Akshara Dash

Akshara Dash

Critical & speculative designer in Saskatoon, she/her

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁✶⋆.˚Critical and Speculative designer incorporating biomimicry into sometimes physical, mostly digital products. I focus on sustainability and symbiotic relationships between my work and nature. . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁✶⋆.˚

Contact

Are.na
Instagram

Exhibitions

2024
Saskatoon

Hosted and exhibited web art at a first of its kind exhibition in Saskatoon, blurring the lines between art, design and technology

Speaking

2024
Saskatoon

Youngest TedX speaker at the University of Saskatchewan. My talk is about inclusive design and how good products make humans feel seen.

2023
EcoQuest Workshop
Saskatoon
  • This was one of my favorite projects because I love working with kids! Hosted a mini brand and design workshop with 2 other designers for 8th-grade students. It was super fun!

  • Talking about color psychology through the lens of the Barbie movie and a brand quiz which the kids found super interesting. :)

  • EcoQuest is a mobile classroom where students experience everyday adventures while learning in urban and wilderness settings.

2023

Hosted a beginner product design workshop for 60+ high school students

2023
Founding the UX Collective Club at International Day of Women in STEM
University of Saskatchewan

Projects

2024

Redesigned the YouthLine site at Arcana Creative for YouthLine. My role was creating dynamic components, style guide, web design, some custom css animations and some front-end. Molly, Logan, Linh, Torrey and Devon this would not have been possible without you all :)

One of my favourite projects because both mental health and the queer community are close to my heart <3

2024
Stop Corporate Greed at Freelance

Stop Corporate Greed Website.

I was the solo designer on the project and executed logo design, brand identity, creative direction as well as web design.

Strong colors to represent greed and chaos inspired by the French Revolution. Simple and bold language to inspire action.

2023
Airline Website Re-Design at zu

✈️ Worked with a designer and a team of developers on a 0 to 1 re-design project for a local airline company.

🔬 Spearheaded research to accommodate users with slow internet/ older devices which ultimately led to a lightweight and smooth re-design.

📱Worked on mobile mocks for screen sizes as small as iPhone SE to ensure smooth transition and accessibility.

The project is currently in its last stages before deployment. Please contact me directly, since the company has an NDA policy.

2023
JamHive at Hackathon

🎸 JamHive is a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) software that is meant for small bands to be able to mix and match tracks and practice remotely. A.K.A a brainstorming app for musicians!

🧶 This was a complex 24-hour project where I collaborated as principal designer with 2 developer friends :) One of them is a musician in a local band called Pink Perry! We brainstormed and whiteboard together before I got to designing.

💫 Dark mode option for ease of working for long hours. Minimalist design so the album cover art is the star of the visuals.

Work Experience

2024 — Now
Saskatoon

My role includes web design/ front end development as well as a more well rounded breadth of tasks like research/ illustration/ brand or layout design.

As a critical designer, I love being a part of an organization that prioritizes social impact.

2023 — 2024
Saskatoon

UX Strategy and Research
- Did several extensive heuristic evaluations with recommendations for improvement for brands like Lum, Sasktel etc.
- Involved with user research interviews and mapping information architecture diagrams.

UX Design
- Completed 2 website re-design projects from zero with a small team of 1-2 designers. Including an indigenous owned airline website called Rise-air for a primarily remote north Saskatchewan demographic and CanGas-- a Canadian propane company.
- Persona design for Lum

UX Writing and Presenting
- "Accessibility for Design Systems" did a company wide presentation and converted it into a blog that was published on the company website.
- "Figma/ Figjam for everyone" did a company wide presentation collaborating with my manager to educate all teams in and outside of design to adopt tools to collaborate together.
- Did a Brand workshop for 8th grade students from the "eco-quest" program

2022 — 2023
University of Saskatchewan

Designed the typography and layout of the university newspaper.
Responsible for illustrations and comics.
Coordinated a team of 8 graphic volunteers and served as a mentor for new and aspiring contributors.

