By: Micheal Lim
HiveHarvest recently received the Red Dot Award: Brands & Communication Design 2025, a meaningful recognition for the collaborative work of Shimei Qiu, the lead experience designer, and Bilan Liu, the product visual designer, who worked closely together to bring this project to life.
HiveHarvest is a mobile platform that helps organizers, volunteers, and restaurant donors coordinate food drives more effectively. It tackles real challenges—like unpredictable food supply, inconsistent communication, and low volunteer engagement—by simplifying logistics and motivating participation through visual storytelling and impact tracking.
Photo Courtesy: Bilan Liu
Shimei led the experience design with a strategic and research-driven mindset, defining the product structure, user flows, and key interfaces. Bilan shaped the visual identity and user interface design, crafting a system that feels clean, approachable, and grounded in the concept of a hive—a metaphor for collaboration, interdependence, and collective effort.
Every visual decision Bilan made was tied back to a single goal: make each user feel that their contribution matters. The warm color palette, intuitive layouts, and subtle motion elements were designed to guide users effortlessly through the platform while reinforcing the impact of their actions. From how data is displayed to how achievements are celebrated, the visual design ensures that contributors—whether they are volunteers, donors, or organizers—see the tangible results of their work.
“For me, visual design isn’t just about aesthetics—it’s about creating emotional connection. I wanted HiveHarvest to feel like a place where people can see themselves making a difference, not just completing a task.” — Bilan Liu
Bilan’s role as a product visual designer is rooted in her belief that design is most powerful when it serves people. Her approach blends clarity, warmth, and purpose, ensuring that interfaces are not only beautiful but also functional and motivating. She often draws inspiration from community-driven projects, sustainability efforts, and everyday interactions, translating them into designs that resonate on both visual and emotional levels.
Bilan’s contribution to HiveHarvest went far beyond applying a visual style—she was deeply involved in shaping how the product felt to use from the earliest concept stages. Her ability to blend functionality with empathy made HiveHarvest not only visually appealing but also deeply resonant with users, ensuring that each interaction felt purposeful and meaningful. Collaborating closely with Shimei and the development team, Bilan participated in early design workshops to understand the emotional and logistical barriers that volunteers and donors often face. She created multiple visual prototypes, each exploring different ways to convey trust, community, and progress, then tested them with potential users to gauge which elements truly resonated. Through this iterative process, she fine-tuned the use of color to strike the right balance between warmth and clarity, developed iconography that could be universally understood regardless of language, and established a consistent grid system that made the app’s many features feel cohesive. By championing accessibility and cross-platform consistency, Bilan ensured that HiveHarvest would feel inclusive and intuitive for a diverse range of users. This hands-on, collaborative approach not only elevated the visual quality of the app but also made the product’s mission—fighting food waste through collective action—more engaging and emotionally compelling for everyone involved.
Photo Courtesy: Bilan Liu
What makes HiveHarvest stand out is its ability to turn complex collaborative efforts into an intuitive and rewarding experience. By making each step purposeful and celebrating contributions in real time, the platform fosters ongoing participation, reduces food waste, and strengthens the connection between people and their communities.
For Bilan, seeing HiveHarvest recognized with a Red Dot Award was deeply rewarding—but more than the accolade, it reinforced her belief that thoughtful, human-centered design can create real, measurable change.
