Client: Free Periods Canada
Digital illustration and printed zine
Procreate, Adobe Illustrator & InDesign
2025
View the project online here
I was commissioned by Free Periods Canada, a Canadian menstrual health advocacy non-profit, to design a 74-page zine intended as a menstrual health education and destigmatization resource for youth and youth-service providers. The goal was to create an engaging, visually appealing, and accessible publication that could communicate important health information in a youth-friendly and approachable way.
Role
Illustrator and Graphic Designer
Timeline First segment — development of moodboard
I conducted targeted visual research, including an analysis of platforms such as Pinterest Trends 2025, to identify imagery, typography and digital content styles resonating with Gen Z and Gen Alpha audiences. These insights directly informed the moodboard and guided the overall visual direction of the zine.
The moodboard was then presented to the youth working group, where they provided their feedback on what resonated with them; what didn’t.
Second segment — Development of the first 5 pages of the zine; presentation to youth for feedback
I designed and sketched the first 5 pages of the zine for consideration by the project partner and youth working group. This was to provide a preliminary example of how the text and illustrations flowed together on the zine pages (InDesign) and to receive direction feedback from the youth.
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Received thoughts, feedback from youth working group
- Made subsequent edits to existing pages
- Continued with the artistic style that was successful in resonating with youth and client; continued with these design elements
Challenge: Maintain a handwritten, grassroots energy in the zine
Solution: In the process of this project, I created two of my own fonts to capture a handwritten style within the zine while expediting design process
Third segment — Insert entire finalized copy into InDesign, develop illustrations relevant to page content
Once the copy was finalized by the Free Periods Canada team, I went through the document and designed each page accordingly — reflecting the thoughtful, informational content of each chapter and page
I ensured text and visuals were balanced, nothing was overlapping and the readability and accessibility of text were maintained
Finalization — Final document review with client, ensuring informational is adequately captured; test print
Key takeaways —
- A visually cohesive, engaging, and informative 74-page zine that supports menstrual health education for youth
- Successfully balanced educational content with approachable, inclusive design for young people
- Created a resource that could be easily used by youth-service providers and accessible for a wide youth audience and distributed across Canada
View the project online here