DesComm - Inspiration

Assignments: Choose an inspirational brand that communicates their values clearly. Highlight the specific details that make them successful. How can you apply their strengths to your work?

I like Google as a brand. It is trustworthy; I'd not use yahoo search, bing, or Ask Jeeves if I was actually looking for something and its been that way for a long time now. Google knows what they are doing. I also really like how they try to inform people about important dates by drawing their logo differently. Its a neat way of being education, smart, and still artsy. They've also had children's drawings up in further efforts to promote education and art. Their style is simple, clean, and it just works. They also don't make huge changes to things, everything is slow. Facebook takes a lot of flack for their new features while Google just sneaks them in. The picture search has been probably the largest visible change and that still went over rather well. Another recent addition is the predictive search. They start searching before you've finished typing. Simple and a good idea. I think I can try to included simple and good ideas into my designs. I want to create things that just work and you couldn't think of any other way they should work because 'that's just how it should be'.

DesComm - Present Yourself

Assignment: Write an article with advice on designing a portfolio. Cite and link to three interesting blog posts on portfolio design.

From looking at senior's portfolios, they all seem to share a few things in common. Most of them only have between 3 and 6 projects in their portfolio and each project is at least 4 pages long. This shows that they go more in depth to show off their work. The hours of research and ideation and drawing and rendering and modeling really comes across when you have more pages to show off all the aspects. The underclassman's portfolios differ widely here as all of their projects are shorter lessons. They didn't spend as much time on each (because of how the curriculum is put together, not by any fault of their own.) so they just don't have the same amount of work behind each project to back them up. This forces them to instead make picture books of their portfolios, showing off the best bits of a lot of different projects in hopes that their talents show through that way. It usually works, but it's not nearly as impressive.

Some other articles from Coroflot and Core77 about portfolios I found helpful. Here's a neat article on Coroflot worth taking a read.  This article explains about cover letters. I never really understood why they are needed or used.  This last article is basically someone asking simple questions about survey specs.

Also, best thing ever.

Typography - Graphical Adventures Continue

This quarter I've taken another Graphics elective class, this one is about typography, its Graphic Design Basics 101. I'll be posting my projects up for you to see.

DesComm - Introduction to a New Class

Assignment: Introduce yourself, talk about your design experiences and interests. List your goals for this quarter.

Hi! This is my 4th year studying Industrial Design at University of Cincinnati's College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning. I had the order of the A's in DAAP drilled into me during my first 2 years here at DAAP when I was in Architecture. They are rather touchy about it.

I've had 2 co-ops at Hasbro Games working on game concepting. I enjoy the 'figuring out the puzzle' side of designing more than the 'make it look sweet'. I had a pretty good time there and I'm looking forward to my next co-op, hopefully at a place that has lots of things that need problem solving.

My goals for this quarter include getting a job. That's definitely at the top of my list. My usual 'New Year's Resolution' is to get better at sketching. Somehow that just doesn't ever seem to happen. We shall see... I also want to learn more about graphic design. I want my resume and portfolio to look freaking sweet and I want my final project presentation to really rock. I'm taking a graphic designs basics class to help with all that. I'm excited for school.