Penguin Pulse
D&AD New Blood Awards · Penguin Random House x Monotype · 2026
The problem
Static text is losing the battle for attention. With digital fatigue affecting over 40% of Gen Z readers and average attention spans shrinking, the way people read has fundamentally changed — but the page itself hasn't kept up.
Static text is losing the battle for attention. With digital fatigue affecting over 40% of Gen Z readers and average attention spans shrinking, the way people read has fundamentally changed — but the page itself hasn't kept up.
The Insight
A digitally native brain needs dynamic stimulation to stay engaged. If the reader's body is already responding to what they're reading — heart rate rising during a tense scene, slowing during a quiet one — the typography should respond too.
A digitally native brain needs dynamic stimulation to stay engaged. If the reader's body is already responding to what they're reading — heart rate rising during a tense scene, slowing during a quiet one — the typography should respond too.
The Solution
Penguin Pulse is a bio-adaptive reading app that syncs your smartwatch's heart rate data to variable fonts in real time.
When focus drops, the type shifts — expanding letter spacing, adjusting weight, changing the background — to reduce friction and pull you back into the story. Invisible when it's working. There when you need it.
Penguin Pulse is a bio-adaptive reading app that syncs your smartwatch's heart rate data to variable fonts in real time.
When focus drops, the type shifts — expanding letter spacing, adjusting weight, changing the background — to reduce friction and pull you back into the story. Invisible when it's working. There when you need it.
What I Learned
The strongest response to a typography brief isn't always about the letterforms themselves.
Sometimes it's about the system that makes type feel alive — and building that system around something as human as a heartbeat made every design decision easier to justify.
The strongest response to a typography brief isn't always about the letterforms themselves.
Sometimes it's about the system that makes type feel alive — and building that system around something as human as a heartbeat made every design decision easier to justify.
The Process
UI Concept
Final Work