Creating physical, digital, and hybrid experiences for the world we live in, and the devices we live on.
OVERVIEW
TH Experiential is a marketing agency that has partnered with over 500 brands to execute campaigns inclusive of pop-ups, retail events, and installations. As their Product Design Intern, I had the privilege of working on proposals for Sephora, Kohl's, and more companies in the retail industry.
ROLE
Product Designer
TIMELINE
June 2023 to
September 2023
(10 weeks)
SKILLS
Visual + UI Design
Mockups
Presentations
TEAM
@Creative,
~8 People
BACKGROUND
My Clients
My Deliverables at a Glance
Desert Hunt Video Game
DAE Hair
Metallic-Themed AI Art Studio Merch
KISS Nails
Holiday Hunt Gift List
KOHL'S
Holiday Hunt Avatars
KOHL'S
Design Agency Culture Shock
Suddenly, it felt like my prior design experience was thrown out the window. My first assignment was to collect retro stock images for a social network app in its early stages—something seemingly simple—but in reality, it took me around three hours. I was also surprised that my mentors used random stock images in their deliverables. It became apparent how important speed and results were in this high-stakes industry environment. It was try, try, again until I hit the mark.
PROJECT SPOTLIGHT
Dae Hair
Fast-forward to week 5 of my internship: my mentors entrusted me with conceptualizing a video game for Dae Hair! Dae is an Arizona-based brand creating clean and simple haircare products found on Sephora shelves since 2020. The Ask was to create a digital video game that gamified the Ecommerce experience to make it more fun and community-oriented.
RESEARCH & IDEATION
Rapid Research Process
Brand Research | Strategy
I analyzed Dae’s rewards programs and found that Dae builds customer loyalty through Daedreamers club, their Subscribe & Save subscription program, and Hair Quiz.
Moodboarding | Visual
Next, I helped brainstorm the look of Dae's first original characters and video game. I focused on finding Dae-like screenshots with clean, vector illustration styles.
Competitive Analysis
After that, I gathered examples of trending open world, simulation, linear journey, and arcade games. I tried to strike a balance between fun and feasibility.
Report Findings
For each of the examples, I prepared ratings with justifications. I presented them to my mentor in a meeting to finally narrow down potential Dae game options together.
My Original Game Concept
Technically, my job was done after research. But I still sought to contribute to the design process, so surprised my mentor with this slide. It evolved into one of our minigames, Dae Desert Hunt.
At TH Experiential, we communicated everything in Google Slides
DESIGN
Low Fidelity Salon Exterior
High Fidelity Salon Interior + Tools Used
Made from scratch using Photoshop, Figma, Midjourney, TikTok, and Shutterstock
FINAL DELIVERABLE
Welcome to Dae Dreamhouse, an open-world game with immersive gameplay.
Dae Landing Page
Enter the Daedream House
CTA guide (Dae logo + speech bubble)
Game UI inclusive of Avatar, Names, Game Level, Points/Timer
Main designer: Mandy's Mentor
Framed as a pitch to Client & Investor, Dae
Thanks for reading! A quick recap….
Staying up-to-date with marketing trends
My resourceful teammates opened my eyes to stock image sites, Pinterest search strategies, Midjourney AI art, and Gucci Town on Roblox. They also taught me graphic design tricks in Adobe Suite. Modern toolbox = expanded.
Understanding business needs
Each week, I onboarded myself to a different company's online presence, internal resources such as brand guidelines, and design brief before designing on their behalf.
Making tradeoffs for tight deadlines
Unlike in my human-computer interaction research internship, I did not have to to conduct deep research. Instead, I focused on pushing pixels into minimum viable products for our clients to approve or deny in time for planned launch dates.
Brands are a beautiful thing. I had the privilege of bringing companies' visual identities to life in real-world experiential campaigns. Thank you to the Creative Team at TH Experiential for making my first agency experience an unforgettable one!