# Medium template system

**Year:** 2020 (five-week consulting engagement, July–September)
**Role:** Design consultant
**Client:** Medium
**Contracted by:** VP of Product Design [Alexis Lloyd](https://www.alexislloyd.com/)
**Tags:** platforms-and-networks, design-systems, editorial
**Case study:** /work/medium

In 2020, Medium was exploring new ways for authors and publications to customize the visual style of their blogs. Alexis Lloyd, then-VP of Product Design at Medium, brought me in on a five-week consulting engagement to help shape the company's approach to the feature set.

## How the engagement worked

Alexis framed the divergent phase as "provocations rather than detailed specs" — the value lived in shaping the right bet first, with specs to follow on the selected direction. I prototyped a broad set of design concepts and provocations — different ways an author's publication could express its voice through layout, typography, and chrome.

![Figma board showing the breadth of design directions explored for Medium publication templates](/work/medium/medium-sketches.png)

I presented the set on a working call with Alexis, founder/CEO Ev Williams, and a couple of other senior stakeholders. We selected one approach to launch with, leaving the rest as a menu of options for the Medium team to develop later. I then specced three template themes for authors to choose between, ready for the team to build from.

## Three themes — mobile

![Medium publication, theme 1 — mobile view](/work/medium/medium%20-%20mobile%20-%20home%20-%20theme1.png)
![Medium publication, theme 2 — mobile view](/work/medium/medium%20-%20mobile%20-%20home%20-%20theme2.png)
![Medium publication, theme 3 — mobile view](/work/medium/medium%20-%20mobile%20-%20home%20-%20theme3.png)

## Three themes — desktop

![Medium publication, theme 1 — desktop view](/work/medium/medium%20-%20desktop%20-%20home%20-%20theme1.png)
![Medium publication, theme 2 — desktop view](/work/medium/medium%20-%20desktop%20-%20home%20-%20theme2.png)
![Medium publication, theme 3 — desktop view](/work/medium/medium%20-%20desktop%20-%20home%20-%20theme3.png)

## Launch

The features launched soon after on [Barack Obama's publication](https://obama.medium.com/), across Medium's verticals, on M.G. Siegler's site, and on Ev Williams' [personal blog](https://evhead.com/).

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