How Christiana Im Upskilled at Shillington.

Before enrolling at Shillington, Christiana Im had already spent years following her creative instincts.

She had taught herself Photoshop, experimented with Illustrator, picked up InDesign through her school newspaper, and spent hours learning from tutorials, Adobe resources and social media. Design had long been part of her life, even if it wasn’t yet her full-time career.

But despite that passion, her formal education took a different route. Christiana graduated with a degree in psychology and a minor in art history, before beginning her career in corporate tech, first in recruiting and talent acquisition, then later in learning and development.

Still, the pull toward design never went away.

That realisation led her to Shillington. After applying for and receiving a half-scholarship, Christiana enrolled in the February part-time course in 2025, ready to turn years of self-directed learning into a more focused and professional design practice.

Christiana’s UX/UI App brief at Shillington, Club Soda:

Christiana didn’t come into the course as a complete beginner. She already had experience with Adobe Creative Suite and a clear visual sensibility. But Shillington introduced her to a different way of thinking about design, one that went beyond aesthetics or intuition.

Some of the technical lessons were immediate game changers.

“One thing that stuck out to me immediately was I was actually making all of my stuff without grids,” she explains. “I was just basically eyeballing things.”

Learning to use shortcuts, grids and margins helped her work more efficiently and with greater precision. But the biggest shift wasn’t technical. It was strategic.

For Christiana, one of the most challenging parts of the course was learning how to build concepts from the ground up: defining brand values, identifying visual keywords and using words to shape design decisions before moving into the visuals.

“That was all completely new to me,” she says. “I consider myself to be someone who’s really visual-forward thinking first. So words and copy felt like something that came after. But Shillington had it at the forefront.”

That process took time to get used to, but it changed the way she approached creative work. Instead of starting with what looked good, she began with what the design needed to communicate and who it needed to reach.

One project in particular helped bring that new way of thinking into focus.

For a group branding brief, Christiana was assigned a fictional AI-powered financial management app. It was a very different challenge from the kinds of branding projects people often expect to see in a portfolio.

“When I saw what we were going to be developing a brand identity for, I was like, my God, that’s so unconventional,” she says.

Rather than treat the brief as limiting, she used it as an opportunity to explore a unique angle. Looking closely at the research and the user challenge, she began to imagine an audience of young, ambitious users in their twenties. People balancing work, personal projects and side hustles, with little time to waste on repetitive admin.

From there, her concept started to take shape.

She named the brand Club Soda (featured above) and built it around the idea of profit through play: a financial app that automates tedious tasks so users can focus more on the parts of life that matter to them.

That central idea led to a brand purpose rooted in freedom, efficiency and work-life balance. Trust and empowerment also became key values, especially for younger users who may be managing their finances independently for the first time.

Christiana’s Off Screen brief at Shillington, Embrace the Unknown:

Once the concept was in place, Christiana used mood boards to explore how the brand could look and feel.

That stage became one of the most important parts of her process.

“It really helped me clarify where I wanted to go,” she says. “I wanted to make sure I hit all the bases and all the possibilities for where I wanted to take a direction.”

Christiana built separate mood boards for visual language, logo inspiration, photography and poster layouts, allowing her to test different directions before narrowing in on a final system. At first, there were many possible routes to take. But instead of getting lost in endless references, she kept returning to the strategic foundation she had already built.

“Just really stepping back and going back to my visual keywords was really helpful,” she explains. “I constantly flipped back and forth between the challenge statement, the brand values and the brand purpose. Just not forgetting all that groundwork was a good reminder to keep me on track.”

That ability to move between exploration and structure became a defining part of the project.

The final identity for Club Soda combined Y2K and brutalist influences with a stripped-back palette of black, neon yellow and grey.

Christiana wanted the app to feel bold, youthful and distinctly different from traditional financial brands. The result was an identity that felt eye-catching and culturally relevant, but still grounded in a clear strategic purpose.

She developed a custom wordmark with a slanted arrangement that subtly referenced the idea of work-life balance: never perfectly level, always shifting. She then extended the identity across app screens, posters, marketing materials and branded card designs.

The digital experience was designed to feel concise and intuitive, with a dashboard that prioritised clarity and quick access to information. She also prototyped an AI-powered invoice logging feature and even built motion elements in Figma, despite having no previous motion design experience.

“That was a really fun part of the brand identity, but also the most challenging,” she says. “I’d never done motion design before.”

Alongside the digital product, she developed a campaign world that brought the concept to life through photography, typography and playful messaging like Work less, play more. Tear-off posters, card designs and even a branded keychain helped show how the identity could exist across multiple touchpoints.

The result was a project that felt cohesive, energetic and fully resolved, from concept through to execution.

Christiana's Company Rebrand project at Shillington, The Honolulu Zoo:

Looking back, Christiana sees the project as more than just a strong portfolio piece. It also reflects how much her creative process evolved during the course.

She came to Shillington with technical curiosity and a strong eye. She left with a much deeper understanding of how strategy, language and concept development shape effective design.

That shift has already influenced the next stage of her career.

Since graduating, Christiana has been actively applying for full-time design roles, determined to make the leap into the creative industry. She has already received an internship offer and is progressing through interview rounds for another role, all while using her previous experience in tech and recruitment to navigate the hiring process with insight and confidence.

Even in a competitive job market, she’s staying proactive and optimistic, treating every application and interview as a chance to learn more about the industry and where she fits within it.

Christiana’s story is a reminder that creative careers don’t always begin with a traditional design degree. Sometimes they begin with curiosity, persistence and years of self-teaching. But having the right structure can make all the difference.

At Shillington, she didn’t just sharpen her technical skills. She learned how to think like a designer, how to back up creative decisions with strategy, and how to turn instinct into process.

Her journey also speaks to something many aspiring designers feel: that it’s one thing to love design, but another to trust yourself enough to pursue it seriously.

Now, with a portfolio that reflects both her originality and her discipline, Christiana is doing exactly that.

Christiana started with passion, built on it with purpose, and is now taking her next steps into the design industry with a stronger voice, a clearer process and a body of work that shows exactly what she’s capable of.