Russian Design Cup: how to make a professional portfolio in 45 days
Many interesting stories begin with the words "What if ..." So almost two years ago, I got the idea: "What if you gather people involved in solving interesting practical problems in design and invite them to share their experience with everyone who wants try your hand at designing interaction, graphic and information design? ”The company in which I work supported this idea. 4 excellent designers responded to the proposal to enter the jury and last autumn we held the first Russian Design Cup . In this post I will briefly talk about the results of 2012 and what awaits you this fall.
2012 - everything is just beginning
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You can read about how it all began , as well as reviews about the tournament and jury interviews in last year’s articles.
Promotion for beginners, entertainment for professionals
It turned out that for novice designers participating in the RDC is not only a chance to try their hand at interesting tasks, but most importantly - a way to create an unusual portfolio. The winner of the RDC 2012, Nikita Ivanov, made a page that helped him find an interesting job and move to Moscow. Vadim Rostotsky, who took third place from Kiev, not only published his work in the portfolio , but also laid out the icon created by him from the task at Dribble , gaining a serious number of likes for a beginner in the opening. We invited him to work with us, and the RDC 2013 is largely the fruit of his work. For experienced designers, participating in the RDC is a way to compare your level with others, air your brains and try yourself in completely different areas of design. This year, the jury came up with an incredibly diverse tasks.
Changes to the contest site: open profiles and statistics by year
Last year it was not possible to see the profile of the participant, his work and place in the tournament on the contest website Everything was very simple, and after the end of the competition, we uploaded work and tasks to Facebook. This year, the system has gained new functionality, which I am very pleased to talk about.
How to evaluate the design
The design is very subjective, unlike programming. Solutions to our problems cannot be automatically evaluated by the script or file size. We will not be able to test every idea on users or conduct research. Therefore, the evaluation of work in the RDC is also subjective, and the relative balance can only be achieved by varying the composition of the jury. Therefore, this year not only practicing designers and art directors, but also design teachers, heads of companies and one manager (by the way, a former designer) were included in the commission assessing the work. They will evaluate the work on a five-point scale. Each of them has its own expectations and understanding of what can be considered a good design. If one looks more at the originality of the presentation and the freshness of the idea, then the other looks at the feasibility and system approach, the third is more important than the graphic side, and the fourth is in a hurry and is unlikely to read long text descriptions. I agree, this adds some uncertainty, but in it I see beauty and intrigue.
The winner of the competition will not be the one who is strongly “pumped” in any particular area (for example, the master of icons with “glass” highlights), but the one who accepts any challenge in any field of design. Who quickly learns, finds the right information, thinks logically, understands the “sufficiency” of the detail needed for a high score. Such a person does not limit himself to the level of his competence and is ready for the new and the unexpected. I am sure that among those who are reading these lines now there are many such people. I would advise the jury to evaluate solutions as test tasks that their company gives to applicants, answering the question for themselves: “Such a person would suit us, could he grow and be effective in our company, inspire with his ideas and define product design? “Such an assessment, in my opinion, will be as honest as possible in a design competition.
Jury: practitioners, theorists and leaders
Now is the time to introduce our jury and ourselves as well.
Lena Dronova. Art director at Innova (online games and Ayyo movie service). The teacher on the course of design in the interactive environment of the British Higher School of Design. He is fond of acrobatics on the trampoline.
Yuri Vetrov. Head of the team for designing and designing Mail.Ru interfaces. Engaged in communication and information products - Mail, Calendar, Answers, Mail.Ru main page, mobile sites and applications, content projects, general portal tasks. Holds UX-Wednesday and Russian Dribbble Meetup, makes an interface digest and bypasses 96 burger in Moscow.
Dmitry Zimin. Product Manager at Kinohod. Previously, he led the design department at Afisha Rambler. Organized by World Usability Day Russia. Prepares hookahs, makes up for Retina.
Alisher Yakupov. Head of Design in OK. Previously, he was a designer in Yandex and Habrahabr. Organizer of the competition Russian Design Cup. Certified instructor for TRX, L1 Crossfit Trainer. It runs 10 kilometers in 39 minutes 24 seconds, and 42 kilometers in 3 hours 35 minutes.
