Hack Club’s Manifesto

My manager DM’ed one day and asked me for design advice. He was working on the hiring page. It was not good.

I told him that I didn’t think anyone would apply. It felt like a blank page with a blob of text, and not something that would resonate with people. Would people understand that this wasn’t a traditional experience? That this could be impactful?

After pointing my grievances with the design, he realized a lot more was needed. I told him I had an inkling of a vision, and I could take a crack at designing it.

He told me that I had 2 days.

The Hack Club Gap Year program is an experience that I have a lot of trouble describing in words. I also just didn’t have the time to figure out the best way to communicate it.

This is what prompted the direction of a photo collage.

These are snapshots in different moments all 20 of us went through in our year. This is how we would remember our year. (I teared up a bit when sifting through our photos.)

It’s disjointed and incoherent, but I think it adds to the message. The work we do has unexpected results and leads to interesting journeys. It’s for everyone, and you can be ready to expect anything.

It also serves very well in juxtaposing a lot of the more serious messaging, i.e. the hacker manifesto.

I covered the emotional component of Hack Club Gap Year program, but I had yet to include the philosophy.

We have a previous work, called the Hacker Manifesto, which contained this philosophy.

I wanted to hone on this philosophy, especially the start, which sums up our philosophy at Hack Club.

The original plan was to have the manifesto front and center, but after revisions and working it through my manager, we decided that a more detailed job overview would be better for our main page.

So I made the manifesto its own page.

I wanted the feel of the manifesto site to be serious. The Hack Club Gap Year program should be something taken seriously, even in all the whimsy.

I sought a serif that didn’t feel too rigid. I wanted to avoid something that felt too impressing on a person. The slight funk and curves of Young Serif and Glyseric nailed a balance between seriousness and friendliness.

The imperfect colors also added to lessening the rigidity and seriousness of the application.

Elements on these pages are large and feel heavy when scrolling. The scale doesn’t feel overwhelming with the layout, and the heaviness forces the reader to immerse and view specific content pieces, rather than skimming through. It also conveys impact.

After the 48 hour deadline was up, I found the end result to be satisfying, despite not being perfect. I’m very proud of the manifesto. It is not my best work, but for the short time frame, I made the best choices I thought I could.

Designing the Manifesto was an emotional exploration for me.

I viewed my gap year as a rich engagement with both my life and philosophy, and I wanted to communicate that to prospective applicants.

Many people have reached out to me saying how much they appreciate the effort I put into it. One of my coworkers made a nice little blog inspired by the manifesto site.

However, in the future for short term and rapidly changing work, I need to be ready to build flexibility. The collages did not handle well when content changed, and it led to some places having awkward spacing.

As a fun but caring aside, I hid a small hidden note in the site an hour after it launched.

I had a couple people reach out to me and say how it much it meant to them. It was really sweet, and I’m grateful that my words had an impact on them.