Ettie Wahl was perhaps one of the most engaging guest speakers we have had thus far; she had an inspiring story about her current success. In that story, she spoke about her creative process and implored all of us to explore a moment in the natural world that sparks Our creativity. My mind immediately gravitated towards abandoned or very old buildings/towns etc. that you may come across in certain parts of the city or on a countryside.
There’s something about them that almost feels nostalgic, maybe because you can see the building’s age and it makes us think back to our own past. Seeing abandoned places makes you think about what the building was once used for, the kind of people who came and went within it, and how old it is, or maybe even why it was abandoned in the first place. That nostalgic feeling tends to spark our imaginations and we create stories to fill in the blanks about this unfamiliar place. For me, it inspires illustration, even if it’s just a quick and messy iteration of whatever thoughts were stirred in me. I’ve included an example of a building I saw in Bellevue and quickly drew in the past. Something I noticed much later after drawing the image was that maybe I captured the wrong mood. In the image, the building looks bright and peaceful, but in my iteration it’s almost dystopian looking, maybe because of the more dreary colors and also the angle of the building. Which in a sense, lends itself to the idea that we generate our own stories to fill in these gaps of information about abandoned places.
For my mood board, I wanted to showcase the versatility of the product in that it can be used for treats of all sizes for cats/dogs, and its range of capabilities such as speaking to your pet through the microphone, or alerting you when your pet approaches the camera. I chose pictures of happy pets and people to symbolize the alleviation of boredom experienced by pets at home alone, and the alleviation of worry for the owners. I also chose to try a different color scheme. The default was yellow and blue, which doesn’t seem to hold much weight or convey much meaning. Instead, I chose lime green, magenta, and teal. All of which are vibrant colors that subtly remind us of the seemingly endless energy our pets have.
For this assignment, we have been tasked with comparing and contrasting contract, freelance, part-time, and full-time work in the field. Below, I will make a list showing the pros and cons of each, as well as talk about which seems the most appealing to me.
Freelance
As the name implies, this type of work comes with a degree of freedom not afforded by the others. You are your own boss, you set your hours and rates, and you find your own clients. What’s more, is that you can typically do this at any skill level as long as there are clients who want to employ you. In other words, you can bypass the need for education, degrees etc. provided you have the skill. Lots of pros to this type of work. Moving on, it is far from a perfect system. The biggest issue with freelance work is that it can be unpredictable and therefore unstable. It can take a lot of time to identify repeat clients and build a reputation that will lend itself to a steady income. Beyond that, there are no benefits. It can also be difficult knowing what to charge, which clients to take on, etc. For me, this would probably come after I had experience in a company.
Contract
There are a number of benefits to contract work to include higher pay (typically) than you might make in a full-time position, exposure to a variety of different kinds of work, networking opportunities, and work-life balance. Similar to freelance work, contract work typically has no benefits, and work can be uncertain as well, and there are often gaps between projects. Creative freedom is also rarely a factor which may make this type of work undesirable to a lot of designers (myself included. I know it isn’t realistic to expect creative freedom, but some degree of it would be nice).
Full-time
Some of the obvious benefits to being employed full-time include stable pay, benefits, career advancement, and access to continued education and resources. Being part of a larger company allows space to grow and learn, and networking also becomes much easier (at least based on what I’ve been reading). Some cons include a lack of creative freedom depending on who you work for (think following style guides), burnout from consistent workload, and fixed salary. While fixed salary could also be argued for as a pro, another way of looking at this is that your pay doesn’t always reflect your work. whether you work 12 hours a day, 365 days a year, or you work 2 hours a day, 7 days a year, the pay is the same.
Part-time
An easy way to weigh the pros and cons of part-time work is to just think of it as full time with less to be excited about. So, limited everything. Limited benefits, limited professional development, limited portfolio development, etc. From what I gather, part time work is most likely beneficial to new graphic designers, or in the form of internships for budding designers still in school. It’s an opportunity to get your foot in the door and network, while also learning a thing or two about design from the professionals.