Ivan Semenov. Leading designer in the new for Yandex direction of media services. Former art director and co-author of the last restart of Rambler. Without serious achievements in running and eating burgers.
Dmitry Novikov. A senior designer at MacPaw, who is working on CleanMyMac, the most popular system utility for Mac. Supporter of vector graphics, evangelist Sketch.app. macpaw.com.
Before the New Year have time
From October 28 to November 8, the first round will take place. We specifically make it longer, you can join the list of participants any day.
From 15 to 22 November - the second round.
From November 29 to December 6 - the third round.
December 13 - announcement of the winners.
We really wanted to hold a competition earlier, but the new system turned out to be more labor-intensive than expected. I am glad that in 2014 we will be able to do everything as planned in August and September.
Prizes
As in the past year - the coolest "apple" pieces of iron. When I collected an order for apple.com, I was guided by the “all to the maximum” rule: memory, speed, power. It turned out hi-end custom configurations that will delight any designer.
Connection
Our accounts in social networks:
The Facebook page - there will be mainly releases, articles and links.
Twitter is a live chat, ask questions, use the hashtag # rdesigncup2013 or mention @RDesignCup .
Technical support - support@russiandesigncup.ru .
thank
I would like to say a special thank you to Mail.Ru Group, which allocated a development team for this project, prizes, and also took on the task of providing logistics for the competition. Also, thanks to the leadership of Odnoklassniki, which understands the benefits of such contests for the design community and gives the opportunity to engage in this project.
Registration is open. Do not forget to specify the size of the T-shirt in your profile. Anyone who performs the tasks of the first round will receive a competition T-shirt by mail, and we really want to make them early.
I wish all the participants a great time and, of course, win.
russiandesigncup.ru
Alisher Yakupov,
Russian Design Cup organization team
2012 - everything is just beginning
- About 1000 people registered before the first round
- Passed the first round - 98 people
- The winners in the third round: Nikita Ivanov (Nizhny Novgorod), Alexander Revyako (Minsk), Vadim Rostotsky (Kiev).
')
You can read about how it all began , as well as reviews about the tournament and jury interviews in last year’s articles.
Promotion for beginners, entertainment for professionals
It turned out that for novice designers participating in the RDC is not only a chance to try their hand at interesting tasks, but most importantly - a way to create an unusual portfolio. The winner of the RDC 2012, Nikita Ivanov, made a page that helped him find an interesting job and move to Moscow. Vadim Rostotsky, who took third place from Kiev, not only published his work in the portfolio , but also laid out the icon created by him from the task at Dribble , gaining a serious number of likes for a beginner in the opening. We invited him to work with us, and the RDC 2013 is largely the fruit of his work. For experienced designers, participating in the RDC is a way to compare your level with others, air your brains and try yourself in completely different areas of design. This year, the jury came up with an incredibly diverse tasks.
Changes to the contest site: open profiles and statistics by year
Last year it was not possible to see the profile of the participant, his work and place in the tournament on the contest website Everything was very simple, and after the end of the competition, we uploaded work and tasks to Facebook. This year, the system has gained new functionality, which I am very pleased to talk about.
- Profiles of participants. This year (and all subsequent) each participant will have their own profile. In it, you can see the tasks and solutions, and give them a link.
- On the profile page, you can provide links to your accounts in social networks and Dribble. This will help you quickly log in, and also give visitors of your page the opportunity to contact you.
- At the end of each separate tour, in addition to the list of winners, pages of problems and decisions of all participants will be opened for the general public.
- Each solution has a separate page with Disqus comments and the ability to send a link to social networks.
- With an equal number of points above, the table will be the one who previously uploaded the work. Therefore, a statistical module is connected to each tour. You can monitor the download of solutions in real time and see the percentage of downloaded / solved tasks.
- The new competition system supports the competition every year. Your profile will accumulate decisions and your personal statistics during all contests.
