Emerging Expertise

Leveraging Design to Complement Computer Science

The goal for this page is to highlight the areas of my schooling that are being shaped by the school projects I am doing and the classes that I am taking. These areas can complement each other in unique ways that set me apart from other candidates for jobs that I will be applying for.

Introduction

When I started my computer science degree, I was interested in building websites from the ground up. Web development sparked my interest in computer science, and I was never interested in working on the back end. Originally, I wanted to pursue an art degree, but I realized I just wanted to use art as a complement to my career. I wanted to find a combination of art and more analytical skills that I was good at in high school. Computer science, and more specifically web development, seemed like a good combination of the two.

I decided to add a minor in graphic design to be able to communicate my ideas better to my audience. In one of my early design classes, the professor was explaining to the class that people either design or develop. Very few people do both, and he used the term unicorn to describe them. This is the zone that I want to be in, so I have looked for ways in my years in college to merge graphic design, computer science, and web development. I want to be able to fully design and create a brand for clients. This would include aspects of design and web development. In this page, I will be highlighting three projects that have made me a better designer and developer.

Karachi 36 assets

2036 Karachi Olympic Games Branding Concept

For this first project, I had to create a complete branding system for a hypothetical future Olympic Games. The city I was given was Karachi, Pakistan. I had to create colors, type, logos, icons, and products that positively represented Karachi and stayed true to the overarching branding of the Olympics.

This project benefited me as a computer scientist because it gave me more confidence to be able to create a full branding system for a company, and it allowed me to have a small taste of seeing what the process would be to take that branding that I made and use it to code a website that follows the brand guidelines. It also gave me experience dealing with a client who might have different goals than I do. In the context of this assignment, my teacher would have acted as the role of the client.

You can view the whole project brief here.

Cup of Chai Marketing Project

For this project, I worked with a small team of my classmates to create marketing materials for a chai place, named a Cup of Chai, in Indianapolis. We were supposed to create two reel-type short videos that promoted an aspect of the company. We ended up making two videos and an image carousel that the client liked so much that they were posted the same day we turned them in.

This project helped me gain experience working in a team of designers to create projects for a client. This is very similar to how working in a design firm would operate. Our professor acted as the head designer, and we turned things in to her to get approval to send to the client. This system is also similar to how my internship works, with multiple people working on aspects of the website development at the same time.

You can view the project brief and videos here.

Animation still from a stop motion ad

NHPA Website stills

NHPA Internship

This is a project that I am currently working on for my internship. I am using this internship as an honors capstone experience. The goals of the internship are to recreate the website for the North American Hardware & Paint Association (NHPA) because it has not been updated in a while and needs a full refresh. You can see an image of the new site on top and the old site on the bottom.

This project is an accumulation of all the knowledge that I have learned through my time in college. I am combining graphic design and web development to both create the designs of the page layouts and then develop them once I have something that I like. I could see myself working somewhere close to this internship once I graduate.

Here is a link to the old site to see what I am working with: Old NHPA Site

Reflection

These projects and many other projects that I have done in my time in college have helped reinforce where I am and what I am studying in school. I have enjoyed these projects that allow me to use creativity in the ways that I design and solve problems in my projects. They also force me to think analytically to effectively communicate with my audience. As I graduate and move into my career, I will continue to find ways to merge these two things.

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