Why everyone should join design competitions and hackathons
Design competitions and hackathons are a great way to showcase and prove your existing skill in design and an opportunity to challenge your critical thinking and learn to tackle real-world problems in a short time span as many design competitions and hackathons don’t last very long. In this article, I will share some of my personal experience and learnings with design competitions and hackathons and insights on why everyone should join design competitions and hackathons no matter if you are a student, junior designer, or seasoned designer.
A bit about me
I am Stephen Yan, currently a UI designer with a focus on tech startups. I have an extensive background in graphic design and have been working in the design industry since 2016. I have also won several design competitions and hackathons; I recently achieved 1st place in ProtoHacks 2022 which I will discuss more later in this article. If any of this interests you, feel free to connect with me and I would love to share more of my experience!
Introduction to design competitions
Many design competitions and hackathons have transitioned to remote locations due to the COVID-19 pandemic which makes them more accessible to anyone no matter where you are. This can also be advantageous as you can work on the project with the workflow and environment you’re used to working in. A design competition usually gives a real-world problem to the participants and asks them to solve them in a thoughtful and engaging way. A recent competition I joined gave us 3 prompts and we were only able to choose one so it ultimately depends on the scale and organizer.
Some competitions also offer a supplemented design workshop to support you by teaching the basics and fundamentals of prototyping tools such as Adobe XD and Figma. Some also offer networking sessions where participants are given the opportunity to connect and learn about each other in breakout rooms; be sure to take advantage of this as you may also encounter them in future competitions and may want to pair up with them! Competitions overall are easily accessible and you can reap the benefits just by participating as you can improve your networking circle, gain industry-standard skills, and have the potential to win an award to show off innovation and design ability.
My personal experience with design competitions
I joined my first design competition back in September 2021. The design competition was the Adobe Creative Jam hosted by Adobe partnered with The New York Times and it lasted 1 week. I wasn’t sure what to expect as my friend told me to join on a whim and it was our first design competition.
We performed better than we thought as we ended up placing 11th out of 500 entries. What I learned from my first design competition is that it’s very important to set a schedule for you and your partner so you have enough time to complete your final prototypes on time. I also learned that feedback from knowledgeable designers and mentors is crucial to making sure there are no discrepancies in the design. To put it into perspective, we asked a mentor for advice and made changes for 3 straight days during our competition and there were over 100 flaws and inconsistencies in our user flow we discovered.
For my second design competition, I joined Adobe Creative Jam again, this time it was partnered with Amazon, one of the world’s largest e-commerce brands. It definitely seemed daunting but this competition, it lasted 2 weeks so we had more time and what we did differently from our first jam was we spent 4 days on feedback. We also put a greater emphasis and focus on innovation and gamification in this competition and making sure our app idea was unique and never done before. We also focused more on the idea itself, the information architecture, and the unique value proposition rather than dedicating time to the hi-fi prototypes which we spent too much time on for the first competition. It was also important to maintain a strong branding and for our onboarding, we went with an engaging onboarding with a welcoming penguin which gamified the process.
Applying innovation, utilizing gamification, and going beyond conventional solutions is what will differentiate us from other competitors. We resulted in being a top 10 finalist in the jam out of 600+ competitors.
For my most recent design competition, ProtoHacks 2022 hosted by BizHacks, I worked with 4 other team members to tackle a real-world problem with an innovative tech-based solution. This competition was not like any other one I have joined in the past as this competition had a much significant emphasis on innovation and pitch. Initially, we were given 3 cases to choose from, the 3 cases were sustainability and climate change, equality, and mental health; our team ended up going with mental health as the theme we will focus on. At first, my team members were quite skeptical about picking mental health as our focus as none of us had extensive experience in extended reality and metaverse space and one of my team members had a more fleshed out idea for the sustainability and climate change case which focused on energy consumption and conservation which seemed more feasible and realistic. Our team ended up going with the idea I brought up initially which was creating a platform that utilized the emerging technology of extended reality to treat mental health disorders such as phobias. We decided to take a risk and go with my idea which we had the least expertise in but we thought it was innovative and had lots of room to grow. We ended up in 1st place as our idea stood out from the others and we kept the idea itself as simple and streamlined as possible.
From this experience I learned that it’s sometimes important to take risks and go outside your comfort zone in design competitions as picking a topic you’re most comfortable with might not always work in your favor as there might not be much room to be innovative and fresh; you can also learn way more from picking an area you aren’t familiar with and that’s how you grow as a designer.
Benefits of joining design competitions
Just simply joining design competitions has a number of benefits.
- Trains your critical thinking skills
- Makes you more adaptable
- Trains you to work under a tight schedule
- You learn more about other industries as you have to do research for the given topic
- Improves your teamwork skills
- Gain connections with other designers
- Develop prototyping skills
If you do happen to win an award from a design competition or hackathon you might be asking yourself if it would benefit at all for getting a job. Winning an award can make you stand out from other candidates and it helped me stand out from other people in several interviews.
Design competitions I recommend joining
There are several design competitions I recommend joining. I will provide three, one for students and junior designers, one for product designers and more business-oriented designers, and one for experienced designers. The best design competitions you should join if you’re just starting out:
The Adobe Creative Jam is always free and held almost once every month and you can check for their dates on their website. What differentiates this from other design competitions is that almost every jam is partnered with big companies including Amazon and The New York Times. This ensures that you get credibility even if you don’t win 1st place you can still put it as a portfolio piece. Only post-secondary students are eligible to join so this is a great place to start if you don’t want any fierce competition.
Once you have graduated or placed at least placed finalist (Top 10) in at least 1 Adobe Creative Jam I recommend you pursue other designing competitions as Adobe Creative Jam is targeting mainly post-secondary students and you won’t be eligible once you graduate.
Adobe Creative Jam — https://www.creativejam.in/
A great competition to join if you are a product designer or more business-oriented is ProtoHacks which is held once a year; it’s normally hosted by BizHacks the parent organization and usually has a fee to enter which can range from $10 to $30. For ProtoHacks you only get 12 hours with a team of 3–5 to come up with a tech-based solution to a problem they give out. I recommend having at least 1 person on your team with a background in business or marketing as the pitch deck and presentation is vital to your success based on my experience. For our problem, we had to create an app that helped treat people with mental health.
ProtoHacks — https://www.bizhacks.ca/
If you are an experienced designer I recommend joining UX Design Awards which is the most credible and very competitive. This is also where the top designers join to present their innovative ideas. Personally, I haven’t participated in it yet but I am planning on joining it in the future.
UX Design Awards — https://www.ux-design-awards.com/en
How to win a design competition
There is no one secret formula to winning design competitions as each competition is different. However, for each competition, you join you should be mindful of these points:
- Have a simple and innovative idea (don’t overcomplicate things just for the sake of it like adding blockchain technology without a clear benefit)
- Be strategic about how you will execute the idea and manage your time with a schedule
- Take a risk and go out of your comfort zone (Focus on learning and not winning)
- Focus on accessibility, inclusivity, and use metaphors (drawing comparisons and references from existing design patterns)
- Learn to ask and interpret feedback from knowledgeable design mentors
Applying these 5 points won’t guarantee that you win the design competition but will ensure you will receive the best experience. Be sure to make sure you focus not on winning the design competition but on learning.
Are design competitions and hackathons worth your time?
Yes, I would say design competitions are worth it even if you aren’t a student or junior designer as there are competitions for every level. You can always learn something new from a competition and a great way to make new connections!
Final thoughts
Design competitions and hackathons are overall a great learning experience and there are many free ones out there you should explore and take advantage of as almost all are easily accessible and are great opportunities for you to grow as a designer.
