print(“Hi Spotify!”)
︎︎︎ scan & move me around!
My name is Valerie, and I’m here to share my experiences and audition to be a part of your team as a Product Design Intern! 🚀️
So, who am I? 🧐️
I’m Valerie, an aspiring creative designer and dancer on the side. 💃️
As a dancer, music has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. From taking ballet for 12 years and hip-hop for 5 years, I love the feeling of how music translates through my body. When Spotify first came out in Indonesia (where I grew up), I remember being one of the first amongst my friends to download it, and later on telling them all about it - highlighting how easy it was for us to create, collaborate and communicate through playlists and music.
Today, being a graphic communication design student at Central Saint Martins, I continue to allow music to take over me and the work I produce. I have recently gained a passion for exploring the bridge between design and technology, and the approach of a human-centred design; turning real life observations into meaningful storytelling, and the process in between. As a fast-paced learner, I have been teaching myself on the importance of rapid prototyping - in both user interfaces and experiences.
This coming summer, I’m hoping to join the band as a Product Design Intern; to learn further on how to craft elements to tell better stories, from Spotify to their fans. With a strong background in strategy and identity, I can bring a visual and strategic perspective to the team. I wish to collaborate with people from different fields to further develop Spotify’s features to reach its maximum potential, and ultimately create the best experience for your users. That being said, scroll to explore what I can bring to the table! 😬️
As a dancer, music has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. From taking ballet for 12 years and hip-hop for 5 years, I love the feeling of how music translates through my body. When Spotify first came out in Indonesia (where I grew up), I remember being one of the first amongst my friends to download it, and later on telling them all about it - highlighting how easy it was for us to create, collaborate and communicate through playlists and music.
Today, being a graphic communication design student at Central Saint Martins, I continue to allow music to take over me and the work I produce. I have recently gained a passion for exploring the bridge between design and technology, and the approach of a human-centred design; turning real life observations into meaningful storytelling, and the process in between. As a fast-paced learner, I have been teaching myself on the importance of rapid prototyping - in both user interfaces and experiences.
This coming summer, I’m hoping to join the band as a Product Design Intern; to learn further on how to craft elements to tell better stories, from Spotify to their fans. With a strong background in strategy and identity, I can bring a visual and strategic perspective to the team. I wish to collaborate with people from different fields to further develop Spotify’s features to reach its maximum potential, and ultimately create the best experience for your users. That being said, scroll to explore what I can bring to the table! 😬️
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It’s Spotify’s world, and we’re all just living in it. 🌍️
Community. It’s such a simple yet powerful term that I highly value and resonate with. One of Spotify’s well-known features is the Friend Activity tab. Ask any friend, I’m pretty sure they’ve all paid too much attention to what their friends are listening to with hopes of figuring out how they’re feeling. Just like Dan said in Begin Again, “you can tell a lot about a person by what's on their playlist”.
Keeping up with the times, it’s no question that I’ve managed to catch the collaborative playlist bug. From one being between my best friend and I, to another shared within my community of young individuals dedicated to create positive social impact, these playlists became a way to connect with one another, especially since we’re all living in different parts of the world right now.
The experience Spotify has given me allowed me to work better as a team player. The endless conversations we can have when working in a team are highly insightful, and I believe that collaboration is a key element in innovation. Not only are we sharing ideas, but we’re also constantly sharing music.
Keeping up with the times, it’s no question that I’ve managed to catch the collaborative playlist bug. From one being between my best friend and I, to another shared within my community of young individuals dedicated to create positive social impact, these playlists became a way to connect with one another, especially since we’re all living in different parts of the world right now.
The experience Spotify has given me allowed me to work better as a team player. The endless conversations we can have when working in a team are highly insightful, and I believe that collaboration is a key element in innovation. Not only are we sharing ideas, but we’re also constantly sharing music.
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It’s the 83 playlists for me. 🎶️
My first ever playlist was made in January 2015. Ever since then, I’ve made a total of 83 playlists. Playlists have the power to embody a certain mood, genre, or maybe even an occasion or a memory.
For me, playlists are like non-verbal messages to communicate what I want to say. My Spotify playlists allow me to relive moments and motivate me, as I curate songs that hold a certain sensation into them. From selecting the perfect playlist title (most of mine are of TV show episodes) to making sure all the cover images are black and white (the aesthetic I’m going for), there’s a playlist for every feeling, event, and interest of my life.
As an organized and detail-oriented designer, creating playlists is all about arranging the songs I listen to and love in the most optimal, harmonious and user-friendly way - taking quality, genre, emotion and interest into consideration. The act of curating music in a way that makes it easy to navigate for me is the same as user experience design - to create a user-friendly experience in the work I produce.
For me, playlists are like non-verbal messages to communicate what I want to say. My Spotify playlists allow me to relive moments and motivate me, as I curate songs that hold a certain sensation into them. From selecting the perfect playlist title (most of mine are of TV show episodes) to making sure all the cover images are black and white (the aesthetic I’m going for), there’s a playlist for every feeling, event, and interest of my life.
As an organized and detail-oriented designer, creating playlists is all about arranging the songs I listen to and love in the most optimal, harmonious and user-friendly way - taking quality, genre, emotion and interest into consideration. The act of curating music in a way that makes it easy to navigate for me is the same as user experience design - to create a user-friendly experience in the work I produce.
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Things about my experiences that just ✨️ make sense ✨️*
*in other words - what i’ll be bringing to the team!
1. Adaptability and knowledge on softwares 🤖️
My passion for design started when I was in middle school, where I taught and familiarized myself with various design softwares. My ability to use said softwares such as Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere Pro and After Effects have been of great use in my involvements of today, in and out of university. Most of my university work requires me to enable my graphic design skills, in projects such as creating motion graphics to tell a story and designing an interactive experience to promote a cause. On the side, I have been teaching myself UI/UX softwares on prototyping and wireframing, such as Figma, Sketch, InVision and Origami Studio. These software skills comes in handy when storyboarding experiences for users, and creating products with a human-centred approach.
2. Strategy and identity 🖌️
Studying in Central Saint Martins has taught me to always embrace the craziest ideas, even if they seem completely unrealistic and out of this world. Strategy and Identity is my chosen platform in university, and this allowed me to expand my creativity in a real-world context by collaborating with companies such as The Body Shop and agencies such as Mother London. Previously interning in the marketing and media department of AXA Insurances, one of the world’s leading insurance companies, I was entrusted with a specific project called The CEO Chat, where I was granted the chance to create all the promotional advertisements and teasers for the event. I took part in brainstorming ideas for the theme and illustrated and designed graphics for the presentation for the event.
3. Collaboration and communication 💬️
Before I started my first year of university, I was involved in various activities that allowed me to explore my creative side. I was the media director of an independently organized TED event by Sekolah Pelita Harapan in Indonesia called TEDxYouth@SPH, leading a team of 6 to handle the website, graphics and merchandise for the event. I was given the role of Head Cinematographer for Voice, an online school newspaper, that gave me the chance to create cinematic videos as part of the media and marketing team. During my time in university, I was the Co-founder, Vice-President and Treasurer of my university’s Indonesian Society and the Vice-head of Student Relations of PPI London (Indonesian Student Association of London). My most recent involvement was being the Head of Design and Head of Exhibition in Indonesian Night 2020, an event that showcases Indonesian culture through the best of Indonesian students’ talent across London. Through this, I got to be in charge of branding the event, leading a team of 8 to handle social media accounts, documentation and publications. I had the chance to curate an exhibition filled with Indonesian artworks by Indonesian artists, and worked together with other members to organize the overall event.
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