KATE
GOLDKAMP
An Aspiring Consumer Experience Designer
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Cover Letter: My DS Story
Hello, my name is Katherine Goldkamp but I prefer to go by Kate. I have been a Digital Studies minor, have integrated it with my Advertising major for the past two years, and will be officially getting my degree at the end of April. Being a Digital Studies minor helped me see my major in a whole new perspective. Before taking it, I thought all I wanted to do was copywriting after taking 1 copywriting class. However, in DS I learned the power of what it means to design for the user---which ultimately lead me to finding what I want my dream job to be. In DS, it is important to consider what something means to the user---you want it to be able to create an impact on their life through whatever design you are creating for them. In design, you should not simply create something for the public because it looks good because it needs to also be useful. Digital Studies made me realize how it helps to bridge the gap between creative and practical design---making design an experience for the user.
My future career goals have evolved many times throughout my college career. I applied to Grand Valley debating on if I wanted to be a Graphic Design major or CIS major but ultimately started school as a biology major with the thought of going into pre-veterinary sciences. After taking my first intro level biology class, I quickly knew this major wasn't for me which lead me to debate between Graphic Design and CIS once again. After endless amounts of trying to decide on a major and weighing out the pros and cons for everything, I chose to officially go into Advertising and Public Relations and haven't looked back on my decision since. Through being an Advertising major, I began to fall in love with my copywriting class which made me want to become one in the future. I fantasized about being a copywriter--the thought that you could be the brains behind words on an advertisement and make differences in people's days through them fascinated me. However, that view changed when I added Digital Studies as a minor and started to relate the classes towards my major.
I would be lying if I said that I immediately found a connection with Digital Studies and my major from the very beginning. While courses related or were beneficial towards my studies, I couldn't find why I wanted DS to impact my major or even my future as a whole. However, this all quickly changed when Digital Studies introduced me to a field called User Expereince (UX) Design from a presentation that was done in one of my DS classes. Honestly, the name of it is what originally caught my eye but the more I read different job postings, the more I began to picture myself in that role. I recently went to an open house for a local advertising agency and had a conversation with their HR representative about how I wanted to go into UX Design, while she pointed me towards a fellow UX designer at the company, she also recommened me to talk to a Consumer Experience Designer.
Consumer Experience Design is something I've never heard of until I went to the open house. It is very similar to UX Design in that it is design for the public but Consumer Experience Design is ultimately about designing a purchase experience for an individual---while User Experience Design is making online spaces an experience for a user. While talking to the professional more about what he does in Consumer Experience Design, it sparked my interest so much that I realized this is what I wanted to pursue post graduate or at least sometime in the future.
I have realized through integrating Digital Studies with my Advertising major that design is here to create experiences for the user---not just be something pretty on a website or billboard. Now the question becomes, why is design important in todays society? It plays a role in many careers or even our daily lives in general. It connects people's lives to their surroundings--no matter where it is placed, how they see it, or even the size. Below are some broad aspects where I have noticed design playing a key role in making an authentic experience for an individual.
Creative=Using design to make a visibly pleasing experience
Technical=Using design to make a user friendly experience
Algorithmic=Using design to make an easily accessible yet fair experience
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Advertising=Using design to make a memorable experience
I have placed some artifacts that go along with Creative, Technical, and Advertising design. I hope that by looking through them, you can also see my work ethic, passion, and hopefully talent towards designing to create an experience. The first artifact is a website I designed that showcases why creative and technical design are important. Through that website, I hope to show how those two designs go hand in hand with eachother to create the best experience for the user. The second artifact is an analysis of Advertisements, I showcased a variety of creative and more technical ads where I critique the pros and cons, how they create experiences, and what I might do differently if I could. Through this artifact, I hope to conclude with communicating the importance of advertising and design to create authentic experiences.
