McGill Chinese Students' Society
Overview
I revamped the MCSS website with a cleaner layout and improved mobile navigation, making it easier for students to discover events, sponsors, and society events. I also brought in a more vibrant visual language that better reflects the society’s cultural energy.
Mobile Screenshots
Background
McGill Chinese Students' Society (MCSS) is the largest and most influential cultural student organization in Eastern Canada. We strive to enrich student life at McGill by creating meaningful experiences that celebrate Chinese heritage, foster personal and academic growth, and build lasting friendships.
While Instagram handles most event announcements and daily traction for the society, the mcss.ca website serves as a more lasting space for showcasing past events, highlighting sponsors, and giving students a better sense of the community and society. A website redesign was warranted to make MCSS’s online presence clearer, more accessible, and more reflective of the society’s identity + aura.
The Starting Point
The original website in 2024 lacked visual hierarchy and mobile responsiveness making it difficult for visitors to understand the purpose of the site or take any action.
Structural Refresh
In 2025, I led a redesign of the website to fix key UX flaws, making the website more accessible and cleaner to navigate.
Yet, something still felt missing...
Visual Renewal
In 2026, I refined the site’s visual language to better reflect MCSS’s energy and identity. Building on the stronger structure from 2025, I introduced a more vibrant palette, cleaner composition, and more intentional use of imagery to make the experience feel alive, welcoming, and representative of the community.
Capturing Culture and Vibes
I explored visual directions that felt energetic, welcoming, and true to MCSS’s cultural identity. Using Pinterest moodboards as a starting point, I filtered ideas by how well they balanced personality, clarity, and mobile readability. This helped shape a more vibrant and cohesive design language that supported both the society’s brand and the site’s usability.
Implementation
The site is built with Next.js as the core framework, with Cloudinary serving as the digital asset management layer for image storage and optimization. I used Cursor heavily throughout development to move faster through implementation, iteration, and debugging, and deployed the final site on Vercel for reliable hosting and smooth delivery.
Together, these tools allowed me to build a site that was fast, maintainable, and easy to update for future MCSS content.
Results
The redesign improved the site’s overall usability by simplifying page structure, strengthening visual hierarchy, and making the experience fully responsive across devices. With over 500 monthly visitors, the site now gives its audience a clearer and more performant experience, meeting Google PageSpeed best practices for speed and accessibility.