Innovative Design

PRESIDENT

Deliverables

Leading and building a DEI-forward creative agency with a robust community of graphic designers, web designers, and photographers.

OVERVIEW

a New Creative Agency

In my third year at USC, I had the privilege overseeing the first in-person year of Innovative Design, a student-run creative agency with over 70 members, shipping 30 professional contract-based client projects each year. Alongside Karla Leung, my co-president, I led 14 project leads, 12 operations leads, and  ~40 designers of various skill levels a semester, to foster a community centered around accessibility, education, and camaraderie. Innovative Design aims to support not only high quality client projects, but also holistic design thinking and education in the greater Los Angeles and USC area through web design, photography, and graphic design.

Goals and Vision

It was my goal to shape the culture of this new, unique creative presence in such a way that emphasized a propensity to learn moreso than solely valuing pre-existing design talent.

CLIENT WORK

Contract design and photography

Innovative Design welcomes 3 graphic design teams, 3 web design teams, and one photography team per semester (two semesters per academic year). Each year, over 30 projects are successfully shipped, with past contracts being signed for branding, media kits, animation, layout and print design, product flows, shopify website design, nft design, event photography, and more. Below are just a few of the projects Innovative Design is proud to have collaborated on.

Accessibility and education

Mission

Supporting design and designers from inception to fruition is a core value of Innovative Design. Therefore, our agency organizes several educational endeavors, available to students both on campus and nationwide through digital resources. InnoD believes strongly in both accessible design education/making resources more available, and education about accessibility practices, meaning that diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts are omnipresent in our workflows, seminars, and trainings as well.

National Events

Since its inception in 2020, Innovative Design has launched two annual events, a conference and a designathon, as well as over 15 educational workshops spanning creative topics. I had the unique privilege of orchestrating the first of all of these events in 2020-2021.
CREATESC: UI/UX DESIGNATHON
400+ registrants
8 partnerships
65 project submissions
Each year, CreateSC draws in hundreds of registrants across the United States, inviting students to tackle design challenges such as fostering community in a socially-distanced world and encouraging user wellness.
RIPTIDE: DESIGN/TECH CONFERENCE
200+ registrants
8 ORGANIZATION PARTNERSHIPS
9 GUEST speakers
4 workshops
Riptide was first launched virtually under Innovative Design in 2020, and has since grown to welcome guests from large creative agencies, startups, venture capital firms, and non-profits, and even be sponsored by Notion, Figma, and Adobe.

Personal Takeaways

InnoD was my first introduction to product design when I initially joined the org as an external operations chair and photographer in 2020.
Since then, Innovative Design has encouraged me to pursue design professionally, empowered me to reinvent my perception of creativity, and emboldened me to consistently aspire to be an ally to others, whether they be mentors who have done the same for me, inexperienced creatives looking to learn, or the users I design for.

I learned to...

Show up, in more ways than one.
01.
Belonging to a community and contributing to it in a meaningful way is a surefire way to learn a great deal about yourself and about others. It's one thing to be on your own best behavior when you're in a good mood or have free time or ideal conditions, but showing up for others, even when you might not feel immediately compelled to,
Make friends, not connections
02.
I worked with several UX researchers, who also acted as mentors, to create and run a study with 12 users and the flows I created. No matter who you are as a designer, or how confident you are in your designs, you are not wholly indicative of your entire user audience, so research is a superpower to create in a way that is conscientious, truly human-centered, and informed.
Chart my own course.
03.
No path to success, great story, or long journey is wholly linear. Don't be afraid to throw yourself into the fire and explore curiosities! Be curious, be assertive, and be authentic. Metaphorically being denied a seat at a table provides more certainty than never daring to sit (and besides, if you're denied a seat, you can always make your own table).

MORE COOL STUFF:

It's dangerous to go alone! 
Take this.

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