and sweet event.
Reading events are temporary, collections are forever!
I also had the chance to design assets for the Regreso a clases collection, which WEBTOON creates to showcase select series and help users discover new series.
The main visual banner and thumbnail for Regreso a clases.
Shifting tones, visual styles, and genres
Colección Nocturna is a WEBTOON LATAM collection featuring mature romance series, and the first reading collection that I designed! Here, I aimed for an elegant, seductive tone (given the genre) and provided two versions: one featuring the series characters and a generic version without them, to be used when the series are rotated out.
The main visual banner for Colección Nocturna, along with the thumbnails and open graph (OG) tag images for both versions (with and without characters).
Braze Modal Pop-ups
Brainstorming novel ways to promote new series via pop-ups
To introduce new series and encourage users to read them, the mobile WEBTOON platform routinely uses braze modal pop-ups. Here, I collaborated with Matthew — a fellow designer on the Creative team — to ideate and develop new layouts to attract users and boost click-through rates as part of a larger brainstorm with another 2 fellow designers.
The three layout concepts that I came up with, with three example series each! I was particularly inspired by visual novel UIs, promotional character posters for movies, and editorial covers and how they could get users to pause, if only for a second.
With these layouts, my goals were to quickly introduce the series' plot and characters and make an impression. As such, I focused on highlighting character art (to entice readers), writing fun and memorable CTAs, and adding bits of story. After presenting our layouts, the lead Art Directors selected 6 (out of the 14 layouts created between the 4 of us) to use as templates for future braze modal pop-up testing, one of which included my character poster layout!
Testing, testing… the experiment was a success!
Following the team's braze modal pop-up ideation, I had the chance to design experimental pop-ups for the release of Vows and Vendettas on WEBTOON. The first few chapters made it clear to me that I had to highlight the two main characters' dynamic and expressions — they were absurd and hilarious for the genre — so I built off one of the brainstorm layouts, collected silly expressions and chibis, and drew anger marks to really drive the enemies-to-lovers dynamic home.
I provided two experimental versions that spotlighted the male and female lead respectively, as well as a straightforward version that fit precedent for testing.
After a round of testing, platform data revealed that the experimental pop-ups did extremely well, with the male and female lead pop-ups delivering click-through rates of 31.12% and 32.24% respectively. Both pop-ups demonstrated a meaningful gap between previous versions, as compared to the straightforward version's 25.98% click-through rate (and 24% average).
Social Media Assets
Meme carousels, adaptation side-by-side posters, and series launches
A lot of my day-to-day as a Visual Design Intern involved designing posts for the WEBTOON official Instagram, which ranged from memes and wholesome series moments to new series promotions and adaptation announcements. On occasion, I also pitched a couple of ideas!
Some of my favorite posts that I worked on~ Hover over the image to see the entire carousel or click to view the live Instagram post!
Reviving Wyatt the Cat
My first introduction to Wyatt was through a pitch deck. As one of WEBTOON's mascots, Wyatt "delivered" news through WEBTOON Now and, at the time, rarely appeared on posts. After drawing him extremely ripped for the International Cat Day carousel (which was very fun), I began drawing him in every carousel that I could…
Every carousel featuring a Wyatt I illustrated — to think it all started with a muscular cat… Click on the image to visit the live Instagram carousel!
…and Wyatt eventually returned to Instagram (and pitch decks) for good! I always had a lovely time drawing him, and it's been even lovelier to see him rendered differently (and lovingly still) by each person on the Creative team.
WEBTOON Unscrolled
Helping bring WEBTOON stories to your bookshelves
One of my earliest projects was creating a welcome kit for WEBTOON Unscrolled, Wattpad WEBTOON Studio's graphic novel imprint dedicated to publishing graphic novels from WEBTOON. Complete with 2 double-sided posters, 4 shelf talkers, a window cling, and an envelope design, the welcome kit was a happy print design revisit and a happier experience to see in-person at Barnes & Noble.
Posters and shelf talkers galore! Promoted series include: Doom Breaker, Viral Hit, The Kiss Bet, True Beauty, Cursed Princess Club, and Tower of God.
Promoting Doom Breaker Volume 2, everywhere and anywhere
As one of WEBTOON Unscrolled's most popular adult graphic novel series, promotions for the release of Doom Breaker Volume 2 spanned multiple external digital platforms, some of which I designed.
Honorable mentions
Story recaps, original illustrations, and email marketing
A little collection of some other favorite projects that I designed!
Terribly Told (But Surprisingly Accurate) unOrdinary Retelling, featuring the chibi illustrations I drew!
Food illustrations for a Thanksgiving Feast carousel & email marketing assets for Zodiac Girls.
Reflections
03
what i learned
Try everything! Experiment! And, at the end of it all, review the little things for the 3rd time.
There was a lot to learn when I first started, especially when it came to understanding and designing according to a global brand style guide. Identifying the wiggle room, working within it to experiment (as much as deadlines allowed), and putting out something that was both me and WEBTOON was incredibly gratifying, and it wouldn't have been possible without my leads' guidance and razor-sharp creative reviews. There's a meaningful gap between the designer I was when I first started and the one that took every piece of feedback and only pushed herself to grow! My design thinking, skills, and eye for detail have only ever benefitted and I'm excited to move through each iteration.
Illustrator wants me, Photoshop fears me
I had never used Photoshop as much as I did in my life prior to my first month as an intern — that is to say, I was a complete beginner at Photoshop on day 1. Knowing Illustrator helped marginally, but what really helped me learn was simply diving into the deep end of assigned tasks. With each design project, Photoshop became more and more familiar and it's now (dare I say it) my favorite Adobe software. Given my track record of learning on the spot, I'm once again reminded of how much fun it is to pick up something new to create.
a huge thanks to —
Karina, Sarah, Jude, and Nina — for believing in me first, taking a chance on a designer that didn't even know Photoshop, and making that first conversation so heartwarming. Your support and commitment to making this team a fun and safe space to be and grow as people and designers were everything and more.
Jude and Nina, again, and Ayisha — for your guidance, patience, trust, and endless encouragement. Every learning tip and piece of feedback helped me grow into the designer I am now, and I'm very happy with this version of me. I'll carry her and what I've learned from you all as I continue to grow!
Matt, Maria, Enrique, and Kirsten — for being yourselves, truly. You all made it so easy to fall in love with working with this team, share (too many) laughs on the Slack and in-office, collaborate on amazing (and unhinged) projects, and grow. I'll miss our sweet treat runs, rants about silly male leads, and sending one too many silly reactions (this 🐸 is for you, Jude).
Ankita and Minju — my fellow interns!! I'm so so proud of how far we've grown together since March! It's been so lovely to experience this together and I can't wait to continue to cheer you all on!!
