Looking for Product/ UX design internships for the summer.
About
Malavika is an MDes. candidate at Carnegie Mellon University. She's a multi-disciplinary designer with ~2 years of experience working as a UX designer. Her design roots are in communication design, and she places her design practice at the intersection of interaction and communication design.
Projects
Nova is an AI powered conversational agent that personalizes the entire North Face product purchase and use cycle. The concept leverages AI and the power of a community to make shopping for winter wear and gear easier, thus making The North Face a more accessible brand.
An immersive mixed reality experience for the Andy Warhol Museum to help visitors understand the art and the artist better. The project won an Indigo Gold Award 2024 in the VR design category
Work Experience
Assisted Prof. Kelsey Dusenka for the class "Communication & Digital Design Fundamentals" at the undergraduate level (Fall 2023) Guiding students through their class projects, facilitating conversations that help them communicate and refine their developing design processes, and offering constructive feedback.
Assisting Prof. Stacie Rohrbach in ‘Designing Experiences for Learning’ - Spring 2024. Conducting research on class engagement, alignment of the learning objectives with the readings, notes, activities.
As a lead experience designer, I worked on multiple Proof of concepts for client acquisition, and was on a long term project to design an order management system for a rail freight company. To outline:
Designing an Order Management System (OMS) for B2B Rail Freight
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Led the 0 to 1 UX for the MVP, collaborating in cross-functional teams including engineers, product managers, Q/A teams, implementing an incremental, agile product development strategy.
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Created the user flows, wireframes, and prototypes on Sketch and Marvel. Tested prototypes at each phase, helping the client make business decisions about the capabilities of the product, before conducting usability testing with the customers of the client.
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Established a system for UX versioning and conflict resolution during the sprints.
Designing an AI-powered dashboard for Retail Logistics Pitches.
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Designed an AI-powered dashboard concept with a team of 4 members in a week. Conducted domain-expert interviews, defined features and widgets for the dashboard, created wireframes, defined the visual design
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Leveraging storytelling, we presented the concept to the client team and received positive feedback, leading to client acquisition.
Designing an ocean freight contract aggregator platform (Bootcamp)
- Conducted user-interviews, documented research and synthesis, defined platform capabilities, designed user-flows, conducted user testing of the prototype at multiple stages with multiple users from the logistics portfolio. This framework was used in client projects at Wongdoody that are now live.
As a design intern, I laid my UX foundations here. I worked on multiple projects but primarily focused on designing a fitness trainer marketplace website.
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Contributed to an online fitness trainer marketplace, playing a key role in research, wireframing, and visual design.
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Produced engaging social media banners, executed renders in Adobe 3D for project showcases, and executed package design imagery for a leading Indian snacks company.
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Crafted a digital rebrand option for an HR Tech company.
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Executed social media campaigns for ACT Fibernet, driving brand awareness and customer engagement.Designed a website banner for TATA Tanishq, capturing the brand's essence for a festival offer.
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Contributed to creative projects for Central, aligning designs with brand messaging.Recognised and commended for delivering high-quality creative work.
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Executed social media campaigns for ACT Fibernet, driving brand awareness and customer engagement.
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Designed a website banner for TATA Tanishq, capturing the brand's essence for a festival offer. * Contributed to creative projects for Central, aligning designs with brand messaging.
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Recognized and commended for delivering high-quality creative work.
As the only designer on board, I worked with the marketing team to implement the branding across stationery, social media, physical spaces. Here are some highlights:
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Designed a Brand kit with guidelines for the company.
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Designed coffee table books and property brochures.
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Worked on environmental graphics for the office space.
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Established a social media strategy with a kit that can be shared across the marketing team.
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Photographed the property for brochures.
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Created Welcome kits for new employees with merchandise.
Education
At CMU, I'm actively involved in exploring emerging technologies such as AI agents and conversation design, along with creating designs for mixed reality experiences. I'm in the process of defining my understanding of interaction design at the crossroads of experience and communication design. My coursework encompasses designing experiences for learning and delving into the social web to comprehend the nuances of designing for human psychology and the associated technological implications. Through various projects, I've developed skills in user research, problem-solving, conceptual development, wireframing, and designing for mixed reality and conversation scenarios. As I look at my progress, I'm pleased with my maturing ability to pinpoint the right metrics for validating proposed solutions.
I pursued a comprehensive four-year undergraduate course that centered around communication design in its various facets. This encompassed a broad spectrum, ranging from brand creation and marketing to graphic design, editorial design, package design, animation, photography, film studies, VFX, and illustration. My academic journey culminated in a thesis that delved into the pivotal realm of mobilizing conversations around sex education in India. This topic, while inherently sensitive, held immense importance as a necessary dialogue. Through my studies and thesis work, I honed my skills across diverse design disciplines, ultimately gaining a well-rounded understanding of effective communication in a variety of visual and creative formats.