If you ever run into Academy freshman Kitty Huang in person or on Zoom, odds are she’s multitasking projects into creative masterpieces. A designer and creative who ricochets from design work to artistic endeavors to website rebrands, Huang has done it all and she’s just getting started. In her first year at the Academy, she’s keeping her feet on the ground, all while expressing herself through her work, building meaningful connections and being bold.

What does being at the Academy mean to you? 

Being bold, taking initiatives, creating unique expressions to communicate my own perspective on the world.

What is something about the way the world works that you'd like to disrupt? 

The way people communicate with each other, in an international sphere. Coming from a bicultural background, I find cultural imprints and the deployment of language to be interesting, but at the same could be limiting the form of communication among people from different cultural backgrounds.

What are three goals you have this year? 

Work on personal projects outside of school and find my own niche in design 

Have one-on-one conversations and connect with strangers or people I want to get to know more about

What are some projects you’ve been working on lately?

As the Assistant Creative Director of the USC Concerts Committee, I helped rebrand the organization’s logos, image, as well as worked on the website redesign. Recently, I was commissioned to rebrand Joinly’s visual identity and redesign its website. Joinly is an online community of creative students and a project space that connects the most talented student founders to entrepreneurs, designers, programmers and researchers.

I’ve also been working as a freelance graphic designer for XIX Entertainment since summer. I was mainly responsible for creating content (album covers, social media content, Spotify and YouTube, etc.) for Now United, a global pop group created in 2017 by American Idols creator Simon Fuller. This July, I created a custom YouTube Premiere Countdown video for the pop group’s “Feel It Now” official music video premiere with Pepsi.

At the Daily Trojan, designing covers for special coverage issues was one of my main jobs. A supplement issue highlighting the lives of international students at USC came out this April, and I directed the entire issue’s layout.

Finally, Tiny Dorm is a video series produced by Contains Eggs (led by Academy majors Sumit Chandra, Joel Yoon, Shantanu Jhaveri), featuring music artists at USC in a college dorm setting. As the designer on the team, I created a core visual/brand identity and marketing posters for the video series.

Describe one thing most people don’t know about you? 

Kitty is my real name and my mom named me after Hello Kitty.

What is one thing your parents taught you that you’d like to share? 

Always have empathy for others – never lose that.

What are the essential things you always keep in your backpack? 

My AirPods. I always have music on wherever I go.

Spotify and Pinterest are both my favorites.

If you could be best friends with one fictional character who would it be? 

Fresh Encounters: Kitty Huang