Kandidatstvai
2022
-
present
Kandidatstvai is a free to use educational platform that helps students and parents in Bulgaria make an informed choice about their next step in their educational journey - from kindergartens all the way to universities.
Challenge
This was my first project as a designer/developer, stemming from the issues my brother faced after his exams in the 7th grade.
The execution was good enough to land me a few jobs and the platform was still being visited by thousands of users monthly, but my expertise and skillset developed and some of the design decisions just didn't sit right with me.
The lack of accessibility stood out in particular. Open this Internet Archive link to see just how bad it was :)
Solution
I completely overhauled the design direction, replaced the typeface with one that's more visually refined and easy to read, picked colors and combinations that are accessible by default using CIELAB, refined the geometry of the logo, redefined the illustration style and aesthetic, making it less time-consuming and visually clearer.
On the engineering side I started over with a fresh build from scratch. I also restructured the content, splitting larger articles into easier to digest smaller ones, and redefined the brand's tone of voice.
Current commitment for this project is
1 new article per month
Newsletter notifications for important changes and dates
Content updates when necessary
Project highlight -
Accessibility
WCAG AAA accessibility is seemingly impossible to achieve and often comes at the expense of bland design.
For the thrill of it, this project tries to reach AAA standard wherever possible, of course bearing in mind that accessibility improvements are always a work in progress.
Impact
100K Unique Page Views Annualy
2K+ Newsletter Subscribers
+23% monthly views since update
What I did
Design System
Brand Identity
Web Design
Web Development
Content Writing
Newsletter Marketing
SEO Optimization
Tools
Figma
Webflow
Claude Code
Posthog
Loops.so
