HELLO@SETHLUKIN.COM
LINKEDIN.COM/IN/SETHLUKIN

ADC space

ART & DESIGN school
community hub

OVERVIEW

timeline

timeline

September 2021 —
May 2022

Responsibilities

Responsibilities

UX Research, Competitive Analysis, Prototyping, UI design, product strategy

The ADC Space project began with a simple observation: students in technology‑related majors at the HSE Art and Design School had outgrown their informal hub. Until 2021, the student community shared job postings, events and resources in various chat groups. As the network expanded, vital information was lost in the noise, and students struggled to present themselves professionally. Together with Fedya Andryushin and under curation of Vadim Bulgakov, I worked from September 2021 to May 2022 to design a digital platform that would centralise job opportunities, resources and profiles

Bringing Students Together

Bringing Students
Together

The real-world ADC community helped students collaborate on projects, find internships, organise events, and share valuable resources. We aimed to capture that collaborative spirit online, making sure important information wasn’t lost in endless group chats or email threads.

The real-world ADC community helped students collaborate on projects, find internships, organise events, and share valuable resources. We aimed to capture that collaborative spirit online, making sure important information wasn’t lost in endless group chats or email threads.

The real-world ADC community helped students collaborate on projects, find internships, organise events, and share valuable resources. We aimed to capture that collaborative spirit online, making sure important information wasn’t lost in endless group chats or email threads.

Understanding Students

Understanding
Students

We began with mixed‑methods research. Surveys and interviews helped us map typical tasks—finding internships, sharing portfolios, promoting events—and to segment users by their interests and activities. Students repeatedly complained about having to check five different channels to keep up with opportunities. Others mentioned how hard it was to present themselves professionally; maintaining a personal website required time and technical skills. Many lamented that tutorials, lectures or design resources shared in chats were quickly buried and never resurfaced. Faculty echoed these frustrations, and everyone worried about the instability of messaging platforms in Russia. These conversations defined our core problems: fragmented communication, difficulty with self‑presentation, lost resources, and an unstable digital environment.

We began with mixed‑methods research. Surveys and interviews helped us map typical tasks—finding internships, sharing portfolios, promoting events—and to segment users by their interests and activities. Students repeatedly complained about having to check five different channels to keep up with opportunities. Others mentioned how hard it was to present themselves professionally; maintaining a personal website required time and technical skills. Many lamented that tutorials, lectures or design resources shared in chats were quickly buried and never resurfaced. Faculty echoed these frustrations, and everyone worried about the instability of messaging platforms in Russia. These conversations defined our core problems: fragmented communication, difficulty with self‑presentation, lost resources, and an unstable digital environment.

We began with mixed‑methods research. Surveys and interviews helped us map typical tasks—finding internships, sharing portfolios, promoting events—and to segment users by their interests and activities. Students repeatedly complained about having to check five different channels to keep up with opportunities. Others mentioned how hard it was to present themselves professionally; maintaining a personal website required time and technical skills. Many lamented that tutorials, lectures or design resources shared in chats were quickly buried and never resurfaced. Faculty echoed these frustrations, and everyone worried about the instability of messaging platforms in Russia. These conversations defined our core problems: fragmented communication, difficulty with self‑presentation, lost resources, and an unstable digital environment.

We discovered
four main issues

Inefficient Information Flow
Students often rely on fragmented sources, like local class chats, when searching for job opportunities, leading to inefficient information distribution. Vital details about internships and events frequently get lost, failing to reach interested parties effectively.

Loss of Valuable Resources
Many cool and useful things shared by students and mentors in informal chat groups often get lost in the flood of messages. This results in valuable educational and professional development tools not being fully utilized or accessible to the entire community when needed.

Challenges in Self-Presentation
Quickly conveying a comprehensive personal profile through a single platform is challenging. Personal websites and portfolios, while useful, demand significant resources to maintain.

Unpredictable Environment
In Russia, the landscape of communication tools and platforms has suddenly got highly unpredictable, with rapid changes due to the exit of various services and other socio-economic impacts of war, such as rapidly increasing state censorship and external sanctions. This instability made it difficult to maintain consistent, reliable tools for professional networking and exposure in both professional and academic setting.

Hypothesis: 

a unified digital portal

We believed that a simple, user-friendly digital platform—combining job listings, event announcements, and personal profiles—would solve these communication challenges. We structured content clearly, made navigation easy, and ensured students could easily discover and access helpful features.

Channels

That Students Actually Use

We believed that a simple, user-friendly digital platform—combining job listings, event announcements, and personal profiles—would solve these communication challenges. We structured content clearly, made navigation easy, and ensured students could easily discover and access helpful features.

Where Content Comes From

Content is sourced naturally from within the community. Students, instructors, and curators share internships, events, and resources. Small businesses and administrators contribute with official announcements and external opportunities. Clarifying who posts what keeps content relevant and easy to follow.

Easy and Helpful Features

We started by creating a Job Board. This feature allows students to quickly browse and apply for internships or part-time positions with just a few clicks, all using their ADC Space profile.

Next, we added an Events Section where students find relevant workshops, talks, and networking events in one easy-to-use calendar. It also suggests events based on their interests.

link sharing hub

To solve the issue of professional self-presentation, we created ADC Me, a simple but powerful personal profile hub. Students can effortlessly showcase their projects, achievements, skills, and contact information without the need for coding or designing an entire website from scratch. ADC Me serves as an all-in-one digital business card that students can quickly update, share with employers or collaborators, and link to external profiles like LinkedIn, Behance, or GitHub. By simplifying online presence management, ADC Me empowers students to confidently present their work, skills, and professional identity with minimal effort.

  • Alex is applying for jobs. He needs to gather all his projects, contacts, and social media in one place. It should look neat and professional.

  • Alex is applying for jobs. He needs to gather all his projects, contacts, and social media in one place. It should look neat and professional.

  • Alex is applying for jobs. He needs to gather all his projects, contacts, and social media in one place. It should look neat and professional.

  • Alex is applying for jobs. He needs to gather all his projects, contacts, and social media in one place. It should look neat and professional.

Designed for Growth

To keep the platform consistent as it grows, we built a simple but robust UI kit. Every button, card, or piece of text is reusable, allowing easy and fast improvements or additions without losing visual coherence.

We Were Thinking
in the Right Direction

ADC Me was designed as a simple way for students to present themselves without the hassle of building a full personal site. It focused on quick setup, link sharing, and a modular layout—making it easy to update and use in real scenarios like job applications or class projects.

Shortly after we built the concept, tools like bento.me started growing with almost the same idea: lightweight, customizable link hubs for creative people. We hadn’t planned to follow any trend—but seeing similar products succeed confirmed that the problem we were solving was real and widely shared.

Let's build

together

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Let's build

together

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NEW YORK, US

NEW YORK, US

02:33 AM
02:33 AM

LAST UPDATED

LAST UPDATED

JULY 20 2025

JULY 20 2025

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