Advertising is a field that works for both companies and people--our role is to make companies significant in a person's life as well as making products available to them. We are constantly tasked to design for the public--whether that is designing a strategy, creative piece, or overall campaign. Through integrating Digital Studies and Advertising, I have realized how important designing to create authentic expereinces are to the public. The Advertising field has sparked my interest within my indecisive brain and has been my passion for the past 3 years so I am absolutely ecstatic to pursue it after graduation.
Resume
Artifacts
(Un)Biased Website Design
In DS 495: Digital Studies Capstone, we were tasked to create an interactive digital portfolio for our group case study project. For this digital portfolio, I decided to use Wix. The purpose of this website was to communicate how bias happens in search engine results, especially when it comes to minority individuals. To illustrate the overall topic of our project, the design of the website played a big role in showcasing our topic and making it a memorable experience for our viewers.
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Below is a screen shot of a portion of the website with explanations of the design and importance of it beside them, you can view those explanations by hovering over the small circle on the image. You can also click the button below to view the website in your browser as well.
This website shows that by integrating technical and creative design through the use of colors, font, white space, and other interactive features, it creates an experience for the user where they can enjoy and interpret the content. This concept of web design is a good broad example for what it means to be a UX designer. You need to make sure that content is not only easily obtainable for the user but you also want them to enjoy their time being a user of whatever platform.
Design: White Space
Design: White Space
The use of white space created the overall clean look for the website. It made the website visually pleasing to the eye because the content didn't appear to be cluttered on there. The use of this made the content easy to read and interpret from the user since the words are spaced apart to show the user what is important to take in from reading.
Design: Interactive
Design: Interactive
For an additional interactive touch to this website, I decided to add a hover feature for statistics or information that were important for the user to view and understand. The hover feature creates a sense of suspence and importance when the information appears compared to if I just had it displayed on the website. Through this feature, it allows for the user to retain specific pieces of information from the site.
Design: Interactive
Design: Interactive
To make the website more interactive and resemble google, I decided to make the classic "Google Search" and "I'm Feeling Lucky" buttons into hyperlink buttons on this website. The "Google Search" button takes you straight to Google while the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button takes you straight to an Amazon page for the book Algorithms of Oppression by Safiya Noble (where we ultimately got the inspiration for our topic from). This little feature not only shows what our topic is about and where the inspiration from it came from but also adds an aditional element of creative appreciation as well, making it more entertaining for the user.
Design: Colors
Design: Colors
The colors utilized in the website are very minimal. While the whole reason for it is so that it goes along with the typical Google design, it also assists with the ease of taking in information from the website because of the cohesive design throughout. The use of the simple accent colors not only makes the website visually pleasing for the user but also allows for them to take in and understand what is most important from the website.
Design: Font
Design: Font
Since my group wanted to make it clear this was on search engines, I found a sans-serif font that closely resembled what Google utilizes. From there, I made sure to utilize the same font throughout with the only difference being the bolded headers to distinguish where the content of the website begins and ends. This allowed for a nice clean look making it easy for the user to view and take in the information.
Homepage
Homepage
The home page is the first thing people see when they go to a website, it is where they predict what they might see and decide on the spot if they might want to continue to scroll through--which is why it makes it the most important place for the use of design.
To communicate that this project was about search engines, as a group we decided that we wanted to incorporate the infamous Google colors and simple design to the digital portfolio. To do so, I searched the exact color codes that are used on Google's website as well as searching similar fonts that resemble Google's logo. I also screen grabbed the search bar and buttons used on Google's page to utilize that as the menu bar and more interactive options for the website. With this, at first glance of the home page anyone can easily tell that this website will be about search engines, if not then at least something about Google.
Advertisement Analysis
To ultimately relate this back to my major, I wanted to include some analysis of existing advertisements and how they create a memorable experience for the viewers.
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Below are three different kinds of advertisements, print, guerilla, and video. I will be going into depth of what the ad does, if it provoked any emotions, how it becomes the puzzle piece to creating an experience for the viewer, and what I would do differently if I could to make it even better.
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All in all, this fancy version of a critique should show why integrating advertising with design to create authentic experiences are important specifically in this field.
