HARVEY NORMAN DESIGN CHALLENGE
Design Brief
- Harvey Norman is a large Australian-based, multi-national retailer of furniture, bedding, computers, communications and consumer electrical products founded on 1982.
- The company will be holding a ‘Coffee Weekend’ on 9th and 10th of August. As well as offering great prices on all coffee machines, Harvey Norman will be giving away a 1kg bag of coffee beans with every machine purchased.
- It has booked advertisement space for a homepage take over of the news.com.au website which will appear on Friday 8th of August. To make the online advertisement successful, the firm needs leaderboard, MREC, two wings banners, storyboards for any inclusion of animations and interactions and the mobile responsive landing page which is linked to the digital banners.
Design Challenge Story
While looking for a junior digital designer position, I had a phone call with one of the advertising agencies. After the phone call, I was invited to the face to face interview in the following week. The interview was an hour long and I had a good conversation with the interviewers. It went fine and I thought it was the end. However, after the interview they asked me to complete a design challenge and wanted to test my design and coding knowledge to check if I am an appropriate candidate for the role.
The task was to design digital banners, create storyboards and the following landing page for the upcoming coffee weekend event for Harvey Norman and to code the website using HTML and CSS. Initially, they asked me to complete it within three days. I was working three days in a row after the interview and when I told one of the interviewers this, they generously expanded it to four days.
When I checked the PDF file in my mailbox and read the design brief, I thought it preposterous as the amount of work I needed to put into it was a lot. Also, I have never done a design challenge in my life and I was unsure if I could come up with an appealing design and finish coding within a limited time frame. However, I desperately wanted to get my first designer job from this company and to earn enough time, I reduced my sleep and rest time and worked on the design challenge before and after work. On the days I am working, I focused on the assignment roughly six to seven hours (three hours each before and after work) and on the day I am not working, I spent approximately ten hours.
I initiated the design plan in my notebook and incessantly created various designs and incorporated the one I like in Figma. I wanted to complete the whole design within two days so that I could have enough time to code a mobile responsive landing page with HTML and CSS in the next two days. In the end, I managed to complete the advertisement banners, landing pages and HTML, but having not studied coding for almost two years I could not finalise CSS. During the interview, the interviewer once said they were looking for a designer and the role requires basic coding knowledge. Having completed HTML and came up with more than 300 lines of CSS I thought it would be fine.
After handing in my work, I felt relieved and free. It was the same feeling as concluding my last exam in university. Should I get selected, they were to notify me next week. However, I did not receive any answer for the next ten days so I sent a follow up email. They told me they are still reviewing and will endeavour to get back to me regardless of progression. I still did not receive any notification for another two weeks and when I was thinking if I should send another follow up email I received a rejection email.
Thinking about the amount of time and effort I have put into the design and coding, I felt depressed and unmotivated. However, I soon realised that it was not the end and I had to move on. While working on UX case study, I was thinking my design challenge work was wasted and suddenly wanted to present it in Behance. After one week of structuring pages, aligning layouts, rephrasing words and constructing mockups, it was born as my fourth portfolio work.
The task was to design digital banners, create storyboards and the following landing page for the upcoming coffee weekend event for Harvey Norman and to code the website using HTML and CSS. Initially, they asked me to complete it within three days. I was working three days in a row after the interview and when I told one of the interviewers this, they generously expanded it to four days.
When I checked the PDF file in my mailbox and read the design brief, I thought it preposterous as the amount of work I needed to put into it was a lot. Also, I have never done a design challenge in my life and I was unsure if I could come up with an appealing design and finish coding within a limited time frame. However, I desperately wanted to get my first designer job from this company and to earn enough time, I reduced my sleep and rest time and worked on the design challenge before and after work. On the days I am working, I focused on the assignment roughly six to seven hours (three hours each before and after work) and on the day I am not working, I spent approximately ten hours.
I initiated the design plan in my notebook and incessantly created various designs and incorporated the one I like in Figma. I wanted to complete the whole design within two days so that I could have enough time to code a mobile responsive landing page with HTML and CSS in the next two days. In the end, I managed to complete the advertisement banners, landing pages and HTML, but having not studied coding for almost two years I could not finalise CSS. During the interview, the interviewer once said they were looking for a designer and the role requires basic coding knowledge. Having completed HTML and came up with more than 300 lines of CSS I thought it would be fine.
After handing in my work, I felt relieved and free. It was the same feeling as concluding my last exam in university. Should I get selected, they were to notify me next week. However, I did not receive any answer for the next ten days so I sent a follow up email. They told me they are still reviewing and will endeavour to get back to me regardless of progression. I still did not receive any notification for another two weeks and when I was thinking if I should send another follow up email I received a rejection email.
Thinking about the amount of time and effort I have put into the design and coding, I felt depressed and unmotivated. However, I soon realised that it was not the end and I had to move on. While working on UX case study, I was thinking my design challenge work was wasted and suddenly wanted to present it in Behance. After one week of structuring pages, aligning layouts, rephrasing words and constructing mockups, it was born as my fourth portfolio work.
Thank you for viewing
Harvey Norman Design Challenge
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Designed by Francis Yoon
E-mail: francisyoonn@gmail.com
linkedIn: linkedin.com/in/francisyoonn
