Design your Life

Inspiration

College is expensive and costs drive a huge part of people's decisions. That's fine to an extent, but when costs come in the way of dreams, forcing dreamers talented people to take up "safe" majors and careers, and give up on their passions, we need to step in and change something.

What it does

I plan to organize a design competition for young schoolchildren, the winning design(s) of which will be printed on Luxe products' outer package; with a cut of the net profit going to a fund that will be awarded to the college-aged students of the non-creamy layer in society who are interested in design or creative careers, who would ideally work in the creative sector in the future, and organize events like this, creating a virtuous cycle of making an impact.

How we built it

I built the prototype using Canva and the surveys using Google Forms.

Challenges we ran into

The market already has a lot of competitions organized by various brands. I had to figure out how mine would be different and innovative. I decided on a new platform that levels the playing field, so people win based on merit, not better resources.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I have conceptualized a "lite" website that will provide the features of all the Pro graphic designing apps so that everyone has a level playing ground and an equal shot at winning. Most people who need this scholarship or a prize won't usually have access to iPad pros and we hope to change that. My main goal is that people will be judged based on their creativity and design, not how fancy a product they have at their disposal.

What we learned

There are several costs that I was not initially accounting for. Someone will need to judge the competition. From a marketing perspective, we would ideally have high-profile celebrity judges. We would also need to account for the organizational costs and the extra printing cost. We would also need to research how much of the profit from perfume sales are feasible to donate.

What's next for Design your Life

I hope to see this run as a yearly competition. This model can also be used in other industries, with various trades so people with talent and passion are never forced to choose between money and dreams.