Summary/ My preference
Where I stand currently, it can feel a little overwhelming thinking about jumping into the creative workspace, but thankfully there are several options. At present, the most appealing option looks to be part time work. I want to work with professionals and grow my skillset, so I can be confident about searching for full time employment in the future. Overall, full-time employment sounds the most stable, and as though it offers the most in terms of career advancement. The further I can advance in the field, and the more I learn and soak up, the more options I have in terms of a career, and the closer I get to having creative freedom and flexibility.
Today we were asked to provide samples of textures or shapes that inspire us. This is actually a very interesting topic to me because I really enjoy 3D modeling, and part of that is creating a 3D model and applying a texture to it, several of which you photograph yourself and apply to the model afterwards. That said, here are several textures that I have photographed and used in my work.
The pattern in this wood seemed interesting to me so I took a picture for later use
Two quarters at Seattle Central has at times felt a lot longer, and at other times, seems to have passed by quickly. One thing that has remained constant is the pressure, and the challenge to grow. In this short time I have learned so much more than I imagined I could have, and it’s nothing short of mind boggling. In fact the more we learn, the harder it becomes to decide exactly what direction I want to take my professional development. at the same time, because everything seems new and exciting. Though, there is one thing that I have been enjoying particularly, that also happens to line up with my personal hobbies, and that’s packaging.
I hope to specialize in packaging because it combines my favorite hobbies into a single workflow. For instance, illustration, typography, and 3D design. All 3 are used in packaging, from the design process to using 3D to create a mockup of the item. That’s a specific example, but truthfully I’m still unsure. For now, what I really want to do is become a good graphic designer. I know I have a lot to learn, and I may be slower than others at the process but I know I’ll make it eventually.
Apart from a professional goal, I have also started to realize that I’m surrounded by really awesome people who all want to succeed, and have similar interests and passions, and that makes me want to do better. I want to be seen as someone my peers can count on, and a friend they can rely on. I think I am already where I need to be, it’s just a matter of learning, growing, and hopefully living up to my potential, and getting to be there to see others do the same is a privilege.
For my Metaverse journey, I reluctantly ventured into the Metaverse Mini game Challenge area. Immediately, I was asked to create an avatar. Needless to say, I chose the randomize option. and this absolute abomination was the result.
He looks like he bites people, but at least he is an ally.
Unfortunately, the event was absolutely empty and as such, I was left to traverse the eerie, barren wasteland of the Metaverse all by my lonesome. One thing I can say about this metaverse event- it looks a hell of a lot better than the experience from last Friday, which was visually akin to dragging my eyes across pixelated, poorly modeled sandpaper. This at least felt like an overt homage to Nintendo games, with characters and background music being reminiscent of the days of the Nintendo Wii. Speaking of Nintendo, this is a gaming event after all. While exploring, I did come across this Mario themed stage, which I thought was pretty cool.
Ah, yes Whomp in all his glory. I guided my avatar under Whomp, hoping he would crush me, effectively freeing me from my rusty metaverse shackles, but he just floats there menacingly. for shame.
Also, is this Bill Clinton? I need answers
To summarize, this metaverse journey, while completely fruitless, was a much more visually appealing experience than the last. Not to mention, I was given clothes without having to pay real life money for them. As far as the practicality of the metaverse as whole, I do not see it being very useful for anything other than casual online gaming and chatting. Any other use seems impractical. For instance, there were other events such as business meetings, and stock trading events etc. in my opinion, using the Metaverse as a venue for these events seems like a waste of bandwidth, and time, when you could just as easily hop on a zoom call and actually see the faces of the people you are interacting with. I digress, this is just my two cents on a “new” technology emerging in the world. Maybe I will be wrong, and the Metaverse could be the future of commerce and social interaction. Who can say?
Last week we were visited by Adam Knight, who spoke on the core values he brings into every job, no matter the scope of said job. These included delivering quality work and creating trust with the client. Adam elaborated on this by explaining the importance of accountability and transparency. This resonated with me, as there are often times where I feel as though I might not be measuring up to the expectations of my peers or teachers etc. Some of that can be attributed to issues with self-confidence and varying degrees of imposter syndrome. However, there are times where I have genuinely failed, and must accept the results of that failure.
