Being my first project in a space that I was not familiar with, the whole experience was quite challenging, as it required me to not only put myself into a position to understand mutiple groups of users (developers and founders) due to the fact that I had no access to any user research methods nor data.

I was tasked with creating the brand for the Algorand Blockchain. The Blockchain is relatively new, and is always looking for developers to build infrastructure. However, as Algorand has their own programming language, the number of developers who can function in this space are few. Answering ro a surge in developers who wish to expand into the crypto industry, as well as the need for talent trained in Algorand’s programming language, there is a missing link in training and certifying talent, and connecting them with the Algorand community.

The site had to have two branches, a Venture Studio, as well as a Developer Resource hub, for Developers to access courses and channels that allow them to ask for help or discuss relevant topics.

As it was a new endeavor, there wasn’t much I could do in terms of research or references, but after speaking with stakeholders and discussions with the design team, I started by designing the logo for the project.

To start things off, I came up with two possible directions to take the project - a more creative and colorful aesthetic, or a more structured and reliable aesthetic. The former was agreed on.

I then chose a color palette based on the parent company, Algorand, and leaning towards something reminiscent of their unique programming language TEAL, picked a palette that featured the colour.

The initial logo designs featured the following main ideas - a foundry, coding, and the Algorand logo.

We then considered the user journeys for each user group.

After coming up wit the initial sketches and exploring several different themes and styles on how to present the information in a clean and efficient manner while meeting the client’s aesthetic tastes, I came up anth the following ptototpes.

The next step was usability testing, where some more changes were impleemnted to improve usability and accessibility, Some of the more major changes are as below:

The changes were reflected on the mobile version of the site.

The initial iterations of the website and mobile design were revised several times, and I arrived at the final product as below:

The whole experience of working on AlgoFoundry was especially tedious, as I was put into a situation where stakeholders did not really understand the process of UIUX design, and also required me to be involved in aspects of product design and marketing, and were personally invested in the design process.

As I was also unfamiliar with the industry space, despite doing research and extensive reading, this led to multiple iterations and discussions. There were several instances that required me to stand my ground on certain aspects of the project to help stakeholders see a bigger picture and maintain the optimal user experience while balancing stakeholders’ wants and requirements.

The website was designed to tie in with the branding of the physical retail shop so that there is a shared identity so that customers wouldn’t be confused and it would be easier to establish a sense of unity in terms of identity.

The branding of the retail shop had already been established at this point, so I made use of the brand colours and style of the Hakken! branding, which was intended to be clean, graphic, and friendly with bold and vibrant colours.

As this project was tasked to me while I was still working as a Graphic Designer at Muse Communication SG, neither myself nor my team was aware of what needed to be considered and the correct process to go about planning and designing a platform like this.

I was essentially given a list of pages that were needed and told to include certain functions. It was a very one-way process, and it was challenging as I had literally no idea what I was doing, and whether what I was doing was correct. I only had my Manager to speak to with regards to the design and flow of the whole app and website, so I had to study a lot of similar websites such as Amiami and Tokyo Otaku Mode to get a clue on where to start and what was needed. Furthermore, because there was no plan, feedback would come back telling me that I missed certain pages although they weren't thought of in the initial design phase. I had to propose a lot of changes as I thought about things like User flow and the User journey.

I also had no idea programs such as Figma and XD existed, so I did all the prototypes in Illustrator.

It was tedious and tiring, and I hope that I will never have to repeat this experience again.

As I had designed the project with no knowledge of the UIUX process, I had little documentation, and worked on the revisions as they came.

The final screens are as below for both mobile and web versions.

This experience taught me that planning is extremely important; as well as Market and User Research.

The value of information and the consistency of a solid plan to fall back on and serve as a basis to rework on is incredibly reassuring.

I also learned how time-consuming it is to start a design without a wireframe to pitch to the client or higher-up, as the back and forth between the designer is extremely tedious. After going through this project, however, I discovered that I enjoy doing experiential digital design, even more than events and graphic design. It opened my eyes to new possibilities and perhaps set me on the path to becoming a UX Designer. Although I arguably completed this project on "Hard Mode", I enjoyed myself greatly and hope to continually be able to become a better designer.

After about 5 years of experience in Graphic Design, I decided to pursue User Interface and User Experience Design.

The Vertical Institute Bootcamp allowed me to learn and execute the User Experience process from start to end, addressing real-world problems by designing new digital business products or redesigning existing ones.

The capstone project required me make use of the new tools and concepts that I’ve learned in the course and apply in the following manners: Human-centered user research personas Good Information architecture, user flows and navigation Wireframing and prototyping with clear annotation A portfolio-ready design prototype with walkthrough

In a survey reported by the Straits Times, 54% of Singapore residents said that they would struggle or be unable to meet their financials needs in the event of unexpected illness or job loss. This indicates that many of these individuals have little or no means of savings, or that their income is insufficient, or they may be having trouble budgeting.

Another survey conducted by HSBC finds that many Singaporeans do not do financial planning and have poor money habits.

