As we move into cooler months, we might see our social calendars ramp up with seasonal activities and events. One industry event that kicked off our social season was the Adobe Creative Jam, a design hack-a-thon event combined with inspiring creative talks from industry leaders.

Glacier Media Digital was proud to have 3 representatives in the competition this year:

• Sam Matheson, UX/UI Digital Designer
• Seonah Han, UX/UI Designer / Web Developer
• Adriano Fernandes, UX/UI Designer

 

After a full and busy day of work at the office, they were off to begin their challenge, which took place at the Loungeworks event space, right here in our lovely Pixel District neighbourhood (a.k.a. Mount Pleasant).

As a previous Adobe Creative Jam competitor myself, I remember the thrill of the challenge as well as the pressure. I couldn’t help but feel some nerves on their behalf. I even had visions of giving them a little pep talk and some pointers before they left for battle, but alas, I was in a meeting during GO-time. In fact, I had to push Seonah out of that very meeting so she could get to the competition on time.

 

The Challenge

This year’s event focused on user experience design with the theme of Diversity & Inclusion. Using Adobe XD, competitors were challenged to interpret the theme into an app concept and design a prototype in 3 short hours, followed by a user-flow demo as proof-of-concept that had to be delivered within 2 minutes.

The Outcomes

1. Colour Check app
Concept by Samantha Matheson & Skye Macpherson

Sam partnered with another UX designer to a build a design tool that allows designers to consider users who are colour blind in their design process – specifically when they are choosing a colour palette for their work. Designers are able to see the results of their palette and make changes according to how the the app rates their palette.

This optical research based tool would assist designers in a broad spectrum of visual communication categories, which not only includes digital interaction design but also signage, print design, illustration, industrial design, typography, animation, and environmental design.

See the Color Check app prototype here.

2. Shop to Share app
Concept by Seonah Han & Adriano Fernandes

Seonah and Adriano combined forces to develop an app prototype which connects consumers and manufacturers/retailers to help people all around the world. Users can shop on this app to benefit causes and NGO’s, where profits will go towards the non-profit organizations associated with the consumer products listed in-app.

Users begin their shopping experience by choosing the need or value they would like their shopping to benefit for the session. For example, if they want their purchases to support Education in Brazil, the next screen would serve products from retailers whose profits will go towards that community cause.

See the Shop to Share app prototype here.
Competition Results
In the end, the judges and audience weighed in, with favour going towards a childhood education app, an emotional diversity awareness app, and a walk & talk with a local app.

In just 3 fleeting hours, it was impressive to see such a variety of purposeful app concepts and prototypes that incorporated the theme of diversity & inclusion in unique ways. Outcomes aside, the Creative Jam theme had us all celebrating and valuing differences between people.

I’d like to thank our 3 GMD champs – Sam, Seonah, and Adriano – for stepping into this renowned Adobe arena and representing our agency this year.

Special thanks to the Adobe XD and Behance for hosting the competition and bringing this event to Vancouver. We’ll be back next year.