Graphic Design for Marketing student Rowena Huang won a 2024 Jim Rimmer Scholarship Award from DesCan Vancouver.
The Jim Rimmer Scholarship is “an opportunity for students to submit a project for a community program, a non-profit organization, or an environmental or social cause.” Huang, a fourth year student, won the $1,000 scholarship for her project Innovate to Educate. The project includes a website and other materials supporting the United Nations’ International Day of the Girl Child, a day dedicated to celebrating the voices and power of girls, championing their rights worldwide and reflecting on the challenges they continue to face because of their gender.
Huang describes the cause she chose, “In December of 2011, the UN declared that October 11th would be the International Day of the Girl Child (IDG). With a different theme each year, this day is dedicated to addressing the unique challenges girls face, encouraging empowerment, and emphasizing their unmet human rights. This year, the proposed theme for IDG is “Innovate to Educate.” As of 2023, 129 million girls are denied the human right to education.”
Project: Innovate to Educate
Course: 3220 UI/UX Design 2
Instructor: Michael Cober
the visual style intends to create intrigue and unrest while remaining appropriate and informative
Huang describes her design solution, “In response to the disheartening statistics on girls’ education worldwide, the UN proposed the initiative to create a website specifically for IDG 2024. In accordance with the theme, the website serves as an educational source for girls’ education globally, includes information on IDG’s purpose and goals, and is a central ground for events and initiatives. Alongside the website is a book, meant to be distributed to schools across the globe to educate teachers and students alike on the privilege of education and the importance of equality. The book includes statistics and stories of girls around the world, and the challenges they face to receive education, a basic human right. Following the launch of the website will also be a marketing campaign, directing audiences to the website to create more traffic and attention to the important cause.”
“The approach taken for the overall design is purposefully unconventional. With high contrasting colours and a subtly eccentric typeface, the visual style intends to create intrigue and unrest while remaining appropriate and informative. Simultaneously, the neon yellow combined with the use of angled iconography symbolizes a warning and need for change. This change can be seen throughout the website—photos are greyscale until the user hovers over it. The iconography is also intentional in its simplicity. The “girl” icon does not feature conventional “female” characteristics. Ultimately, the goal of IDG is to have no differentiation in educational opportunities between genders. Overall, the website is designed to be intuitive and captivating, drawing viewers in to learn more about and support an important cause.”
