🦆 Interaction Nerds by UXA | S24.05
The Becoming You Issue: Communication Design Fundamentals, Positioning Yourself in Design, Reflecting on Your Growth, and Finding Yourself in Design with Jerry Viena!
👋 Announcements — TEDxCMU: Ignite!
TEDxCMU invites you to our annual main event where we showcase TEDx speakers, our Innovation Exposition, and more! Tickets include talks from this year's TEDxCMU speakers, student performances, and a Piada meal!
Our theme this year is Ignite! We invite you to delve into the unknown with us, igniting a spark that will shape those around us. Join us at McConomy in the University Cohon Center on Saturday, 2/24 at 1:00 pm! We hope to see you all there :)
🍎 Campus Compass — 51-262 Communication & Digital Design Fundamentals
Written & edited by: 🚐 Sherry Chen
HCI classes not teaching you enough visual design skills? Take a class in the School of Design through the non-major courses. 51-262 is a communication design fundamentals course offered to anyone! ❇️
🤔 What is 51-262 Communication & Digital Design Fundamentals?
A one-semester course that introduces non-majors to the field of communication design. Through studio projects, lectures, and demonstrations, students become familiar with the visual and verbal language of communication designers, the design process, and the communicative value of word and image.
🧐 What do you do in 51-262 Communication & Digital Design Fundamentals?
In this course, you'll explore the basics of design, covering everything from typography, grids, color, compositions. Students learn to design posters, presentations, and newsletter, and more.
🤔 Who should take 51-262 Communication & Digital Design Fundamentals?
Anyone! You! There are no prerequisites. It’s an elective for many majors, including a requirement for the minor in Design.
💓 Editor’s Pick — Finding Your Niche as a UI/UX Designer
Written & edited by: 🍳 Evelyn Lui
What kind of impact do I want out of my work? How do I position myself uniquely in the industry? Most importantly, what is my purpose as a designer?
For any designers out there who are feeling lost, it may feel scary thinking about the future and where we’re heading. 😔 Here’s a small guide that will hopefully provide some direction for you!
4 Different Ways to Position Yourself:
🪧 Platform Positioning:
What specific platforms do you design for, and what are its prospects? The strength of that platform also ties in with your strength as a designer, so try to be thoughtful with the platforms your brand is based on.
Example: Designing for AR/VR
🌆 Vertical Positioning:
Are you passionate about designing for a specific industry? While it may take time to accumulate experience within that industry, it’ll also make you stand out and help attract clients!
Example: Designing for healthcare technology
👥 Demographic Positioning:
Who are the people you’re interested in designing for? Wanting to service a particular demographic can be as challenging as it is rewarding as it takes a lot of effort to keep up with the constant shift in needs.
Example: Designing for kids
💡 Value Positioning:
Shared values can be a powerful motivating force that leads to powerful designs. For some designers, it can feel invigorating to be part of something larger than themselves.
Example: Designing for accessibility
If it feels like some of these didn’t apply to you, it’s also fine to continue exploring and experimenting to discover what works best for you! Finding your place as a designer is a process that looks different for everyone, so focusing on your unique path is your best strategy. Best of luck to everyone! 💞
🎭 Resource — Reflecting on your growth as person and designer
Written & edited by: 🕺 Arin Pantja
It can be daunting to think about what your specialty or specific interests in design might be. Remember that it’s an ever-changing journey and everyone is on their own path for discovery and learning! Here are some quizzes (by no means determines you as a person) you can check out that may give you some insight into you as a person, and a designer.
🧠 Personality tests
☁️ 16 Personalities Test — Learn more about the way you approach or think about the world around you through the Myers-Briggs personality test.
✋ The Big Five Personality Test — a personality test that gives you scores amongst 5 major personality dimensions, to measure your key personality traits
🖌️ Designer related tests
🎨 Adobe Creative Types Test — Explore some creative personalities that could give you insight to some of your motivations, natural talents, biggest hurdles.
💭 Guiding questions to help you identify the strengths you can and should lean into
Prompts and quizzes may help you find your deeper interests, strengths, and even things you might want to continue working on. 🧗 Making time once in a while to take a step back can be helpful for your own growth as a person and as a designer!
🧑💻 Interview — Finding yourself through Design with Jerry Viena, ex-Spotify Designer
Written & edited by: 🥸 Kaitlyn Ng and 🍳 Evelyn Lui
Design is hard. On one hand, we might be chasing the perfect resume-building case studies and positions. On the other hand, we might be driven by a non-career focused desire to simply create things that are fun. Balancing these two desires, and finding opportunities to do so after graduation, is at the core of a lot of designer’s lives. This week, we talked to Jerry Viena, an ex-Spotify designer that has struck that balance. Join us as we delve into the challenges and reward of finding yourself through your work.
Yeah, I’m going to be designing screens for work, but I want to find something that really brings me happiness. The past couple months have been really fun just because I'm bringing design back to what I love.
— Jerry Viena
🛝 Fun — mmm.page
Written & edited by: 🦝 Caleb Sun
Tired of boring Webflow, Cargo, and Squarespace sites? Want to actually show some personality in your portfolio website? You’d be surprised how much your creativity can flow when the tools you use allow for them! Check out this cool page-builder by user u/xhfloz called mmm.page for some wild website fun!
🤔 Who’s behind the scenes?
The editors behind this week’s issue are 🥸 Kaitlyn Ng, 🧸 Ahana Banerjee, 🕺 Arin Pantja, 🍳 Evelyn Lui, 🚐 Sherry Chen, and 🦝 Caleb Sun.
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