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Apprentice Program - Week of July 15th, 2024 (WK29)

DIA Design Guild Staff

DIA Design Guild Staff

— 4 min read
Apprentice Program - Week of July 15th, 2024 (WK29)
Photo by Mikołaj / Unsplash

What’s on Julia’s mind these days?

I’m re-reading one of my favorite design books. No, it is not The Design of Everyday Things. It is How Design Makes the World by Scott Berkun. One of the great parts of the book is that each chapter starts with a little story about real people and design. 

For example, the beginning of the third chapter, What is Good? starts out:

“What would the best hammer in the world be like? Maybe you think it’s Thor’s hammer, Mjölnir, which flies into his hand whenever he asks. …It turns out there are hundreds of different designs for hammers, from the small to the gigantic … This means we can’t really say that something is well designed unless we identify what it’s going to be used for.”

Scott Berkun isn’t a designer–he is an American author and speaker. He worked at Microsoft from 1994 to 2003, so he is familiar with design and tech. While The Design of Everyday Things can seem a bit pedantic at times, How Design Makes the World is an easy and relatable read. If you want to feel like your work as a Designer or Design Researcher has an impact, read How Design Makes the World by Scott Berkun.

#1: Apprentice Program Specific News 

2024 cohort 

The Monthly AMA was great!

This was a great AMA led by Daria. Daria provided an in-depth overview of content design and research, covering the strategic and tactical responsibilities of content designers and UX writers. She emphasized the importance of strategic, critical, and creative thinking in organizing information and creating content for different channels, highlighting the impact on business revenue and conversion metrics. Daria also discussed the role segmentation in long-form and short-form content, as well as the involvement of content strategists in creating tasks for content designers.

Daria had some great resources to share:

The link to content design resources in FigJam: https://www.figma.com/community/file/1393667293950218755/content-design-ama 

The only 3 books needed for content designers:

On projects

  • WIAA social media - Rochelle

Want to share what you are working on? We’d love to hear about it and share it with the community!

Continuing apprentices

More than half of the apprentices every year continue with DIA. Some of you are leading projects with our partner organizations (e.g. World IA Association, IAC, and EuroIA). Others are getting involved with client projects. 

  • Miguel and Vanya are working on the World Information Architecture Association redesign as UX Researchers
  • Elizabeth M., Beula, Jenny, Nehar and Linh are Designers and Researchers on May First redesign
  • WIAA monthly - Adara
  • WIAD25 global - Jenny + 1 (outside DIA)
  • World IA Cafe - Nehar
  • Apprentice Experience research - Caroline, Alex, Beula
  • UX Curriculum - Justin (Alex, Kerry - previously)

#2: Apprentice Wins and Celebrations 

Share: Have any good news, life lessons, or need project help? Reply and let us know. We can share it in the next biweekly update.

#3: Events

3A - DIA Read Aloud Book Club

Book club is on hiatus for the summer. We’ll finish the book Storytelling for You starting in September. 

3B - Game Club

The DIA Game Club is taking a break for the summer. We intend to use this time to rest and catch up on any jam entries we didn’t finish yet. Things are rough right now but we hope everyone is hanging on out there. 

In the meantime, come hang out with us! 

https://discord.gg/yp7UeWzVwf 

3C - Monthly Webinar

Webinar Topic: Designing Multimodal Experiences (Google Meet) - Friday, July 26th, 12 pm Pacific / 3 pm Eastern

Led by our very own mentor Courtney, she is a UX Designer seeking to create kinder and more connected products. She has designed for B2B, B2C, and non-profit spaces. Across these spaces, she’s found that the human-centered design process is what must hold at the center. 

3D - Monthly AMA

Passed: AMA About Content Design - Friday, July 12th, 12 pm Pacific / 3 pm Eastern

3E - Monthly Office/Social Hour

Monthly Apprentice Social Hour (Google Meet) - Friday, July 19th, 12 pm Pacific / 3 pm Eastern

#4: Project Opportunities

Need 1 Designer
May First Website Redesign - The team is a little heavy on the research side, so we’re looking for 1 design-focused volunteer to join the team. 

  • For details, email Grace grace@diadesign.io
  • Subject: May First Website Redesign
  • Timeline: Slow 
💡
Note: Paid client projects help sustain our DIA Design Guild operations. If you’re interested in leading or contributing to any of these projects, please email Grace at grace@diadesign.io. 

#5: Job Opportunities

We’re always on the lookout for relevant entry-level roles to share with our apprentices. They’re usually shared on Discord under Discussion > #jobsearch-opps. If you come across any, let us know! We'll be sure to share them here for everyone else.

#6: Volunteer

Need to find a project? Check out these volunteering resources and find your next gig! We’ll highlight a few organizations in every newsletter where you can look through and find something that interests you.

#7: Learning Resources

Did you know? Julia manages the Design Education Resources database. We’ve been managing this since 2022 and Julia keeps this updated. See the full list. 

#8: Feedback wanted

Open rates are great, click through rates are alright. But how helpful is this newsletter really? Share with us why yet another newsletter was a good idea. 

If you’re interested in past updates, you can login on the website and check them out. Login to comment or read past issues. Login is a magic link, no password needed!

Share Newsletter Feedback

As always, we’re around to chat. DM us on Discord, reply to this email/post or schedule some time on our calendars: 

That's all for now!