Begin of second year. The pace went up immediately: more research, more structured process, more presenting your thinking before you were allowed to continue.

The brief was to design a campaign website for Lotus Bakeries, connecting the brand to Flemish education and community involvement, with a peak around International Day of Education. Which is a specific and interesting brief, not just "make a website," but design something that arrives at a particular moment for a particular audience.

What made this project different from first year was the process itself. Before we could actually start designing, we had to research, present to the professors, get approval, and then continue. It felt slow at first. Looking back it made the work more grounded. You can't just open Figma immediately, you have to know who you're designing for and why before any of the visual decisions make sense.

One month total. Really fun project to work on.

What I learned

Research-driven design takes longer but leads somewhere better. The forced checkpoint before execution meant design decisions had actual reasoning behind them rather than just looking good in isolation. That's a discipline I've tried to carry forward. Not always successfully, but I understand why it matters.