Lounge Lizard’s Spring 2023 Website Design Scholarship Winner: Jadden Picardal

This year’s Spring Web Design Scholarship goes to Jadden Picardal, 17, a senior at Coronado High School in Nevada. Her winning entry is a portfolio website that showcases her creative skills — and she has SKILLS.  

Picardal has won a $1,000 scholarship and a website design critique from Ken Braun, founder and CEO of Lounge Lizard Worldwide.

Picardal’s website immediately grabbed our judges’ attention because of its bold and playful creativity, subtle animations, and elements of nostalgia. The judges found her use of old-school stickers as buttons a fun way to keep website visitors engaged and looking for more. They were impressed with the designer’s highly skilled portfolio when they took a deeper dive. 

“There’s a bit of planned creative chaos on the homepage that is vibrant and fresh,” says Braun, a judge for The Webby Awards. “Clients who come to us for web redesigns always come with template after template. When we see work like Picardal’s, we stand up and take notice. It shows that even on Wix, you don’t have to do the norm.”

Picardal says her inspiration came from the New Jeans Album cover and the vibes of a Y2K teenager, which you can see in the doodles and stickers. The website is built on Wix, and designs were completed with Adobe Illustrator and Adobe After Effects.

Picardal used the website to help figure out who she is as a designer and what style felt most like her. The site was an excellent opportunity for her to use design to let college admissions teams learn more about her and her skills (she has been accepted to Purdue University and plans on majoring in computer or electrical engineering). 

Applications are now open for the Fall 2023 Semester scholarship, which can be found here. Applications are due by Oct. 3, 2023.

Meet Jadden Picardal, the Lounge Lizard Web Design Scholarship winner:

Favorite font: “My favorite font is Helvetica (a classic font that is so good!), and my favorite web design style at the moment is probably a neo-brutalist style.”

Hobbies: “Some of my hobbies are motion graphics, mechanical keyboards, painting, and music! These are things I love to incorporate with my academics & other projects.”

Background: “I would like to talk about my upbringing because it is something really important to me, and it simply can’t be shown in a resume. I was born in a small, rural municipality in the Philippines named Oras. My parents immigrated here to America when I was young, and I am extremely grateful for it and the opportunities that I am offered just because I live in America (just like this scholarship/contest!!!). Moreover, a lot of my work is anonymous, or under the name “igarakii,” because I do like the fact that people enjoy my work without knowing who I am. … Lately, I have been really proud of my work, and I would like to showcase my work to more people.”