The person I chose is Alice Cai. I found her through research I had to do for my branding class this semester. This assignment was to present on the rebrand of Dunkin Donuts, and she had posted a lot about her work on it (as an intern) on her portfolio website.
Cai describes herself as a Visual and Brand Designer. Her bio on her website states that, “In addition to careful and creative craft, I design with the intention to leave every initiative I touch with an empowered and compassionate identity,” (Cai).
Cai got her Bachelors at Carnegie Mellon University in Design and Visual Communications (from 2018-2022). She also went to University of the Arts London for one semester in 2021. In college, she got an internship in tax data. This is the only experience found that did not relate to design. She was also involved a lot at Carnegie Melon. She was a Design Chair for Hong Kong Student Association at Carnegie Mellon (similar to my current position as Social Media Chair for NYU’s Filipino Association!), a “UI and Illustration lead at Frolic” in Carnegie Mellon’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute, and a part of a few other Carnegie Mellon projects such as yearbook and rebranding Carnegie Mellon’s School of Design. Outside of school, Cai had many internships such as Lead Designer at The Vessel, User Interface/Graphic Designer at DAYBREAKER, and as a Visual Design Intern at R/GA (where I found her work about Dunkin). It’s safe to say she had great success very early on in her career.
After college, she’s a Visual Designer at Prophet, a Brand Designer at Remotion, a Brand and Visual Designer at Nen Creative, a freelance designer at Stitchflow, and a freelance designer at R/GA. More recently from August-November 2023, she was a Visual Designer at Apple under contract. Now, she is a Visual Designer at Chiru Labs.
Although Cai has so many job experiences, her portfolio website only highlights a few. Her work on her portfolio website is organized by project; so she talks about a select few projects that she’s worked on, both at her job and personal projects.
Out of the 8 projects featured on her website, 2 of them are her own personal projects. One of them, called “Funhouse Interactive Article,” is a personal web/graphic design project. The other, “TOO BAD, I’M VOTING” Campaign, is a branding project using motion graphics and graphic design. It was made for Studentvote.org in 2020 (while she was still in school).
The other projects on her website are branding and designing for a variety of things, such as a Lunar Gala fashion show, Carnegie Mellon’s School of Design Yearbook, and R/GA’s Asian Collective. These pages showcase the work designed with excerpts about the project scope and process.
You can find a lot from Alice Cai browsing through the Internet. She has a profile on Carnegie Melon School of Design and Remotion, although these profiles are self-written and not necessarily press, and were a part of her experience at those two places. She also has more projects on Medium.com, but these are work early on in her career (2018-2020, her first two years of undergrad). I also surprisingly found a cover letter of hers addressed to SWANS, although it doesn’t seem like she worked there. There isn’t any papers or articles written about her by other people.
Alice Cai. LinkedIn. Retrieved March 13, 2024. https://www.linkedin.com/in/alice-cai-3229ab17a/
Alice Cai. Retrieved March 13, 2024. https://alicelcai.com/
Redbull: Digital Marketing and Creative Coordinator
Because I’ve had experience in integrated marketing and have a creative background, this position seemed like the perfect fit for me. I’m confident that my experience in social media and email campaigns match the demands of this position, and this position would allow me to learn about the other responsibilities I have no experience in. Throughout my post-grad job search, I’ve found that positions with the word “Coordinator” are the ones I like most. I prefer organizing and producing the marketing materials rather than designing them. I’ve already applied to this position. However, I think a way that I can improve my candidacy is to improve my portfolio website and create more projects for it.
There was an opening for a “Brand Social Manager” that is now closed. But, this position seemed like the perfect fit of my career interests - doing social marketing for a renowned digital marketing company. What the position entailed was coordinating posting across all social platforms. I’m not sure if this would’ve included posts on their blog, but I would definitely be interested in that as well. I’m hoping that Klaviyo will open up a similar integrated marketing position in the future, although I believe I would need much more professional experience to land a job at this company. My great interest in this specific position has influenced me to look into opportunities that are similar that are feasible for entry level.
Since I was younger did I dream of a job at Pinterest. I’ve already joined their Careers mailing list, although I haven’t received anything yet. They have these Apprenticeship Programs for early career preparation. I’m most interested in their Product Management opportunity. However, these apprenticeship programs require that you don’t have a “traditional background” and I’m not sure if my background at NYU counts as such. I haven’t been able to break into Product Management, but it does interest me, which is why I hope to receive this opportunity at Pinterest if it opens. Otherwise, like Klaviyo, I’m expecting that I need more professional experience to get a full-time job here.