Until now, we have seen the things that are needed to bring the event to life: managing the food and ordering the swag, raising the money needed to pay for that, ensuring that hackers are comfortable during the weekend, organising the team tasks and creating a form for hackers to apply. Is this everything you need to organise a hackathon?
Of course not! There’s more work to do than that, equally important and maybe overlooked. One of these things is the design and image of the event (and everything related!). This goes from the looks of the web and the social media profiles, to the order of the sponsors on the back of the T-Shirt, including the decoration in the venue and the stickers that we give. The Design department works hard so that everything has a strong and unified brand, making you think “Ah, that’s from HackUPC” when you see something made by them.
Work on design starts pretty soon, around April, because most of the components of the brand must be ready when applications open. And, if a major redesign is made (like last year), maybe even earlier! Fortunately, they don’t have as much work to do during the event, and they deserve it. Elena, David and Alba will tell you their way of working in this event.
Why did you want to be organisers of HackUPC?
Elena: I don’t really remember. I know that at that moment it looked like a novel idea and that it was really interesting to be able to belong to a community which fosters the passion in your trade.
How long have you been organisers?
Elena: This is my third edition, so, more than a year and a half.
Which have been your favourite moments here?
Elena: The small stories that arise during the hackathon, mostly with organisers that couldn’t be in person at the venue. These moments in the big mechanism of being an organiser of this type of event stay in your memories and make you want to continue being a part of the team.
Alba: My favourite moment in HackUPC was the check-in of the last edition. It was very exciting to welcome all the hackers!
What differences have you seen between attending a hackathon as a hacker and organising it?
Elena: The energy. The purpose is similar because as a hacker you want to build something with your community, just like the organiser. The difference is the hours spent to make it run good, and to have that you need to spend a lot of energy during the week of the hackathon. And then, you realise that that’s more comforting than being a hacker, in my point of view.
David: Completely different, when you organise you’re focused on verifying that everything is going well, not only during the hackathon but also months before. As a hacker, you’re focused on enjoying the event and developing your own projects.
You are in the Design department. What is exactly your job?
Elena: Our job in Design is mainly creating the new brand for the edition. Once designed, we use it to generate content for social media, web design, merchandising (T-shirts, stickers, bags…) and venue decoration (we’re making a photocall for this edition!).
Alba: We all in the department work on everything, but I’m focused on creating content for social media. Beyond that, I will be recording and taking pictures during the event.
David: The good thing about Design is that we’re everywhere: in the web design, in the swag (from the T-shirts to the stickers), in the decoration, in the social media… The objective is having everything that HackUPC creates in the same brand universe.
What do you like about working in Design?
Elena: It is an excuse to work on your hobby and learn with total freedom. I have moments of creativity while I study a technical degree.
Alba: It encourages me to keep learning about design and new tools to create.
David: Creating and imagining things without many limits. It is an excuse to “waste time” on what I like and learn about this world, which I love.
Your designs are the face of HackUPC. How do you feel about taking this responsibility?
Elena: In my first edition it didn’t look like a big responsibility, it was more like being part of a group of friends who I was helping. In the next edition, where I took a more leading role, after seeing our design come true I thought “wow, this is really cool and we can go even farther”. In this edition, more than a responsibility, I like to take it as a challenge, “what can we do to stand out from the previous edition”.
David: Actually, not as much as I thought before being here. I’ve always thought that it would be really cool to see designs made by me in events, brands, etc., but it would also be a lot of pressure. But after contributing to the design, I’ve realized that it hasn’t really been a big responsibility for me; it has been more like a group of people creating and discussing about design and doing it the best they can.
What is your favourite part of the creative process?
Elena: I love the part where lots of ideas appear in my head; some of them crazy, but made possible thanks to HackUPC.
Alba: My favourite part is at the start, when we don’t have a clear idea. We try different concepts and everyone contributes something different.
David: Just as Alba says, how the whole team can combine their ideas to reach a great middle point in the concepts. There’s bits of everyone in every design and that’s really beautiful.
In the last edition, we changed our image and lots of ideas were proposed before choosing the current one. What discarded proposals did you also like?
Elena: I don’t really know. I think that the discarded proposals didn’t convince at a team level, including myself, so if the current design is the one we chose it’s because it perfectly fit what we were looking for.
Do you feel proud of the current design?
Elena: Yes. I believe we put a lot of love in this design, as we knew that for the HackUPC organisers, from the founders to the new people, the image is very important; so, I’m proud that the design has been well-received. We tried to make it as inclusive as possible, avoiding stereotypes and acknowledging the city where HackUPC is possible.
Alba: We have worked a lot in the design for this edition and I’m very happy with the results.
David: Of course, after a hard work it was the best option, it combines everything we want to show in this edition.
Finally, tell us a funny moment in the hackathons you have already organised.
Elena: Two editions ago, Ana was working as a volunteer, and at 3 AM we received a message on Slack from Gerard, asking Ana to bring milk to the coffee machines. However, Gerard was in Boulder, Colorado. We call him “omnipresent” now.
Related to design, but with a different function, is photography. Edgar, our photographer, roams around the venue during all the event to capture everything interesting that may happen. These pictures are then used in our social media (especially Instagram), to illustrate these articles, and, of course, they are uploaded for everyone to see. To learn more about this kind of task, we have asked him some questions.
How many pictures are taken during the event?
Edgar: Well… a loooooot. Hundreds and hundreds. Maybe a thousand, although most of them aren’t seen by anyone.
What is the process after taking a picture? (selection, edition…)
Edgar: First of all, it has to be a good picture — i.e., focus on the important subject, then exposure (sometimes, when I want to capture a particular moment, I have to be fast and maybe I can’t adjust the parameters so that the picture looks good once taken). Then, it has to be true, to look like what I’m seeing with my eyes, both in colour and in the lights and shadows. When I edit the pictures, if there’s something that I could have done better, I retouch the picture with Lightroom so that it shows what we can see.
What do you look for in your pictures?
Edgar: What I look for in my pictures is to recreate and immortalise the essence of HackUPC, a familiar event, good vibes, fun moments (stressful moments, too), a community where everyone has their place and is respected.
The Design department is still working, even if the hackathon is only two weeks away. There’s still things to do! And remember: even if it’s just the bathroom sign, they have thought about it.
Meet the team is a series of posts that tries to show the kind of people who are behind a big event like HackUPC and the work that’s required to bring it to life. You can read the rest here: Logistics, Sponsorship and Finance, HackerXperience, New faces, Staff, Webdev, Directors, Marketing
