All you have to do to receive a €1000 bursary is show us how you stepped up to the needs of a project, and picked up some new knowledge and/or skills in the process. Be honest, be detailed, be you.
Created to reward exceptional learners, in loving memory of our late colleague: the designer Ivan Pashko.
This award includes a learning and development bursary for a designer of any level within DEP EMEA who is proactively learning, and doing everything they can to step up to new project, and career, challenges. All of this is to honour the curious determination of Ivan as an opportunity for you to fund your self-development.
Ivan Pashko was a dedicated self-learner, to whom the phrase ‘I don’t know’ was a promise that he would ‘find out’. He was community-minded too, and just as diligent with his willingness to share what he learnt as he was to learn it in the first place. This was paired with a remarkable frontier spirit, being both curious and excited to share whatever was coming next in design.
These values shape the spirit of the award, and what it means to receive it.
A Pashko’s Award winner is:
Are you these things? Then Ivan would have loved you – and so will we.
To understand why we created the Pashko Award, you have to get to know Ivan.
He was one of London’s lead designers, originally hailing from outside Lviv in Ukraine. He was passionate and creative, loved UX and design, and was always looking for ways to learn and grow. Even more importantly than that, he was a valued colleague and dear friend, going above and beyond helping others anyway that he could – at work, and at home.
Tragically, Ivan and his brother Taras passed away in a car accident in early 2021.
Ivan's legacy
Before he died, Ivan was working on a seismic data interpretation app. A challenging project for a big enterprise client, who needed the app to feature 3D data visualisation and functionality. Apart from the usual design thinking, a specific skill set was needed, so end-users could analyse data in several dimensions.
Most of this was a completely new domain for Ivan. He hadn’t – for example – worked with 3D data visualisations before, but that didn’t put him off. He was keen to learn and promptly found a course which he put himself through, all while keeping to the project timeline.
He used these new skills to create a dynamic interactive prototype of the app with a development team, pushing both client and project expectations to new heights.
His work was praised by the client and helped us demonstrate our world-class design expertise. He paid it forward, too. He created detailed walkthroughs to pass his newfound knowledge and skills to other internal design teams.
Ivan’s example shows the power of drive, of perseverance, and of wanting the best for everyone. He recognised his limits, found practical ways to overcome them, and made it so others could learn from his experience.
Ivan is someone we could all aspire to be. And we hope this award will encourage more designers to reach their fullest potential.
We want to see how you shined. Tell us about a project-challenge where you stepped out of your comfort zone, and picked up some new knowledge and/or skills under your own initiative.
Describe a challenge where you learned new skills beyond your comfort zone, using the entry form or a PDF case study.
Highlight your acquired skills, application, project impact, and how you shared your knowledge.
Wait for the shortlisting and participate in the next round for the Pashko Award.
We are also encouraging creative responses, so if you would prefer to share the story in your own way, please feel free to create and upload a PDF case study as part of your entry.
There will be a shortlisting process, and a second round where the winner and all honourable mentions will be chosen.
Ivan was working on a seismic data interpretation app before he died. This was a challenging project for which a specific skill set was needed - a skillset he didn’t currently have. He found a course and used the new skills to bring great value to the project and paid it forward too by passing his newfound knowledge and skills to other internal design teams.
This may sound like a familiar story – or it may not. Your own self-motivated learning journey could be similar, or very different.
Let’s say you’re a junior designer, keen to prove yourself in a new team. A new project for a fintech company has kicked off, but you don’t know the first thing about fintech – or finance. Technically, as a junior, you don’t need to. But that doesn’t stop you from wanting to find out as much as you can.
You reach out to the subject matter experts working within your team. You dig into the sector and understand how it’s relevant in the current market. You explore some of the products we have already created for other fintech companies and get familiar with the finished assets – staying vigilant for common tropes and significant differences, You then watch YouTube tutorials to work out how things are done, and test out the techniques for yourself.
You work, you question, you deliver – everything bolstered by your new knowledge and skills. You share the most significant findings with the others in the team and across the organisation.
Both this example, and Ivan’s, demonstrate drive, perseverance, and wanting the best for everyone – for yourself, for your team, and for the client. And this is exactly what we’re looking for.
— Describe a project challenge that required you to step out of your comfort zone and learn a couple of completely new things, not necessarily related to your normal designer skill set
— What did you learn to go about these challenges?
— How did you use this new knowledge in your project work?
— What was the outcome?
— Fill out entry form
— Upload your story in a case study format (optional)
Ed, a mid-level UX designer was assigned to a short-term ecommerce project. One of the challenges was to figure out why the conversion was low.
Ed was new to online retail, but quickly gathered he needed to check site analytics. He had never used analytics before so he decided to take a free course on Google Analytics Academy website and read a couple of online tutorials.
Using his new skills Ed composed a custom report showing how customers navigate the website, how many of them drop off during the checkout and on what pages UX falls short. He then took a closer look at some specific pages using form analytics tools and uncovered where exactly users got stuck.
Ed shared his findings with his PO and team mates and then they presented it to the client.
For business stakeholders it was an eye-opener, they appreciated ED’s approach and extended his contract to work out a solution.
The Pashko Award has been created by designers, for designers. So it makes sense that it’s judged by designers too! Here are the 2024 team:
Entries open
Entries close
Winner
announced
We want to see how you shined. Tell us about a project-challenge where you stepped out of your comfort zone, and picked up some new knowledge and/or skills under your own initiative.
winner 2023
