Pixel Husky Event Planning

A NON-TRADITIONAL DESIGN PROJECT

I believe a good designer sees all problems in life with a design eye. And a good designer can translate all that is learned from other disciplines into design. That is why I want to feature Pixel Husky in my portfolio as a design project.

A PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED

I relaunched Pixel Husky 2 years ago because I saw a problem that frustrated me and was waiting to be solved: design was still misunderstood.

THE SOLUTION

The first truly interdisciplinary design club at University of Washington Seattle with a completely new branding from our Creative Director Justin McKissick to fit our new ambition.

OFFICER TEAM 2016-2017

WHAT WE DO

We run 4-5 events a quarter and cater them to all 3 groups of audience: designers, non-designers and prospective designers. Our event types include talks, panels, workshops and other creative formats of events.

THE RESULT

PROBLEMS REMAIN UNSOLVED

We realized even though we had a diverse group of members, there were still problems existing that did not get solved by our current way of running the club.

Problem 1

Even though we used different events to attract different audiences, our 3 groups of audiences were still separated instead of immersing with one another.

Problem 2

Even though we brought in speakers from the industry, the contact with the real world design was still superficial and minimal.

Problem 3

There were plenty of hackathons and business competitions, but there was no large-scale event that celebrated the power of design.

THE SOLUTION

A 7-week-long event that is different from everything that is out there: The Pixel Project. Students would form their own teams to work on company proposed projects or their own with constructive feedback from industry mentors.

APPROACH EVENT PLANNING AS A DESIGN PROBLEM

It was our first time running such a large scale event that is different from everything that is out there. Therefore, our work session one was unavoidably quite chaotic. We as a team wanted to improve the experience of work session two. I created two experience map for participants and mentors as a conversation starter at the feedback meeting.