Hosted by Cal Hacks, the organizers of the world's largest collegiate hackathon, hack:now is a hackathon focused on tackling some of the most immediate problems we’re facing today. So far, 2020 has been very eventful especially with the pandemic. It’s easy to feel like there’s little that just one individual can contribute, but that’s simply not true.

Inspired by how current events have shaped lives of society, we wanted to organize a hackathon for the student community to come up with solutions to current issues. Hosting it online not only meant adhering to social distancing standards but also making it more accessible to anyone, anywhere.

As the coronavirus continues to affect people in a variety of ways, we wanted to leverage Cal Hacks' reach and the hacker community.

hack:now is about building meaningful solutions that make definite impact and we hope each iteration unites people during times we need to the most. Some key concepts the brand had to encompass:

1. Humanity/Empathy
2. Collaboration
3. Community

Based on the values hack:now stood for, innovation and collaboration, I put together a moodboard to convey what I had in mind and worked with my design team on fonts and color scheme.

This concept was fun and friendly, but the elements that made it so also made it seem childish, which did not along with the seriousneness that comes with tackling current events.

This explored a "newspaper" theme since hack:now is about current events, but we felt like it lacked a friendly vibe.

This website served as a place for people to go to for information and to eventually sign up! Below is the visual design we decided to go with.

Julia designed the sections from the landing to the paths + the schedule page. Jojo did the speakers and panels sections. I worked on the sponsor grid and resources page. Jojo and I spent time working on the design of the mobile version of the website too! We all each created various graphics for marketing and sponsorship needs. As the Design Lead, I ensured brand consistency and gave feedback whenever necessary to both the Design Team and Tech Team as they coded up the website.

Fun fact: I’ve actually never participated in a hackathon (I’ve done designathons and other similar events) but I’m extremely passionate about collaboration + teamwork and hack:now proves just how far these can go not just in organizing an event but also in what that event can lead to! On the design-end we ran into issues with mobile compatibility and also had to restructure the website in just 24hrs to improve conversion but in the end, we brought together 2,500+ hackers, 25+ sponsors, 90+ judges and 80+ judges, ultimately resulting in 225+ hacks!