The Scroll Economy

ScrOLL STORY — THE SCROLL ECONOMY

I study PR and communications and I think a lot about how platforms engineer behavior for profit. This felt like a story I needed to design.

The irony was intentional. I wanted the reader to finish the piece and realize they just did the exact thing I was writing about.

The dark aesthetic was a conscious choice to make the reader feel like they were inside the machine, not just reading about it. Dark space is not emptiness. It controls pacing. The moments that feel most powerful are the ones where the design has room to breathe before something important hits.

I used DM Serif Display for headlines and pull quotes to give SIGNAL the feel of a real publication. IBM Plex Mono for the logo and section labels because it has a terminal quality that fits the subject matter. DM Sans for body text because it is clean and readable on a dark screen.

The progress bar under the nav tells the reader where they are at all times. The infographic in Section 03 lets users engage with data visually instead of just reading statistics.

My biggest takeaway from this project is that design communicates before anyone reads a single word.