LMDi
Sri Lanka's Voice of Business — first mobile edition
Three decades of
business journalism,
folded into one hand.
LMD's first-ever mobile app — carrying a print-first business journal, its rankings and its editorial authority, onto a screen readers carry everywhere.
A magazine that had never left the page.
LMD — the Lanka Monthly Digest — has been Sri Lanka's leading business publication since 1994. It is where the country reads its economy: the LMD 100 ranking of top listed companies, the Business Confidence Index, the Brands Annual. For most of that history it lived entirely on paper, arriving once a month.
In 2017, LMD wanted its first mobile app: a way for the same authoritative journalism to reach readers between issues, on the device already in their pocket. I designed the interface and visual language; a university collaborator built it. It was a completely new product, built from a blank canvas.
The task was less "put the magazine on a phone" and more "decide what a decades-old print institution should feel like when it becomes something you open every day."
- Design — me
- UI & visual systemLayout, navigation, reading experience, brand-to-screen translation
- Build — collaborator
- DevelopmentApp engineering & content delivery, from the UI I designed
How do you keep the weight of print authority on a screen that rewards the light and the quick?
A business journal reads slowly and deliberately. A phone, in 2017, was where people skimmed in queues and between meetings. The app had to invite quick, frequent visits without letting LMD feel like just another headline feed — the trust in the brand came precisely from not feeling disposable.
There was also a heritage problem hiding in plain sight. LMD's identity was built for the printed spread: generous columns, considered typography, a cover you hold. None of that survives a naïve shrink to 5 inches. The design had to rebuild that sense of quality from the constraints of the small screen up — not paste the magazine onto it.
Three jobs, in order.
Make reading effortless
A reading experience comfortable enough for long-form business writing on a small screen — clear hierarchy, restful typography, nothing between the reader and the story.
Carry the brand's authority
Translate LMD's print gravitas into a digital identity that still felt considered and premium — recognisably LMD, not a generic news template.
Reward coming back
Fresh content between monthly issues, saved articles for offline reading, and notifications — reasons to open the app on an ordinary Tuesday, not just on publication day.
Decisions that shaped the app.
LMD is not one magazine — it is a stable of them (the monthly, the LMD 100, Brands Annual, Living, the international edition). The navigation had to make that legible without overwhelming a first-time reader. I organised the app around a single "latest" stream for daily returns, with editions kept one tap away, so the depth of the catalogue was available but never in the way.
Inside an article, everything that wasn't the story stepped back. A serif headline for editorial voice, a calm measure for the body, restrained chrome. The goal was for the reading view to feel like the quietest, most confident screen in the app — the place the brand's quality actually lives.
Rather than importing print layouts, I rebuilt the identity from primitives that survive on a small screen: a disciplined type scale, generous whitespace as a signal of quality, and LMD's editorial red used sparingly to mark what matters. Colour did the work of hierarchy so the layout could stay uncluttered.
Bookmarking with offline reading, push notifications for new editions, and video interviews gave readers reasons to return between print cycles — turning a monthly relationship into a habitual one, without diluting the editorial tone.
Minimal isn't empty — it's nothing in the way of the story.— The principle behind every screen
A guided walk through the core flows.
Ink, paper, and a voice of red.
A restrained system, drawn from the world of print journalism: the warmth of paper, the weight of ink, and a single editorial red reserved for the things that matter most.
The foundation still runs.
This was LMD's first step off the page — the app that established the publication's mobile presence and the shape of how its readers would carry it from then on.
What I'd carry forward.
This was early-career work, made with a fellow student, for a brand far older and more established than we were. That gap taught the most useful lesson: designing for a heritage institution is less about invention and more about translation — understanding what made it trusted on paper, and protecting that as it moved to glass.
Looking back, I'd sharpen the reading experience further and pressure-test the navigation with real readers earlier. But the core instinct holds up: give a serious publication a calm, confident interface, spend your boldness in one place, and let the writing be the loudest thing on the screen.