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umichaffirmations
UMichAffirmations is a student-run humorous Instagram account that shares relatable college-life content centered around University of Michigan–Ann Arbor. Inspired by the popular trend of manifestation and affirmations, the account aims to unite the U of M student community, one meme at a time, to an audience of over 15,000 followers.
PROJECT TYPE:
Creative Direction, Content Strategy, & Social Media Design
PROJECT TOOLS:
Photoshop, Illustrator, Procreate, & Trello!
PROJECT OVERVIEW
From 2022–2023, I served as the head admin of UMichAffirmations, an anonymous meme-style Instagram account with the goal of creating unity and laughter among the University of Michigan student body. As the “Snot Nose Emoji” admin, I created, scheduled, and iterated on content that ultimately helped grow the account to over 15k followers.
This project allowed me to explore the intersection of design, humor, and emotional resonance, using visual storytelling to build a strong sense of community among students.
IDEATION & POSTING PROCESS
Coming up with content was a pretty collaborative and flexible process. Each week, the other admins and I would hop on Zoom to brainstorm post ideas, usually inspired by stuff happening on campus or whatever was trending in pop culture that week. We tried to post 3–4 times a week, with most posts being carousels of 5–10 slides.
Outside of our weekly calls, we also stayed in touch through an iMessage group chat. That’s where we’d drop last-minute ideas, react to things happening in real time, or just keep each other in the loop. It kept things fun, fast, and super responsive.
We used Trello to keep our ideas organized and grouped by themes—like brand collab ideas, Thanksgiving affirmations, and fan submissions. It also helped us assign memes to each other so we didn’t accidentally make the same post twice. Below are a few example Trello boards we put together over time.
DESIGN PROCESS
When it came to designing memes, we aimed to keep things visually consistent while still allowing for personal style. Each admin brought their own creative flair, but we all used a shared Photoshop template to keep elements like borders and effects uniform across posts. This helped everything feel cohesive, even with different designers behind the scenes. Occasionally, we’d break from the template to better fit a specific idea or joke. The memes below were created by myself and two other admins—showcasing how our template kept things unified while still leaving room for individuality.
CONTENT COLLABORATIONS
During my time running UMichAffirmations, we teamed up with several other creators and brands—but three standouts were OSUAffirmations, Michigan Marketing Club, and the Michiganensian Yearbook.
OSUAffirmations Collaboration
As a born-and-raised Ohioan and Big Ten football fan, the annual Michigan vs. Ohio State game was always a big deal. Even after committing to U-M (to much surprise from friends back home), I saw the rivalry as a perfect chance to boost engagement. I built a relationship with the OSUAffirmations admins, and we started posting playful, trash-talk-style content about each other in the weeks leading up to the game.
The back-and-forth created a fun “are they actually beefing?” storyline that kept followers from both schools coming back. On game day, we posted hour-by-hour roasts and memes, which ended up generating some of our highest engagement ever—most posts that week pulled in 3,000 to 5,000+ likes.
Michigan Advertising & Marketing Club Collaboration
Since 2021, UMichAffirmations has hosted an annual campus-wide meme scavenger hunt—but in 2022, we teamed up with the Michigan Advertising and Marketing Club to take it to the next level.
They helped us connect with local Ann Arbor businesses who generously donated gift cards, hoodies, and other merch to include as prizes. The partnership gave us a fun way to spotlight nearby shops while also giving students more incentive to join in.
With the help of the other admins and a few friends, we spent six hours hiding printed memes all across U-M’s 3,200-acre campus. Over 100 students participated, and while we were totally wiped by the end—it was an absolute blast.
Michiganensian Yearbook Collaboration
As UMichAffirmations gained popularity on campus, we started getting interview requests from a few student-run publications. Since I was also on the design staff of the Michiganensian, U-M’s official yearbook, we decided to give them an exclusive interview, which ended up being featured in the 2023 edition.
We did the interview over Zoom with our cameras off to stay anonymous. While the other admins weren’t too excited about doing photos, I was all in—I threw on a disguise and posed for the shoot.
On top of that, I got to design the full yearbook spread myself, thanks to a close friend who was Editor-in-Chief at the time. It was a full-circle moment blending design, memes, and a bit of mystery.
MEME SHOWCASE & PROJECT REFLECTION
Working on UMichAffirmations was an unexpected but incredibly rewarding deep dive into designing for humor, relatability, and rapid engagement. From researching what resonated with students to experimenting with meme formats that felt timely and authentic, I learned how powerful thoughtful, well-timed content can be in building community online. This project pushed me to think fast, stay culturally aware, and balance tone with intention — all while making people laugh.
Below are 36 of my favorite memes I created throughout the project — enjoy!
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