CreateSC

What I learned from founding USC's first UI/UX Design competition

Lesson 1: It takes a village

The first lesson I learned: it really does take a village. From my CreateSC Co-Founder, Ashton, to our USC Adobe Brand Ambassador Mom, Sarah, to the marketing and education team at Adobe, to the industry professional speakers, to other brand ambassadors, to our CreateSC team... collaboration really made our world go round. After a seemingly endless stream of emails and conference calls and meetings, I learned that pulling off feats like this requires everyone to communicate effectively, contribute frequently, and support others enthusiastically.

All the amazing companies that contributed to our first CreateSC

Lesson 2: Design isn't a straight line

When it came to branding, Ashton and I communicated back and forth and went through quite a few iterations before we decided upon what we were happy with. Needless to say, our branding changed directions a lot, and it also meant that we had to give it a few tries to settle on something we both liked as designers. So that was lesson number two: good design --and more specifically good branding-- isn't a one-shot attempt, especially when you're sharing a vision with other creatives. Displayed below are the various iterations we went through for our branding.

Different explorations for our branding approach

Lesson 3: You can't ever be TOO ready

With events, anything can go wrong. Which is why our Google Team Drive had sub-folders... lots and lots of folders. When it came to being detailed, this was my third lesson: being detailed is also about being predictive— and you can never be too ready. This came into play especially during 1) our marketing efforts and 2) the actual day of. With marketing, we learned to strategize; we armed ourselves with spreadsheets and prepared social media prime-time posting assignments. With the day of, we stocked up on materials and prepared timelines by the minute. The result? A very smooth (phew!) first event AND a solid foundation to continue the event for years to come.

A little glimpse into the day-of event!

Workshops

Leading Adobe CC workshops: Teaching students and generating leads

AdobeXd: Design your portfolio

To meet a growing campus interest in UI/UX design, we decided to do a two birds one stone type workshop where I co-led a workshop with my fellow ambassador, Nishant, to teach people how to design their portfolios AND do it on Adobe Xd.

Adobe Photoshop + Illustrator: Easy, Breezy, Baugasm

During my spring semester, I got to co-lead an Illustrator workshop with a fellow brand ambassador, Kaitlyn, in collaboration with The American Institute for Graphic Arts (AIGA) to introduce student creatives to Vasjen Katro's unique style of graphic design: Baugasm. To guide attendees, I created my own Baugasm poster and recreated it step by step using a mix of Illustrator and Photoshop.