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Russian Design Cup: results, reviews, impressions



Hooray! The first competition of Russian Design Cup is over. This competition has become a kind of experiment. And, as is known, the value of any experiment is in the data, lessons, experience. And it's time to share it all with you.


The idea to hold a competition came last year. I really wanted to go to interesting designers, and generally make a move in a web-design environment.
')

Facts and Figures


We received about a thousand applications for participation, of the "declared" only a hundred sent work for the first round. 10 participants reached the final, and 9 sent the final works. Among the three winners there is no designer from Moscow and St. Petersburg. The jury met only twice, for the first discussion of the tasks and for the evaluation of the final works. Tasks come up collectively. In spite of the fact that we had a reserve list of tasks, after each round we still reshaped it, added new ones, removed extra ones. With each message on twitter and support, we all understood better how to formulate tasks and hold a competition. Thanks for feedback!

When designing the competition, I wanted to do everything faster and easier, because until the end there was no certainty whether it would be in demand. Therefore, we did not make logins, passwords (which we regretted later). The competition was closed, and only works of finalists are published on the site. This does not mean that you will not see the rest of the works - we will soon fill them in at any convenient place for viewing and discussion. We will arrange a festive web buffet with Lynch and likes. Place and time will inform further on our twitter .

There are plenty of ideas about what the competition will be next year. In one of the tasks there was a proposal to improve our site. We got so many cool concepts and ideas that they were enough for 10 contests. We will contact the author of one of the works and offer to work together on the site and the concept of RDC 2013. Yes, we will pay the money.

What we have learned


Now about the experience of designing the competition itself. Not everything went smoothly, here are the top conclusions for the next year. Need to:


If you have ideas and suggestions - write in the comments. Be sure to think it over.

What, I think, managed to do well:


To make the review of the competition objective, I prepared several questions for the jury members (he himself also answered, was not lazy).

What useful things have you learned from the competition: experience, ideas, plans?


Dmitry Zimin (Rambler)
- Contrary to expectations, there are no Muscovites in the top three (and generally cool designers). Maybe Moscow guys are very busy. Nevertheless, it is good that there are masters in other cities as well. There are still many designers who shift the focus on the visual part, but there are real “thinking designers.” Just the "designer" does not need the market in the future. The market will need a designer-designer, or an analyst-marketer, or a product manager with strong UX-skills.

Kostya Gorsky (Yandex)
- I realized a lot about how a different task was set differently by the participants. I saw a variety of possible solutions and ways of presenting solutions. There were separate magic interface solutions :)

Yuri Vetrov (Mail.Ru Group)
- The first shock was the evaluation of the first stage - 300 works! And they need to be evaluated thoughtfully, to give comments on the most valuable and interesting. And most importantly - completely different work should be compared on a single set of criteria. Strong influence on the assessment and submission of work. This does not mean that a weak result can pass through a spectacular presentation. But she is able to talk about a complex concept without personal communication.

I am very proud of the set of tasks that came out in the end - they were diverse, realistic and balanced in complexity. Although, as always with test tasks, it is not without ambiguity. After all, a brief description of the requirements makes it difficult to choose evaluation criteria, and very detailed - limits the freedom of action of the designer.

It is very important that the jury members communicate live. This made participation more enjoyable for us and decision making more balanced.

Oleg Andrianov (Mail.Ru Group)
- The contest participants presented great ideas, they were not afraid to experiment.

Alisher Yakupov (Classmates)
- For the first time in my life, an official twitter led - an exciting activity. I wrote about plans and ideas at the beginning of the article. It was also fun to run after the “always busy” jury.

Why do you think there are no designers from Moscow and St. Petersburg among the top three winners?


Dmitriy
- Maybe it’s too busy or not motivated (I’m already in a cool office, the salary is good, iMac is already there). Personally, I probably would not have participated, because I often go to some meetings, lectures, entertainment, etc. In the region, this number of classes is less likely.

Oleg
- It seems that metropolitan designers are so harsh that they do not work without a prepayment ಠ_ಠ

Yura
- Well, at least somewhere there should be equality of cities. :) Good designers are everywhere, and it's great that the fully Internet-based RDC format gives equal opportunities for everyone to participate without requiring a presence in a particular city.

Alisher
- And in the final there were many Muscovites, but they were not included in the top three. The regions and the CIS fought more selflessly, perhaps ... to the victorious.

Are there any works and ideas that you hooked and remembered? Tell us about one of them.


Dmitriy
- I liked the first works of Stasis Chepulis. He included his work in the context of the user. He photographed himself, supposedly going to the cinema, putting a ticket to the reader. I didn’t do the social network login interface, explaining why we don’t need to do this from a product point of view.

Oleg

Kostya
- Awesome, crazy, awesome graphics store shop Nikita Ivanov.

Yura
- One of the most memorable was the work of the last stage on the task with adaptability - some of them impressed all the jury (Nike, Nikita Ivanov's mock-ups), and the interfaces for TVs were the most controversial (I really liked the decision of Semyon Molotkov). I will not choose the best work - they hooked on very many things, and it is difficult to compare them.

Separately, I note the presentation of work - many have tried well, and it was interesting to study design layouts and prototypes. It's great that some people were not lazy to photograph the resulting interface in real life - this means that the authors understand the danger of working in a vacuum.

Alisher
- I really liked the work on the RDC redesign: it was clear that the guys were hooked on the topic and they came off in full. Special thanks to everyone who brought their solutions to the real world: printed tickets, connected telephones, poured mockups to phones. I also liked the work on adaptive design and the preparation of instructions for the layout - the level of work is beyond expectations.

What would you say to all the contestants if you saw them now before you?


Dmitriy
- I have something to learn from each of you.

Oleg
- Do your favorite thing. Do not stop there.

Kostya
“You guys are awesome.” Thanks you. You are all incredibly cool! See so many strong works at once - a great pleasure. Trying to evaluate them and find the strongest author is an extremely difficult task.

Yura
- I was very pleasantly impressed by the level of work, as well as the approach to their submission. It's great that we have so many integrated specialists who can both design the interface, offer its visual solution and sell it correctly.

Alisher
- Thanks to all! If the Maya will make a fuss with the calendar, we will meet at RDC 2013. Goodbye.

Alisher Yakupov, Classmates

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/153011/

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