In the midst of the pandemic, Kendall Smith made a life-changing decision: to return to school and pursue a career in UX/UI Design. For Kendall, this choice was not just a career pivot; it was a journey towards personal growth, creativity, and the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. Kendall’s portfolio website, www.heyken.design, emerged as a pivotal tool in this transformation, ultimately helping Kendall to secure her dream job.
Brand Mission: Showcasing Work, Personality, and Storytelling
Kendalls’s brand mission was clear from the start: to create a portfolio that wasn’t just a showcase of their design work, but a platform that exuded personality and told a story. As Kendall eloquently puts it, “My goal was to create a portfolio that of course showed my work and design process, but also told a story and had personality.”
Kendall’s website perfectly encapsulates this mission. It’s not just a sterile collection of projects but a narrative of Ken’s creative journey, complete with a personal touch that’s evident in every corner.
Biggest Obstacle: Crafting the Perfect Portfolio
Kendall’s journey was not without its challenges. They recognized the enormity of creating a portfolio, understanding that it can make or break one’s job prospects. Kendall mentions, “I struggled with deciding what or what not to include a lot, and made a lot of revisions to it before it was finalized.”
Many aspiring designers can relate to this struggle. heyken.design, however, stands as a testament to the dedication and hard work put into overcoming these obstacles. It’s a living example of how perseverance pays off.
Company Pride: A Rewarding Journey
For Kendall, the effort paid off handsomely. After presenting the portfolio on heyken.design, Kendall landed the dream job. The journey, though challenging, was immensely rewarding. Kendall reflects, “Getting my current job was such a satisfying thing!”
This experience serves as an inspiration for anyone facing challenges in their career transition. heyken.design showcases the beautiful outcome that can result from hard work and determination.
Company Advice: Embrace Challenges and Keep Learning
Kendall’s advice to fellow designers is simple yet profound: “Keep on pushing forward, don’t be afraid of hiccups, embrace challenges and accept that we are all always learning.”
This mantra is not only evident in the words but also in the portfolio heyken.design itself. The website is a living testament to the spirit of continuous learning and improvement.
Setup Recommendation: Uniqueness Matters
Kendall’s recommendation to aspiring designers is clear: “Do it! Recruiters like to see your unique URLs, and it gets to the point that you’re a designer.”
In a competitive field, having a unique domain like heyken.design sets you apart. It’s an essential step in the journey to becoming a recognized designer.
Why heyken.design: Personal Connection and Identity
Finally, the choice of the .design domain is deeply personal to Kendall. As she explains, “My family and friends have always called me Ken, and we have this joke because every voicemail my mom has ever left me is ‘Hey Ken, this is your mom,’ so heyken just made sense.”
The domain name www.heyken.design isn’t just a website; it’s a part of Kendall’s identity, a representation of their journey, and a platform that uniquely embodies their personality and creative vision.
In conclusion, Kendall’s story of personal growth, creativity, and career success, as told through heyken.design, is a testament to the power of determination, creativity, and a unique web presence. Visit https://www.heyken.design/ to witness how a .design domain can transform a dream into reality.
Of the four disciplines that students can major in, each of these areas can be further sub-divided, giving students more possibilities to find their voice. For example, Design includes package design, editorial design, information graphics, branding, publication design, book jacket design, environmental design, and interactive design.
In addition to a faculty directory and links to apply for admission, the site primarily features a portfolio of work from design students across every discipline.
Musho.design is the personal portfolio of Michal Simkovic, a digital designer focused on UI design for mobile and web apps.
“Design in general should be a solution to a problem,” says Michal. “Ideally the best design is ‘just enough’ design: like music in a movie, it perfectly matches the story, so you don’t even notice it’s there.”
With this in mind, buying the URLmusho.design and redirecting all his other domains to it was a natural decision. As he explains: “It’s a great match with my profession. Compared to .com it’s longer, but more human.”
Indeed is a leading website for job listings and recruiting. Their site at Indeed.design is an enlightening, comprehensive, and approachable overview of the entire brand’s design ethos.
Every design element, from Indeed’s logo, to the brand’s colors, shapes, typography, and voice, is explained and explored on its own page. Beyond technical explanations of how the design team created these bespoke design elements, each page also explains the psychology behind every decision.
For example, the custom typeface Indeed Sans was designed to embody the brand’s voice, with generous proportions and a mix of sharp and soft elements. The site even highlights the notable characters that most clearly express the typeface’s personality: the curves of the lowercase a’s and e’s express optimism, and the strokes of the b’s, d’s, and g’s lend a human, calligraphic feel.
ProperHuman.design, based in New York City, is a creative studio that helps brands find their unique voice. From overall strategy to product design to marketing, ProperHuman.design can do it all.
Headed by Daniel Palatnik, a UX/UI Designer and Front-End Developer with over 12 years of experience, ProperHuman.design‘s passion is clearly evident in their work. Their .design site is inventive and immersive, with navigation that is clear and intuitive. Their case studies show off the full spectrum of their work, which includes clients in health care, business consulting, interior design, and even educational tools for youth.
FITPIXX is an app developer based in Austria. Their main focus is creating fun apps with personality for fitness, gaming, and tools.
Their app Fit Math is a brain-training math game for mental fitness. The various game modes also test your coordination and concentration capabilities.
They are also working on app-based solutions for software development, project management, time management, documentation, and much more.
Screencaps do not do any justice to the beautiful video graphics throughout the site. We highly recommend you click through to energi.design to experience the site as it was meant to be!
After trying out a number of domain names such as energi.click, energidesign.com and clickenergi.com, they were finally able to acquire the perfect domain to match their brand: energi.design.
As creative director Steve Holmes says, “Energi Design is the actual name of my company, founded 20 years ago. So finally having the exact domain name to match it is perfect. When I learned about .design becoming available, I signed up right away.”
NPR.design offers behind-the-scenes stories from the design teams at National Public Radio.
As one of the premiere journalistic sources in the United States, NPR’s design team unites technology and storytelling in ways that are compelling to listeners and readers.
From branding and graphic design to app UX and integration with voice assistants like Alexa and Siri, the NPR design team is keeping public radio a vibrant, innovative resource for news and information.
In Achintya Giridhar Kini’s words: “I create beautiful, fast, responsive and search engine optimized websites which display fabulously on any device. Logos, wordmarks, emblems? I’m the man for you! Business cards, brochures, posters? You know who to call! I help businesses grow, and turn your vision into reality.”
Dropbox.design is a beautiful site full of interesting and useful information from one of the world’s leading cloud storage companies.
Meet the Dropbox design team through their Human Interest interview series and learn about their work culture.
Get Toolkits for practical design processes as well as teambuilding exercises and personal development.
Dropbox is more than just a useful tool for designers and creatives — they’re a leader in the design industry as well. #DesignTeam #DesignDepartment #DropboxDesign #Dropbox
