Project Brief:
How might we build a community where Thai design talents around the world can inspire each other by co-creating, fluidly exchanging information, and mentoring.
Channels:
Youtube, Spotify, Soundcloud, Anchor, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter
Role:
User Research, Podcast Moderator, Branding, Content Creator, Social Media strategist.
Background
Design Picnic is inspired by Mind's design mentorship program from 2018. With the rapid startup growth in Thailand, the demand for designers is getting higher but there is a very limited resource for Human-Centered Design in Thai. Wanting to give back and pay it forward to the Thai community, Mind Apivessa and I started Design Picnic to cultivate a design community in Thailand. We took this opportunity to grow our design network and learn from the talented designers that we collaborated with.
My talented co-host, Mind Apivessa on the left
Painpoints
- Lack of mentorship: There are not enough Senior Designers for aspiring designers to learn from in Thailand.
- Language barrier: There is barely enough design resources in Thai. Almost every design-related articles, books, podcasts, and blog posts are in English.
- No formal design education in Thailand: Since this field is still relatively new, there are no boot camps and universities that offer digital design.
Execution
SS1: Podcast
We created a series of podcasts featuring 8 designers around the globe from different industries each week. In 20-30 minutes we fostered casual conversations and provided inspirational content for people who want to kickstart their careers. Themes varied from:
- The journey of a designer in different industries
- Designer's responsibilities, challenges, workflows, design trends
- Tips on how to get started and build a portfolio
We are on Spotify, Soundcloud, Anchor, and Google Podcast
SS2: Design Challenge
Inspired by the whiteboard challenge that is widely conducted in design interviews, we produced a series of 9 "design challenge videos" for the second season. In each episode, we gave each guest a prompt based on relevant problems in Thai society and asked them to think aloud and show their thought process in 30 minutes.
"Think like a UX designer" is the main theme we want to carry across the season. We wanted to focus on the critical thinking skills that designers go through problem-solving.
A snippet of our first episode of Design Challenge on Youtube
Other fun stuff
Apart from delivering content in video and podcast format, we also curated bite-sized about Design that is fun and easy to digest for our audience. Our topic ranges from SF Design Week's insights, User Research 101, and tips on how to transition into design.
Impact
14k
1.2k
19
Plays
Listeners
Episodes
As seen on
In one year, we got featured in:
Design Details, Designil, UX Thailand, Grappik, Castcow, and Elemie.
Future
We are still baking our third season but we aspire to be an education platform moving forward. We would love to hear from you if you have any thoughts on how we should take on the next season! Email us at designpicnic.co@gmail.com
Let's talk design
designpicnic.co@gmail.com
© Design Picnic 2020