The Spark for Quark
Segal students Peter Wang and Jason Jeong created Quark Design Labs, a student organization that emphasizes visual design.
When Peter Wang (MaDE ’27) and Jason Jeong (IES ’27) came to Northwestern, they noticed a gap in the University’s design landscape. While there were plenty of opportunities to engage with human-centered design through coursework and extracurriculars, they craved a dedicated space for students to explore design as a creative and aesthetic practice, sparking both passion and conversation.
Enter Quark Design Labs, a new student organization founded by Wang and Jeong that emphasizes visual design, interdisciplinarity, and ambition. Since its launch at the beginning of the Fall quarter, Quark aims to merge physical and digital design, bridging craft with creative expression.
A Shared Vision
Wang and Jeong didn’t know each other before creating Quark together. They connected through Manufacturing and Design Engineering (MaDE) program director David Gatchell after realizing they shared a vision for a new design community at Northwestern.
For Wang, design has been central to his Northwestern Engineering experience. A double major in mechanical engineering and MaDE, he's drawn to the intersection of visual design and technical problem solving. After spending the summer of 2024 in a design lab, he returned eager to find more ways to connect with peers who shared his passion for design.
“In my summer program, we were a super close-knit community,” Wang said. “We had a group chat where everyone would just throw in design ideas, and it was fun to have people talking about these things and developing their sense of aesthetics and style. I thought to myself, ‘How do I start a community where people can talk about design?’”
Jeong had a similar experience with a design community. While participating in the 2025 Segal Bay Area Immersion Program, Jeong was surrounded by design and fell in love with it. He created his own Product Design and Development major under the McCormick Integrated Engineering Studies program to incorporate more digital design classes into his McCormick education. He had similar feelings as Wang about cultivating a design community focused on UI/UX design principles at Northwestern.
Professor David Gatchell put the two in contact, and before long, Quark was born.
Designing a Design Club
Building a design club from the ground up did not come without challenges.
“My initial ideas of the club were very different, but after meeting Peter and being taught by [former] Professor Pam Daniels, my precise perspective on design was changed,” Jeong said. “I wanted to bring a fun and vibrant environment into a close-knit community rather than being in-your-face about resumes, portfolios, and jobs."
Meanwhile, Wang saw the value of making Quark incorporate more educational resources for students, especially for those who have not yet been involved with design.
Once they agreed on making Quark an educational design club focused on both industrial and UI/UX design in Spring 2025, they got to work making a constitution to pitch to the McCormick Student Advisory Board.
When their initial pitch was rejected, they were instructed to reapply in the Fall quarter. However, Wang and Jeong were not content backing down — instead, they iterated.
The pair requested a redo on their presentation and were granted a second chance at pitching their club. This time, they came prepared to explain why Quark would be a new and innovative addition to the slate of McCormick extracurriculars.
"In the second pitch round, the primary thing we did was clarify that we're a club focused on aesthetics. That's something that we didn't do in the first round, which made Quark difficult to distinguish from other design clubs like Design for America," Jeong said. “We are there to really complement all the existing design and engineering clubs that focus on functionality by focusing on the aesthetics.”
In their second pitch, Quark stood out, and the pair set the newly formed organization into motion. From there, Wang and Jeong put together a stand-out executive board with excited and knowledgeable members and prepared to officially launch Quark in the Fall, focusing on engaging and educational activities for students and advancing its online image with sleek, modern branding.
Quark in Action
Now, Quark connects students across disciplines to one another through design. The organization encourages designers to follow a “We help X do Y by doing Z” framework, emphasizing the importance of human-centered design when identifying and solving for pain points.
“Our framework maps directly onto what we did in DSGN 308: Human Centered Design, where everything starts with a user's unmet need. We want people to think through the process of why a product is successful, why it's not, and what pain point it tackles,” Wang said.
The club has hosted a number of events including a bonding bonfire, a talk with Segal Adjunct Lecturer Hemmant Jha, and a series of workshops, which the executive board helps to organize and run.
Wang heads industrial design workshops alongside Industrial Design Co-Chair Sera Hong (McCormick ’27), while Jeong handles UI/UX workshops with UI/UX Design Co-Chair Ami Takamatsu (McCormick ’26), with the pair attending each other’s workshops to give notes on what went well, what didn’t go well, and how to improve for later iterations.
As for the future of Quark, Wang and Jeong hope to develop the club into the design community they imagined.