2022 — 2022
Remote, Saskatoon

Devised the UX strategy, and visual rebranding and designed the user interface of a survey app for a local soil company
Created user flows and interactive, high-fidelity prototypes and low-fidelity wireframes.
Conducted extensive user interviews, and testings to uncover user needs and refine the designs.

Side Projects

2024
I don't want a piece of your DEI Cake

A very raw and honest zine about my experience with tokenism and being in spaces that practice performative DEI.

2024

🪼⋆. ദ✧ Clay charms, illustrations and stickers⋆。‧˚ʚ🍓ɞ˚‧。⋆ ⋆˚✿˖° Shop Open ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧

2024

An inclusive space to discuss themes in tech, AI, diversity and design :)

We currently have 200+ people in the book club :))

2024

Hosting an HTML freewrite event at President Murray Park for world HTML day :) I also made a zine for participants as an intro to the event/ intro to HTML.

2024

Html, CSS and JS to make a silly little y2k neocities inspired site. Get your horoscope pookie!!

2024
Ongoing

Biomimicry X Fashion design

A dress inspired by brine pools, exploring the co-existence of life and death.

2024
Labor to Label
  • "Label to Labor" is a critical design project that reimagines the familiar clothing tag to reveal the often invisible processes behind goods production.

  • Today's convenience in purchasing clothing has abstracted the hours of labor, the people, and the resources involved in making a single garment. This project uses clear, humanized language to visualize data, bringing transparency and simplicity to these hidden aspects.

  • By presenting this information directly on clothing tags, "Label to Labor" encourages consumers to think more deeply about their choices and promotes slower, more conscious consumption as well as encourages producers to be more fair and transparent about their process.

  • This is also a more generalized concept that can be used for all sorts of goods outside of the clothing industry.

2024
Cutler at EcoHack
  • A week of collaboration with my friend Trang Nguyen for EcoHack 2024. We wanted to help design a solution to encourage reusable dishware at events.

    After looking at competitors and doing research on pros and cons of dishware available today, we came up with a vending machine for dishware with an inbuilt dishwasher! Trang mostly did the research and I focused on the design.

  • Designing for kids in mind with fun buttons at a lower height and interactive display. Also accommodating families or couples with matching dishware at an incentivized rate.

  • Data-driven design: We can implement a tracking system on the number of plates used and repurposed to show impact.

  • We also considered costs, considerations/ limitations and scope for future improvisation.

  • Images generated by Bing AI :)

2024

A speculative design project at the intersection of marine biology, sustainability and social commentary on beauty.

Awards

2023
Code Queen from co-labs

24-hour hackathon where our team of 3 build a music brainstorming app. This award of $1000 was presented to a female individual contributor who had the most impact on their team.

2023
Women in technology and community service Award from zu

The second year I won the Zu Award for social good through our club the UX Collective.

2023

$5000 scholarship based on community impact within STEM fields

2022

My 2 teammates and I tirelessly worked for 36 hours to address the issue of current washroom models in Saskatoon and our target demographic were the people who were the most in need I.e the homeless. We came up with a to-scale washroom model, 3d representation of a modular model, and a companion app prototype.

2022

For community service, volunteerism, and leadership awarded to 1 upper-year female student in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Saskatchewan

Volunteering

2022 — Now
University of Saskatchewan

Started the first product design club at my university with over 250 members currently. Manage 20 executive members and have successfully hosted 6 events in collaboration with product designers and local tech companies.

2024 — 2024
Mentor at Indigenous Women in Tech Hackathon

Mentor to help Indigenous Women build a business around the idea of helping other Indigenous women get interested in tech and sciences called Wâsakâmon at Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technologies.

As a mentor I worked with them, tried to understand/ empathize their pain points and help bring their idea to life through brand visualization exercises. I was always mindful to help uplift their ideas and show up for them as a collaborator/ ally rather than an expert.

Our team ended up winning $1500!

2023 — 2023

Education

2020 — Now
Bachelor of Interactive Systems Design Honors at University of Saskatchewan
Saskatoon

Interdisciplinary degree in computer science combined with psychology, art, and art history with Honors.