But as it stands, it’s not that individuals lack the resources to do so, so why don’t Singaporeans have a better grasp of their finances?

To find out why the problem exists, we decided to conduct a survey with several coursemates who were interested in the same topic of Personal Budgeting.

We needed to identify and balance our goals: the user goal, on how we can provide value to users and improved their lives, and the business goal, on how we can drive business.

In order to identify the problem and scope, we made use of several techniques:

In order to identify and create a shared understanding of our potential users, we also made use of empathy maps.

We narrowed down the main pain points to: Financial literacy Lack of Structured budgeting

We continued and proceeded to identify the user.

We explored what user research techniques would be appropriate to help us get a better picture of user needs and requirements.

We decided to conduct a simple survey, and then continued to brainstorm what questions would serve us best for our purposes.

We managed to successfully conduct the survey and arrived at the following conclusions.

We then started work on our apps, employing brainstorming techniques like crazy 8 to brainstorm possible features and value adding qualities to include in the project.

After confirming the features that I wanted to implement, I proceeded to sketch out the wireframes for each screen.

After discussing minor changes with the instructors, we moved on to the design and prototyping stage.

I had to choose a name for the app, and decided to call it “Hold”. Here are some of the initial logo designs.

I designed low fidelity screens on figma, primarily to get used to using the tool, and received feedback from instructors, before starting on the final design.

The idea was to create a fun and user friendly personal budgeting app to reward users for managing their own finances and participating in exclusive events or activities.

I feel that the project was a great eye-opener for me on the thought and detail that goes into UIUX Design, and working on this served to make me even more interested in this field of design.

It gave me valuable insight on the workings and best practices of User Experience design, and made me hope to be able to pratice it in my future.

Hakken! Anime Merchandise Retail Shop

As the Creative and Marketing lead for the company I was tasked with creating and building a brand from ground up, from the website and app design, marketing direction, social media presence and identity.

After the design of the logo, based on the Japanese word “発見” which means “to discover”, the brand was built on the idea of delivering new discoveries and surprises to customers with every purchase.

The brand intention is to be clean but fun, with a friendly and relatable voice, making use of bold and vibrant colours to create a dynamic identity.

There were two main aspects of the brand - the physical retail shop at two locations in Singapore, and the online and mobile site and app.

I was responsible for the creative decisions with regards to the brand, and crafted marketing campaigns and their visuals for every campaign until October 2021. This included all of their graphic content for social media and their website and app.

I also designed and produced catalogues for the physical shops monthly (which later became bi-monthly), as well as for appearances during events and conventions.

Aside from promotional content, I also curated and executed proposals for store “take-overs”, where we would choose and feature particular animation series and crafted promotional content based on it.

If you’d like to see some of what I’ve done, you can take a look at the Genshin Impact Takeover and the That Time I was Reincarnated as a Slime Takeover, both of which I conceptualized, supervised and executed, from proposal to set-up, liaising with suppliers and printers and personally overseeing the quality and installation of components.

As Genshin Impact was (and stil is) immensely popular, it was brought up that we could have a Genshin Impact feature in the Hakken! Retail shop, and make use of the shop facilities to promote the influx of new merchandise that we had received.

As such, I worked on several marketing campaigns and prepared a proposal to send to the licnese holders to make use of their assets and promote their merchanidse and content.

We made use of standees, videos, graphics, and skinned the retail shop in a way that shoppers felt like they were in an exclusive themed space.

I created custom postcards as well as character and weapon postcards, and set the theme of the campaign to resemble the aesthetics of the game, but in the Hakken! colours.

The final theme take over is as below:

Shop front (photo)

Shop Front (photo)

Front Display (photo)

Counter design

Giant Lightbox

Back entrance and Promotional wall

In order to further tie everything together, we pushed Genshin merchandise especially aggressively during this period of time, and curated exclusive shop windows. We rewarded customers for spending, and had lucky draw events that resembled the “Gacha” experiences in-game in order to push sales and foot fall.

Another one of the more memorable “Take Overs” that I did was that for “That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime”.

It was a popular anime series at the time, and they were about to release their second season, so we decided to propose a collaboration with the licensors to feature their products and promote their season 2 release.

I came up with the idea of a “Mission Card”, where customers can be rewarded for playing mini games in our shop venues, driving not only footfall to our shops, but also product marketing.

I prepared the proposal and designed all of the visuals using assets that were provided to us by the licensors, adopting a design style that is somewhat reminiscent of their official website design (JP) for season 2.

The marketing material shared the same design theme and colour scheme. They were posted at different points of the campaign on social media (FB and IG).

Customers had a lot of fun with the campaign, and rapport was built with customers through certain activities that were conducted during this period.

The theme take over is as below: unfortunately I couldn’t find actual photos of some of the areas, as it’s been some time, but I managed to find the mock-ups I made for proposal pruposes.

Shop front (mock up)

Front Display (mock up)

Front Display (photo)

Product Display (photo)