Exactly 4pm on Thursday, 29th of July, 2021 about 3 weeks ago, the doors of Mayhaven innovation hub opened up to over 50 students of the most beautiful campus in Africa (Obafemi Awolowo University) to receive Perxels' gift - A 3-days free UIUX design masterclass.
Truth be told, that wasn’t the real beginning of the story.
The team at Perxels design school had spent days that turned into weeks to plan the masterclass. The publicity was done and the result was the over 120 registered people against the available slots of 40 students per category.
After a fair selection, the 40 students - each for beginners & intermediate classes - were selected and allocated entry tickets via their emails.
Others were encouraged to join their respective classes via google meet.
Day 1
Beginners' Category
With google meet, the online audience was able to connect without hassle as the beginners' class kicked off.
Abiodun Fiwa, the team lead at Perxels started by introducing the team members available with her in the person of Yemi Jeff (Design Facilitator), Chinemerem Ajala (Program Manager) and Feranmi Oladepo (Motion Graphic Designer) to the students. Fiwa spent some minutes connecting with the participants (onsite and online) to get a feel of who they are, and their expectations of the masterclass.
Their response confirmed their unfamiliarity but interest in UIUX design, which led to their first interaction with figma.
With the assistance of the Perxels team members, the participants online and onsite were able to sign up into figma and get a walk-through of the tool.
The students were led through many other basics of UIUX design in simple terms.
As the session came to an end, questions rolled in as expected, the students' faces lit up as they got satisfactory answers from the facilitator - Fiwa.
With a warm “see you tomorrow” from Perxels’ team members, the beginners students were dismissed after over an hour of interesting learning.
However, the beginners didn't leave until they had enough group photographs with the Perxels team.
Intermediate Category
At about 5:30pm, the intermediate students onsite were able to settle down after students of the beginners class left.
The introduction process was repeated after the online students joined via google meet.
Fiwa asked a couple of the intermediate students why they associate themselves with the title “Intermediate designers”? With their responses, we could tell they had some experience in UIUX design and have worked with some projects in the past, while they believe there’s still more for them to learn about UIUX design.
On that note, Fiwa took the students on a knowledge journey, sharing her personal experience and the real-life demands in organizations hiring UIUX designers.
Contrary to the Beginners’ experience, the intermediate session was more of an interactive session of thorough brainstorming on a real-life problem - a case study of an Advertising company.
At the end of the session, questions were given satisfactory answers and Fiwa gave an assignment on the case study from where the next day’s class will kick off.
Students took photographs and after an interesting networking session, everyone was dismissed to meet for the next day’s classes.
Day 2
Beginners Category
Earlier, during the previous day’s session, Fiwa had promised a recap at 10am and 12pm for the beginner students who couldn’t get along properly with the day-1 masterclass.
That promise was fulfilled when the students joined the recap session online, via google meet by 10 am and 12 pm respectively. Bringing all the beginners to the same page.
And by 4pm on the same day, all the beginners students both onsite and online were welcomed to the day 2 masterclass.
The highlight of the class was the beginners being able to create their first landing page using figma tool with the direction and guidance from the team lead and assistance from other team members.
Many questions sprung up which got answers to like :
- Why a particular icon is needed?
- What is the proper sizing of each element?
- Adequate spacing and alignment of elements
The excitement steaming from the students led Fiwa into giving them a sneak peek of what to expect when they get into perxels design school properly and an announcement of a tuition discount for every beginner that would love to join perxels design school.
The session ended in an exciting mood and lots of pictures.
Intermediate Category
The intermediate students were back on day 2 with their assignments - a detailed research summary of the advertising company.
Fiwa took time to go through a number of the reports while also reading them aloud and presenting them on the screen.
The report of a female intermediate student (Bakare Khadijat Opeyemi) stood out in quality and details which won her a full scholarship to join the intermediate class as a student here at Perxels design school.
Needless to say, there were many congratulations offered by the participants online and offline to the scholarship beneficiary.
That wasn’t the end of session, the class still went on as Fiwa instructed each student to come up with their sketch of what the landing page of the advertising agency will look like in design.
That 15 mins exercise yielded results of amazing and quality sketches from the students. The best sketches in the room attracted more freebies.
Fiwa went on to share more details and experience on how the design process is carried out in bigger organizations, laying emphasis on the role of a mid-fidelity design as a proper transition between lo-fi and hi-fi designs.
To bring the session to an end, the students got a new assignment to come up with a low-fidelity design of the advertising company based on their sketches.
The session came to a close with pictures and networking between participants.
Day 3
Beginner and Intermediate Classes
The final day of the 3-days free masterclass was the icing on the cake.
The classes for beginners and intermediate were held online for all the participants by 10am and 12pm respectively.
For beginners, it was a time to fully complete their beginners’ project of using the figma design tool and understanding the basic knowledge of UIUX design - in summary initiating them into designers’ thought patterns.
For the intermediate students, it was time to present their Low-fidelity design according to their previous sketches.
The designs were amazing as usual, with some corrections and explanations from the facilitator.
Meet & Greet
The classes rounded up with the announcement to meet and greet everyone at the best location - New OAU ICT Center, Obafemi Awolowo University.
Around 12 noon, participants of the 3-day masterclass (both online and onsite) began to arrive at the serene location.
There were interactions between the students, an address from Perxels’ team lead and distribution of swags which includes branded T-shirts, stickers and others.
We had unending photographs in various groups and poses that indicated that Perxels design school was in OAU.
What to expect?
We plan to host similar events in institutions of learning all over Nigeria in coming months. As a matter of fact, we have a couple of requests that we are currently attending to.
You can shoot us a mail at info@perxels.org if you would love to partner with us or have us in your location.
In the meantime, visit our website www.perxels.com to view available opportunities we have for you.
Or visit our social media pages @perxels for our free weekly activities that you can join in.
See you there!
