Lighting up Times Square through design and determination
Giang Tran turned trust, responsibility and relentless hard work into startup impact, which earned her the Faculty of Arts Co-op Student of the Year Award.
Giang Tran, a third-year Global Business and Digital Arts student, was Rootly’s first co-op student on the design team, where she worked as a product and visual designer.
She redesigned Rootly’s on-call rotation schedule, one of the most critical tools used by engineering teams. She led this initiative alone from beginning to end by performing extensive research on top of working on design and engineering components.
She also designed more than 80 high-impact user experience improvements that were shipped to 100 clients on top of leading worldwide brand and collateral initiatives.
Giang was able to create custom AI-native workflows that increased the outputs of Rootly’s brand and marketing team tenfold, significantly reducing their workload. Because of that, the CEO put Giang in charge of the billboard design that lit up Times Square in New York City.
Her efforts led her to be featured in an exclusive article by Rootly called “Spotlight: Meet Giang Tran, Rootly AI’s first design intern”.
Q&A with Giang
Tell me about a moment when you realized your work was making a real difference.
“When both of our senior designers were away, I was entrusted with leading the company’s design across all fronts; from product, to brand, to marketing. Whether that's people reaching out asking for help with presentation decks, or the CEO and product manager coming to ask me for important product decision-making and trade-offs. Most importantly, when our head of marketing came to me with the idea of having me take charge of the billboard design for Times Square, I realized that people put a lot of trust in me.”
In what ways did your supervisor support your learning or growth during the work term?
“My supervisor supported me during my work term by giving me a lot of incredible opportunities while always giving me autonomy. Since I was their very first intern, there was never a formal onboarding process. Because of this, I had to ask a lot of questions at the beginning, especially since this was also my first co-op term. Everyone was very kind and thoughtful about being there for me to answer all my questions, no matter how big or small. Since they were giving me a lot of ownership, I was able to shine and have a lot of creative space to execute my ideas. Being able to discuss these ideas with people in the office every day created an incredible environment for me to grow as an individual and as a collaborator.”
“My CEO and design manager recognized my impact as much more than just an intern; I was a thought partner and a strategic function on the team. He highlighted me as one of the hardest-working people that he had ever seen. I really set the standard for co-op students who are coming in the future.”
How has co-op shaped or changed your understanding of the marketing or startup industry?
“I learned the importance of how design, business and technology together must work accordingly to create meaningful impact for a business itself. Working at one of Canada's fastest-growing startups, I learned how brand and product design can shape the way people see a product. I learned how much dedication and love people have for this mission. That helped me realize the importance of the work I am doing and encouraged me to put in 100 per cent of myself into anything I deliver.”
“When I look back on my passion for art and design, I can understand how it can translate to real impact by combining it with technology and problems at a large scale.”
What does receiving the Co-op Student of the Year Award mean to you?
“Receiving this award is a recognition of the hard work and my drive for excellence no matter what. I moved from Vietnam to Canada at the age of 16 all by myself to chase bigger opportunities in art and design. During this time, I've tried to see how my art can have impact across as many people and as many communities as possible. I’ve been able to meet many different creative communities to help me build confidence in myself and prove that passion, hard work and persistence mean that you can achieve whatever you set your heart to.”
“It's also a testament to the trust that my parents had in me when they let me make this decision to move halfway across the world to do something big. I think this award is my thank you to them for having so much trust in a 16-year-old girl.”
What made you decide to come to the University of Waterloo?
“I realized Waterloo is the perfect environment for me because of the big technology focus it has. I never knew that I wanted to go into the tech industry, but the exposure to the people here and how design ties deeply into tech showed me that Waterloo is very interdisciplinary and respects people across all different backgrounds.”
“Another factor was the co-op program itself. I realize how important it is because before I graduate, I'll have more than a year of working experience. Having these experiences before I graduate is very meaningful because I can already understand what the industry is like and set myself up for success.”
If you could give one piece of advice to future co-op students, what would it be?
“Hard work always wins. I am speaking from experience because this is my very first work term, and it wasn't easy to find a co-op. I remember having to stay up many nights to reach out to people, asking multiple people in the design industry about the path that they're on and how to break into design. At that point, I didn't have any real work experience. All my work experience came from different class projects I have worked on or side projects I was doing.”
“Luckily, this opportunity came up when someone saw the potential in me. This wasn't a traditional co-op; the company opened a spot just for me. Because of that, I believe that hard work will beat it all. As long as you put your work out there while setting your heart and mind into the things that you believe, you'll get there.”
What's next for you?
“For the next couple of work terms, because I still have three work terms left, I want to be able to explore how design looks in different industries as well as companies of different scales. In my next co-op, I would like to be able to work at a larger company or a Fortune 500 enterprise to see what the bar for design, craft and system thinking looks like at a large scale.”
“I want to be able to design platforms and create digital products that help democratize access and make people feel capable and creative to do their best work every day. I want to dip my toes into how design can have an impact across many areas. Post-graduation, I'd like to work in a company or lead a design team that will allow me to design tools and products that have a positive, life-changing influence on millions and millions of users.”