Guerilla:
The Reese's Candy Converter
Reese's developed this iconic guerilla ad after halloween so people can trade in any candy they had for a Reese's. This ad allows for individuals to be exposed with Reese's in the most effective way possible---free food.
This ad provokes a sense of joy (jealously for me because I wish I got the chance to experience it) to anyone that is around. It may even provide a sense of nostalgia because they haven't had a Reese's in quite some time.
Guerilla ads naturally creates an experience for the person because the brand is stepping out to where their audiences are and grabbing their attention. In this specific case it plays with the fact that people get candy they don't want during halloween. By allowing people to trade it in for Reese's, they are creating an experience between them---whether that is joy, nostalgia, happiness, etc.
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Since this guerilla ad was so successful when it was placed around New York, the only thing I would change is to showcase it in more areas around the country or even the world. Reese's did research and found that 90% of individuals wishes to be able to trade their lame candy and 80% of those inviduals would trade it for a Reese's. This was an insanely smart idea of Reese's, they successfully played along with what their people want and created an experience from that.
Print:
Claro Texting & Driving
This ad was devloped by Claro, the biggest mobile phone company in Latin America. They released a series of posters on relaying the dangers of texting and driving through a genius way of design.
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This ad provokes a sense of sadness---since it showcases texting and driving and those implications of it. Their use of creating such a simple design on this poster through the one letter representing the road, people crossing ahead, and the words "One letter is all it takes", really allows for the person to grasp the message that the brand is telling us.
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This advertisement creates a memorable experience simply because of the knowledge behind the design process of this poster. It is easy for the individual to understand what it is about and be reminded of those implications when it comes to texting and driving. It may evoke an emotional experience where it would remind the individual and their connection with texting and driving, ultimately creating a bond between them and the brand.
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Although I love the simplistic design of this ad because I think it does a wonderful job at telling the story, I believe that it wouldn't hurt to have a little bit more of a punch to grab the audiences attention. One aspect I was thinking of was adding one statistic where the caption is and putting "texting and driving---because one letter is never worth it" underneath. Individuals tend to gravitate towards statistics because it is an easy way to take in information. It will still keep the advertisement simple but add in an aspect for the audience to truly see how many people or lives are effected by texting and driving. I also believe that it will be beneficial to turn this into a series where they also make posters on drinking and driving or other dangers as well, it will allow for the brand to create an emotional experience past these initial posters.
Video:
Amazon Super Bowl Ad
This super bowl ad created by Amazon adds a comedic flair to the topic that seems to be coming up more recently, that technology is going to consume our world. They were able to play off the popular Amazon Alexa that seems to constantly be evolving to being integrated in modern houses by showcaseing what Alexa models didn't make the cut.
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This ad evokes a sense of happiness, it was played during the superbowl which is usually a time for family but the overal comedic tone and celebrity appearances throughout the commercial makes simply very fun to watch.
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This ad creates an experience through comedy, creating a bond between the viewer and the brand. It is one thing for a brand to realize that their technology is evolving too fast but it is another thing for a brand to recognize that and make a comedic commecial out of it. This experience created between the brand and the viewer through sharing a laugh together on super bowl sunday.
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I believe that this ad was genius and I couldn't have made it any funnier if I tried because I don't have a funny bone in my body. However, to build off of this existing commercial, I think it would be fun for Amazon to create a series out of these commercials---the next one being the Alexa goods that made the cut or what other Alexa goods they are testing now. This will create a sense of suspense between Amazon and the viewer, ultimately resulting in the viewer to go seek out that experience through the ad by themselves since they already watched and enjoyed the previous ad.
Sources
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Macleod, D. (2012, July 1). Claro Road Letters. Retrieved from
http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2012/claro-road-letters/
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Amazon. (2019, January 30). Retrieved April 24, 2019, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y-1h_C8ad8
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Candy Converter. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.deconstructedbrief.com/candyconverter
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Contact Me
Katherine Goldkamp
