JoySauce

Since 2022, I’ve worked with JoySauce, an Asian American digital media platform focused on telling our community’s complex stories. Over the years, I’ve helped craft the brand’s energetic and vibrant aesthetic, designing everything from key promotional assets and logos for our video content to supplemental graphics and photo illustrations for articles, personal essays, and more.

Photo Illustrations

As JoySauce’s main graphic designer, I’m often tasked with creating visuals for our online articles. These can be about practically anything, from roundups of rising Asian music artists to personal essays on love and grief. Below are just a few examples of the many graphics I’ve made for the site.

Gregg Araki's 'Totally F***ed Up' 66th birthday!

Our sexiest Asian and Pacific Islander men alive for 2025

Is there really an Asian American accent?

Love isn't blind, and it won't shield Asian men from harmful stereotypes either

Ocean Vuong is more than just a sad gay, Asian poet

Asian girlhood goes global: Giving credit where credit is due

Keep an eye out for these API diasporic ballers this World Series

Columns

We have a handful of columns at JoySauce, each one either penned by an Asian American writer or dealing with a specific aspect of the Asian American experience. A consistent aesthetic is crucial for these periodicals to help readers easily identify that the article they’re reading belongs to a broader narrative.

Astrology with Alice

JoySauce’s resident astrology expert Alice Smith looks to the stars to give us some informed advice on how to handle life’s challenges month-to-month. As a Taiwanese immigrant, Alice combines western astrology with eastern philosophy, often teaching through the lens of Buddhism and Taoism and drawing from the principles of traditional Chinese medicine.

Each illustration is a vibrant depiction of the month’s planetary lowdown, typically superimposed on a starry night sky decorated with blending gradients and sometimes incorporating any relevant zodiac symbols.

Astrology with Alice: It's Saturn's turn in Aries!

Astrology with Alice: Uranus in Gemini will be a shock to the system

Astrology with Alice: With Venus in Sagittarius, give like you mean it this holiday season

Astrology with Alice: Make your own luck with Jupiter

Astrology with Alice: What astrological chaos will the rest of 2025 bring?

Astrology with Alice: Neptune in Aries will turn things upside down

JOYSAUCE RADIO

The main goal of JoySauce Radio is to get people listening to our fave Asian and Pacific Islander artists. These song recommendations typically include just the hottest releases, but sometimes we like to throw in a theme, like Blasian jams for Black History Month or girl group tracks to honor the rise of acts like KATSEYE and f5ve.

To keep things simple, I created an instantly recognizable design that lets readers know we’re back with new music. Inspired partly by the vibrations of a speaker, partly by the grooves of a record, this easy-to-use template streamlines the production of this monthly column.

JoySauce Radio: It's all about the power moves

JoySauce Radio: Bops and bangers to close out your summer

JoySauce Radio: Celebrate Pride with songs by trans musicians of Asian descent

JoySauce Radio: End Women's History Month with these fresh hits

JoySauce Radio: Our favorite Blasian jams for Black History Month

JoySauce Radio: All hail the rise of the Asian girl group

Stir Fried

The Stir Fried column takes Asian cuisines around the world and puts them under a microscope. These articles are sometimes educational deep dives into the histories of different fusion foods and sometimes features on the notable chefs innovating or preserving their communities’ flavor combos and cooking techniques.

For this column about how different cultures become one, I chose a scrapbook-style aesthetic that throws together plates of food, country flags, and restaurant interiors to portray how these cuisines can be beautiful messes of different influences and flavors.

Stir Fried: Talking Thai Chinese cuisine with Chef Pam

Stir Fried: How the Silk Road created the first Asian food diaspora

Stir Fried: Indian-South African food grew from a strong network of villages

Stir Fried: Sinta brings Filipino food full circle

Stir Fried: Jamaican Chinese food gives island classics new horizons

Stir Fried: The delicious role Japan has played in Peruvian cuisine