Briefing...
In an online briefing, our organization president, Caryl Santiago shared with us a document briefing of the upcoming event and each of us a checklist of tasks we’ll be doing through our online group chat. This event is meant to be a collaboration between Google and all the other National University branches in Region III, a first of such an event in the Philippines at the time.
The most notable tasks my office got in the provided checklist include:
- Designing the theme for the event
- Drafting the prints for the t-shirt merchandise
- Printable materials for the event (name tags, banners, etc.)
- Publication materials that will be posted daily until the event
This, at the time, was a lot of work for a single creative office for such a short amount of time, and this applies to all other offices, and that is because the entire event is to be worked on by all the valid branches collaboratively and led by me.
Designing...
This has been a long time coming as I’ve made a lot of shirt prints throughout our term in the case that this was finally requested. My prior experience designing merchandise at this point was our sticker pack that featured the Develobears, our organization’s mascot, so settling on a design was not easy, and none of the initial designs I pre-made were approved by the rest of the organization.
After gathering feedback, these were the common responses based on my pre-made designs:
- Simplicity and flatness is an aspect they liked the most
- They want the organization to be more prominently represented rather than vaguely
- None of the designs are visible enough from afar
My first draft of the back design was immediately approved. It mixes the ideas of my past designs and the organization’s logo for representation. The first thing you’ll see are the angle brackets matching the four colors of google, but look closer and you will also see the four of the many concepts of development (UI/UX, ERD for the Database, Flowchart, and Codes). Scattered around are subtle letters of the organization’s initials and the brackets’ outlines which I’ve decided to implement to add depth.
The front’s left chest design took a lot more redesigns, however. The first three designs have the same intention of using the stationary style of GDSCs theme, but the other officers wanted the design to be more readable and recognizable, therefore following the same style as the back design to maintain consistency.
A complication happened on the day the shirt is to be printed however as I accidentally left the USB drive containing the print designs. From that day forward, I’ve always kept in mind to keep my works’ backups online to not repeat the same humiliating mistake.
Collaborating...
Working with other people remotely and having not personally met was a new experience for me at the time, and communication was a major barrier during our preparations. To adapt, we divided the work as soon as we had a meeting and established these routine checks of each of our progress checking each of our works around the preparations.
This worked to keep the interaction with the other branches and keep the quality in check. Although looking back, there are certainly a lot of things I could have done better like having more faith in the other branch and decreasing the routine checks on our progress, better knowing their strengths, and better division of the tasks.
Executing...
Our last big event was Gather 2023 which was as big as two rooms, this was our entire event place. On this day of the event though, I was immediately tasked with unlisted designs I need to work on:
- Animated assets
- Photobooth frame
- Happening now publication materials
This was certainly sudden and caught me by surprise, but this served as a test of how fast I can design my creative works in such a short amount of time from how I was when I first joined the organization.
I still hadn't moved on from the fact that my work managed to get featured on such a big event, and am still very thankful for our org president Caryl Santiago and everyone else in the GDSC-NU Baliwag for giving me the opportunity and support throughout this event.
This work didn't go unnoticed either — I was chosen as a candidate for creatives lead for the campus' year end Gala Night 2024. I didn't get it, and honestly the person who did was the more capable and experienced choice, but being considered for it at all meant a lot to me.