An Interview With One of Creative X’s Founders: Yunoh Park
This week, I had the opportunity to chat with Yunoh Park, the founder of CreativeX. Her unique design journey enables her to share advice, resources, and fun memories from Rutgers during our interview.
Tell me about yourself!
Hi! My name is Yunoh. I majored in Computer Science and minored in Business. I graduated this past summer and even though I was a CS major, I was really interested in UX design starting around my sophomore year. I started off trying to learn about front-end development but eventually realized there’s a whole world of UX to learn about. By the time I got to my senior year, I was able to get some UX experience and can now say that I’m fully a UX designer!
How did you get into design?
When I was a freshman, my sister was like: “Hey, have you heard about this new field called UX Design?” She said it was hot in tech, and I thought it sounded interesting. I thought it was more up my alley because I was interested in tech, but I didn’t want to code all the time and I was looking for something more interpersonal. For a solid year and a half, I would just get these really intense Medium articles about UX like “Top 10 Reasons Why You Should be in UX Right Now” or “Things You NEED to Know About UX in 2018”.
Even though I got all of those articles, I didn’t really know how to start, and I found it really challenging to navigate the space beyond just surface-level information on the Internet. The way I actually got into UX was by looking up any sort of UX-related opportunities at Rutgers, and I ended up finding the HCI Lab for Health & Sustainability. I reached out to Dr. Sunyoung Kim, who I ended up doing research with.
I also met some other designers who helped me like Jay Mo, a product designer, and I was really lucky to meet him when I did, since he taught me a lot about the product design industry.
What inspired you to start CreativeX?
I remember very distinctly at the end of my IT internship during my sophomore year, I was sitting down at my desk and I thought:
“Why am I the only person I know at Rutgers who’s interested in UX? There has to be more people.”
I was seeing all of these Medium articles about people going crazy over UX, but I struggled to find other students doing UX at Rutgers. That felt very weird to me, so I was like “I’m just going to start a UX club!” and see if I could find people that way. It ended up working out really well! Since I took this initiative, I was able to meet other designers like Raina, who was also interested in starting a design club at the time. It just so happened that there were people interested in UX, so I was able to meet them and start a club that way.
What’s been the best part about starting a design club?
I think it’s definitely the people you meet and learn from. It’s especially important for design, because it’s really hard to design in isolation. Design is collaborative by nature, and you need other people’s input and feedback to understand other people. By immersing yourself in an environment with other designers, it does so much to help you improve.
What company do you work at right now?
I work for Milkinside, which is a design agency based in San Francisco, but it’s spread out all over the world.
How did you get this position?
A friend connected me with a designer from Milkinside — who was also a guest speaker at one point for Creative X! — looking to hire for UX contract work. I’m thankful for everyone who was involved.
What does your typical day look like?
Since work is remote, I’ll usually start up Slack and Figma from home, then communicate with my supervisor about work throughout the day.
My current project is to design a reimagined Always-On-Display experience. Mostly it’s just getting in Figma and creating prototypes, like trying to think of innovative and cool interactions and layouts. Most of the focus is on UX, because the agency has visual designers, so my job is to work on the interaction design which gets passed onto visual designers.
What’s the work culture like?
I work closely with two other people: my manager and one other young designer. We’ll sit in meetings together and talk informally about what we’re working on.
How did you start conducting case studies?
The summer I fully decided to commit to UX, using the resources I found online, I tried to make my first case study. It was about helping college roommates split grocery bills. I made it in Figma and it probably made no sense, but I tried to include what I thought a basic case study needed— I first wrote it out and then made it in HTML/CSS and published it on a Github-hosted site. I showed my project to Dr. Kim when I asked if I could do research with her, which I think showed that I was very passionate.
What advice do you have for students interested in learning more about design?
