Yes Toucan!
A Planner for the NeuroSpicy
“Yes Toucan!” is a planner concept designed with a specific goal in mind: supporting productivity for neurodivergent individuals whose needs are often not met by traditional planners.
For many neurodivergent people—sometimes playfully referred to as “neurospicy”—routine tasks like maintaining a planner can feel tedious or even impossible at times. While the desire to stay organized is there, many brains crave novelty, flexibility, and immediate reward—qualities that conventional planners rarely provide.
This project aims to address that gap by designing a planner that is both usable and sustainable over time. Rather than relying on rigid structure, “Yes Toucan!” focuses on flexibility, engagement, and adaptability, creating a system better suited to the ways many neurodivergent people naturally think and work.
Can’t keep up with a planner? Yes Toucan!
Maximum Customization
With an intentionally minimalist design and subdued color palette, the planner is built to maximize customization.
Its slim yet durable two-ring binder allows users to rearrange pages to suit their personal workflow and preferences. This flexibility also helps reduce the pressure of perfectionism—if a page doesn’t turn out the way you hoped, it can simply be removed and replaced with a new one.
The inclusion of dot-grid pages gives users complete control over layout. Sections can be structured and aligned, or arranged more freely depending on the user’s needs. The format also leaves room for personalization through decorations such as stickers, pins, or other creative elements.
Heavyweight paper supports a wide range of media beyond standard pen and pencil. The guidelines are printed lightly so they can either be traced for structure or ignored entirely for a cleaner, more open page.
Quick-Fill Reminder Pages
A key feature of the Yes Toucan! planner is its “Reminder” pages. Neurodivergent minds often struggle with the pressure of expectation—even for tasks as simple as filling out a calendar. When our thoughts are already moving in a dozen directions, writing down a full appointment or note can feel like one step too many.
These pages are designed to lower the barrier to getting important information onto paper.
Each reminder calendar—whether daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly—is structured for quick color-coding. Instead of writing out the full details of an appointment, the user can simply mark the entry with a color that corresponds to a category, using a small key for reference.
This removes the pressure to fully document an event in the moment. Additional details can always be added later, but the important step is capturing the reminder while it is fresh. By reducing the friction involved in noting an event, the system helps build momentum and supports routine-building in areas where consistency can otherwise be difficult.
The logo was designed with different levels of complexity in mind, scaling easily with the number of colors to accommodate a wide range of printing capability.
Additionally, I narrowed the base colors down to an off-black, and the vibrant orange, keeping the energetic feel of the brand in mind.
I wanted the fonts to be rounded, friendly, and easily legible while still having a touch of charm. Giulia was perfect with its rounded ends, matching the shape language of the toucan in the logo.
The ‘Yes’ in the logo is also a modification to Giulia Bold.
Although Yes Toucan! remains a concept at this time, I would love to expand this project and eventually make it a tangible reality.
As print margins and color profiles are all print-ready, realistically, the files are ready to go!
Further considerations to be made would be the material of the binder, as well as liasoning with reliable printers and their print recommendations, as each printing press can differ.
Remember, when you don’t think you can; Yes Toucan!