How to evaluate the design
The design is very subjective, unlike programming. Solutions to our problems cannot be automatically evaluated by the script or file size. We will not be able to test every idea on users or conduct research. Therefore, the evaluation of work in the RDC is also subjective, and the relative balance can only be achieved by varying the composition of the jury. Therefore, this year not only practicing designers and art directors, but also design teachers, heads of companies and one manager (by the way, a former designer) were included in the commission assessing the work. They will evaluate the work on a five-point scale. Each of them has its own expectations and understanding of what can be considered a good design. If one looks more at the originality of the presentation and the freshness of the idea, then the other looks at the feasibility and system approach, the third is more important than the graphic side, and the fourth is in a hurry and is unlikely to read long text descriptions. I agree, this adds some uncertainty, but in it I see beauty and intrigue.
The winner of the competition will not be the one who is strongly “pumped” in any particular area (for example, the master of icons with “glass” highlights), but the one who accepts any challenge in any field of design. Who quickly learns, finds the right information, thinks logically, understands the “sufficiency” of the detail needed for a high score. Such a person does not limit himself to the level of his competence and is ready for the new and the unexpected. I am sure that among those who are reading these lines now there are many such people. I would advise the jury to evaluate solutions as test tasks that their company gives to applicants, answering the question for themselves: “Such a person would suit us, could he grow and be effective in our company, inspire with his ideas and define product design? “Such an assessment, in my opinion, will be as honest as possible in a design competition.
Jury: practitioners, theorists and leaders
Now is the time to introduce our jury and ourselves as well.
Lena Dronova. Art director at Innova (online games and Ayyo movie service). The teacher on the course of design in the interactive environment of the British Higher School of Design. He is fond of acrobatics on the trampoline.
Yuri Vetrov. Head of the team for designing and designing Mail.Ru interfaces. Engaged in communication and information products - Mail, Calendar, Answers, Mail.Ru main page, mobile sites and applications, content projects, general portal tasks. Holds UX-Wednesday and Russian Dribbble Meetup, makes an interface digest and bypasses 96 burger in Moscow.
Dmitry Zimin. Product Manager at Kinohod. Previously, he led the design department at Afisha Rambler. Organized by World Usability Day Russia. Prepares hookahs, makes up for Retina.
Alisher Yakupov. Head of Design in OK. Previously, he was a designer in Yandex and Habrahabr. Organizer of the competition Russian Design Cup. Certified instructor for TRX, L1 Crossfit Trainer. It runs 10 kilometers in 39 minutes 24 seconds, and 42 kilometers in 3 hours 35 minutes.
Ivan Semenov. Leading designer in the new for Yandex direction of media services. Former art director and co-author of the last restart of Rambler. Without serious achievements in running and eating burgers.
Dmitry Novikov. A senior designer at MacPaw, who is working on CleanMyMac, the most popular system utility for Mac. Supporter of vector graphics, evangelist Sketch.app. macpaw.com.
Before the New Year have time
From October 28 to November 8, the first round will take place. We specifically make it longer, you can join the list of participants any day.
From 15 to 22 November - the second round.
From November 29 to December 6 - the third round.
December 13 - announcement of the winners.
We really wanted to hold a competition earlier, but the new system turned out to be more labor-intensive than expected. I am glad that in 2014 we will be able to do everything as planned in August and September.
Prizes
As in the past year - the coolest "apple" pieces of iron. When I collected an order for apple.com, I was guided by the “all to the maximum” rule: memory, speed, power. It turned out hi-end custom configurations that will delight any designer.
Connection
Our accounts in social networks:
The Facebook page - there will be mainly releases, articles and links.
Twitter is a live chat, ask questions, use the hashtag # rdesigncup2013 or mention @RDesignCup .
Technical support - support@russiandesigncup.ru .
thank
I would like to say a special thank you to Mail.Ru Group, which allocated a development team for this project, prizes, and also took on the task of providing logistics for the competition. Also, thanks to the leadership of Odnoklassniki, which understands the benefits of such contests for the design community and gives the opportunity to engage in this project.
Registration is open. Do not forget to specify the size of the T-shirt in your profile. Anyone who performs the tasks of the first round will receive a competition T-shirt by mail, and we really want to make them early.
I wish all the participants a great time and, of course, win.
russiandesigncup.ru
Alisher Yakupov,
Russian Design Cup organization team
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/197766/
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