DECO—The Designer Community
Designing an Organization for Student Designers | Community Organization, 3D Design, Motion Design
DECO is an organization for student designers at Ateneo De Manila University. Taking notice of the shared naiveté of student designers in freelancing, DECO was envisioned as a space to discuss and organize anything and everything career-wise, from pricing strategies to portfolio building. What started as a 10-person team grew into an organization of a little over 200 within the first year.
DECORE Team JJ Agcaoili, Lucas Abaya, Erin Ambulo, Julia Carpio, Justine Choy, Kevin Castro, Macy Escay, Nikka Diaz, Regine Salumbre, Cha Tan, Trisha Uy
Software Adobe After Effects, Cinema 4D
The DECO Brand
For our 2019 recruitment week, the team decided to be loose with its imagery: creating a standard template for our posters and sending it off to the possibilities of our imagination. Maintaining the readability of the logo while communicating a unique sense of visual freedom turned out to resonate with the student body.
As members joined the organization, we encouraged them to put their own spin on the logo. Check out this handful of them!
DECOllection
In building a community for student designers, another of DECO's thrust as an organization was to highlight the state of design in our immediate vicinity. Enter: DECOllection, a project that shines a light on our favorite designs within the university.
As Design Research Manager, it was crucial to intricately comb through designs from the student body and its thriving organizations. Partnered with our Design Review Manager to write retrospectives, we were able to spotlight one project per week on social media—sustaining a source of inspiration for the community to produce effective and fabulous designs for their projects, professional or otherwise.
Outcomes and Next Steps
Just a little over halfway into DECO's establishing year, we were confronted with the COVID-19 pandemic and were thrown off with the rest of the year's plans. In light of this, DECO transitioned to an online community held on Discord—DECORD.
Amidst all the chaos, the team strived to get the community in reach with each other despite the physical barriers. This was done through arranged hangouts and game nights with the members.
As most events were held online, DECO was also able to get a hold of a couple of renowned local designers to conduct portfolio reviews and provide some insights into the industry.
While DECO is currently on hiatus due to the pandemic, the Discord server remains open as a space for the members to connect with each other.
Check out the rest of the work documented on our Facebook Page!
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