Giving a Damn with Design
Last summer, we partnered with San Diego Design Trek and hosted an event for students interested in careers in design and user experience. Throughout the event, we shared career advice, our own personal journeys into design, and a look into some of the projects we’re currently working on. Overall it was an amazing event and truly invigorating to talk to people who were so excited to learn and connect over our shared passion to design for good.
Besides the fact that it makes some pretty badass swag, we chose our theme “Give a Damn” because it’s become our mantra over the past few months; the words we continue to come back to to refresh and enliven our sense of purpose.
Our work is driven by our commitment to the causes we support every day. The people who use our product are not just ambiguous “users” or clients to be won or lost. They are all different kinds of people with all different backgrounds devoted to all different kinds of missions.
But the thing that binds them all together is that first and foremost they are human — sometimes it actually feels like they’re super-human. They’re passionate, open-hearted, and fiercely committed to their missions. The work that these non-profits accomplish is life-changing.
It’s our job as designers here at Classy to give a damn for them. We want to do everything we can to empower them to tell their story. Our goal is to enable them to work smarter and more efficiently so they can refocus their time and energy where it really counts. We are nothing if we are not empathetic and always striving to understand their world better.
We also give a damn about the work we produce. We don’t wait to ship until we deem our work perfect, but we also don’t settle for “good enough.” We’re constantly pushing our design processes and aesthetic forward to think bigger and challenge every assumption. We’re intentional in the work that we do — we believe good design means every single detail has been thought through. To the best of our ability, we want to make sure everything we create is intuitive, efficient and beautiful. We owe it to our customers to give it everything we’ve got. We’re willing to risk failure and being wrong for the sake of learning something new and experiencing new points of view.
Together, we are a team of purpose-driven, people-first designers. We’re committed to our customers and the causes they advocate for every day. Their work informs our work and without them, we wouldn’t be here.
The next Design Trek is right around the corner, we would love it if you joined us!
