Final responsive WAVE platform across desktop and mobile.
A digital media platform for young Samoan, Māori, and mixed-heritage Kiwis navigating dual identity and code-switching in everyday life.
Final responsive WAVE platform across desktop and mobile.
This project explored the future of media for young New Zealanders. Through deep research I identified a gap between mainstream NZ media and young multicultural Kiwis navigating dual identities — particularly those of Samoan, Māori, and mixed heritage — who code-switch between cultural worlds every day.
As a Samoan and Pākehā / New Zealand European designer myself, this gap felt personal. I wanted to explore what a platform would look like if it was built from the inside — from lived experience, not assumption.
Mainstream NZ media doesn't reflect the experience of young people who move between cultural worlds. Existing platforms either feel too mainstream New Zealand European, or too niche and traditional. There is nothing that celebrates the reality of being in-between — the code-switching, the dual references, the cultural hybridity that defines a generation.
Extensive primary interviews with young multicultural Kiwis, alongside analysis of existing NZ media platforms and audience behaviour. Code-switching emerged as the unifying experience — the daily practice of moving between cultural contexts, languages, and identities.
Young Samoan, Māori, and mixed-heritage New Zealanders aged 18–25 who feel disconnected from mainstream NZ media while navigating multiple cultures and identities. Digitally native, globally aware, and code-switching daily — but rarely seeing their own lives reflected in media.
Kessa — primary persona representing young multicultural Kiwis navigating dual identity through media.
A research-first process — building the concept from insight outward, with every brand and design decision traced back to lived experience and what the audience actually needed.
Developed WAVE as a complete brand system with a clear visual identity, tone, and content direction. Rather than using stereotypical Pacific motifs, the brand was grounded in the energy, humour, and lived experience of dual-cultural youth — feeling familiar, fresh, and culturally specific.
WAVE stylescape — combining logo, colour, typography, patterns, imagery, and tone into one visual system.
I mapped the platform structure to organise WAVE's main content areas — video, podcasts, news, user stories, search, account settings, and footer pages. This helped define how users would move between content discovery, subscription, and personalisation.
Site map defining WAVE's content categories, navigation, account flow, and footer structure.
I mapped key user flows around discovering content, subscribing, listening or watching, and interacting with stories. This helped connect WAVE's content model with the actions users needed most — browse, save, share, subscribe, and personalise.
User flows mapping discovery, subscription, podcast listening, and user-generated content.
I built an interactive Figma prototype across mobile and desktop, then tested it with users from the target audience. Feedback surfaced clear issues across design, navigation, and content interaction — which I used to drive a focused round of refinement.
Lo-fi wireframes mapping content hierarchy, navigation structure, and platform flow across mobile and desktop before visual styling.
User testing feedback — key issues identified across design and layout, navigation, and content interaction.
Refined hi-fi screens — homepage, content pages, and subscription flow updated in response to testing feedback.
I translated the WAVE design from Figma into a responsive coded website using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. This helped me test how the brand, layout, and interaction system worked in a real browser — and proved that the design could hold up beyond Figma.
Live coded website — translating the Figma prototype into responsive HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
WAVE came together as a complete brand system, UX architecture, and interactive hi-fi prototype — with select key screens translated into a responsive coded front-end to test how the design held up in a real browser. The tone is playful, expressive, and unapologetically multicultural.
Interactive hi-fi prototype — explore the full WAVE platform flow across mobile and desktop. Open in Figma →
Finalised coded pages — homepage, content pages, and navigation across desktop and mobile.
WAVE was the project where I learned that the strongest design insight often comes from personal experience, not just research. My own dual cultural background gave me access to nuance that secondary research couldn't. Using that as a design input — rather than treating it as bias to suppress — made the concept much more specific and honest.
I also proved to myself that I could take a brand from concept to coded website — not just design in Figma, but build something that worked and felt real in the browser.