I would say definitely put yourself out there as someone who is trying to get into design. The more you talk about it and tell yourself you’re 100% committed to doing this as a career, the more you’ll start naturally meeting other people who are passionate about it who can fill in the gaps of your knowledge and support you. Rutgers is hard because there isn’t a formal degree program for UX specifically, but if you try, you’ll find people and you can talk about that stuff and learn together.
How do you tackle imposter syndrome? I feel like that’s a huge issue in the design and tech community.
When I did my first internship, I felt imposter syndrome a lot to the point where I probably would have performed better with a bit more confidence. It helps to understand, especially in design, that people don’t expect you to get it all correct when you start out. I know even very experienced designers feel imposter syndrome sometimes.
When you put it into perspective, there’s people with 10–15 years of experience who can feel unsure about their designs. I’m just a beginner, it’s okay to make mistakes and not be perfect from the get-go.
What have been some challenges you’ve come across as a designer?
The first thing that comes to mind is my portfolio. I think the portfolio is one thing that can be painful to put together but you have to get through as a designer. In the beginning, it’s really hard to figure out who you are and what kind of designer you want to be; honestly, I don’t know if even I know that yet. It really happens in waves, where I’m like “I kind of understand my design identity” and then three months later, I’m having a total breakdown about not knowing anything. Making your portfolio is definitely challenging.
How did you start creating your portfolio?
I made a really scrappy portfolio back when I made my first case study. It depends on what your skills are currently; if you know how to code, why not take a stab at coding it! If not, that’s totally okay too. I’d recommend using web-hosting sites like SquareSpace or Webflow and just start putting content on there. Even if you don’t have a case study done, you can put whatever you want — photography, your favorite books, literally anything to start creating an artifact that can share more about you as a person.
Any tips for people looking to get design internships or work experience at a company?
- Start within your college community; it’s great that our university has people willing to give new, inexperienced students a chance, like Dr. Kim. Rutgers IDEA is an org that’s helping people get into design, so maybe check them out, or other clubs like CreativeX and BluePrint!
- Slowly, if you can start building up your portfolio of makeshift work experiences and things you put a lot of time and passion into (even if they’re not paid or professional), someone will believe and see in you a lot of potential which will eventually lead to something.
I remember when I was recruiting, people would always tell me “you only need one yes.” So you just have to keep knocking on doors and asking, and then once you get that ‘yes’, things will get better.
What are some of your hobbies or things you like to do outside of work?
I’ve been reading lately! Now that I’m out of university, I have time to read. Sometimes I read books for fun, like novels; other times, I read design-related books. I’m currently reading this book called “Finite and Infinite Games” which basically describes life and everything you do in life as either a game that ends or never ends. The author talks about how you can play a role in your life and what perspective you can have on it. For example, if I’m a designer, am I just playing a game where I put the self-imposed rule on me and if so, am I trying to win something? What is the end goal? It’s very interesting and I have yet to finish it.
What’s your favorite memory from CreativeX?
One would be hosting the Design-a-thon. It was fun to coordinate with everyone throughout the day as the events were happening. Another would be our end-of-year celebration. I was really proud of everyone and thankful that everyone was willing to work so hard. I pulled in the other two seniors, Raina and Adeola, to host a small get-together for the team, and we all got to meet each other and see how tall everyone was.
What’s your favorite memory from Rutgers?
Seeing Creative X come together! :-)
What resources helped you as a student, and what resources are you using post-grad?
- Cofolios.com
- Medium articles
- Dribbble.com
- Awwwards is a collection of really cool websites with interaction design that are front-end/design, and Twitter is pretty helpful for getting into design.
- Muzli is a design extension. When you open a new tab, it shows you cool design stuff that you can view for inspiration. They also have cool widgets.
- Interns.design hasn’t been updated as much recently, but try to find a job board that currently exists to help you find internships.
- Ideate Labs Junior Design Job Board
- This article containing resources for product designers
Where can people reach out to you for any advice?
You can reach out to me on Discord: yunoh#9794 or just LinkedIn.
I hope you enjoyed my interview with Yunoh!