A very recent example of a time where I failed to deliver quality work comes in the form of submitting an assignment late in my InDesign class. For this assignment, we were tasked with formatting menus using paragraph and character styles in InDesign. It can be quite a time consuming and involved process, and as such requires attention, effort, and time. I managed my time around this assignment quite poorly, and submitted it late. Not only did this bring my grade down considerably, but I was also unable to create a final product that was reflective of what I can actually do with genuine effort. In layman’s terms: I submitted crappy work late. This situation put the very real fear of being dropped from the program in me. I started to think “If I fail, then I moved across the country for nothing, and wasted my best chance at a good education, and that CANNOT happen”. As a result, I have since tried to stay as on top of assignments as I can, so I can always account for anything that may happen, and always submit high quality work.
Listening to Brit tell her story was a great experience. Not only was she very transparent about herself, the realities of working in the industry, and her emotions and experiences, but she offered powerful advice. “Hard skills will get you the interview, but soft skills will get you the job”. This is simple but powerful. You can possess all the qualities of a good candidate , but if people can’t see the qualities that make you a good person then you are far less likely to succeed.
Since then, I’ve had a bit of time to reflect on my own hard and soft skills. Some of my hard skills include illustration, packaging, and 3d modeling. I enjoy the learning process immensely, and practice every single day. These are the skills that I hope will get me an interview one day, be that for an internship, job or etc. In terms of soft skills, I would say I have a strong work ethic, accountability, and respect/listening and understanding. I think I’m strong in these areas because I want to be a productive, respected, and responsible person. I want friends, coworkers, and peers to know without a doubt that they can trust and count on me, whether it be for work or just an open ear. That said, there are a number of soft and hard skills that I lack that tend to make my professional life more challenging.
In particular, the soft skills that I want to develop most are confidence and communication. I would even venture to say that my lack of communication stems from my lack of confidence in a lot of ways. I want to feel confident, so that I don’t always question my work and compare myself to others, so that I’m able to network and make friends, and so that I’m not afraid to present my ideas passionately and enthusiastically. Being confident will help me communicate more effectively, and communicating more effectively means being more effective in almost every other soft skill. For instance: with confidence I will be better at persuasion, and I’ll FINALLY be able to answer the questions of “How do I convince future clients to work with me?” and “How do I convince them that my designs are exactly what they are looking for?”. If that wasn’t enough, then I start to think that I would also be better at networking in general, and thus more able to find work, or inspiration, or even just make new friends.
In terms of hard skills, I am currently quite weak in typography, and not very well versed in a lot of industry standard software. For instance, I know the basis of adobe Illustrator and InDesign, but nowhere near enough to succeed professionally. Deeper than that though, is my need for development on the principles and theories of design. Knowing software is great, but more than that I need to understand composition, color, space etc. Essentially my goal is to develop an understanding of design that become like second nature to me, so I can be more independent and confident with my designs.
We were recently tasked with giving a short ‘elevator pitch’ to practice talking about ourselves in a networking situation. For this assignment we had to strike a balance between professional, personal, and genuine. I say ‘genuine’ because after all, the goal of networking is to secure employment, but the process should not be purely transactional. We should aim first and foremost to make friends and connections, and as such should try to present ourselves authentically. Here is my video of me trying to do so. Socializing, and articulating my thoughts are two things I struggle with tremendously, so this was quite a challenge, at least for me. It can also be a little more difficult when not engaged in an actual conversation, using only a monologue. Anyway, here is my best effort!
For this project we decided to keep it simple and local. We chose various popular restaurants in the Capitol Hill area. Our AR experiences for each restaurant detail things like the menu, mission statement, and so on. My particular restaurant was Ian’s pizza. To accomplish this project, I first recreated the logo into separate elements in Illustrator. Once I was finished I imported them into After Effects for animation. This would serve as the main panel.
the logo after being imported to after effects. Here I am animating the position of the elements.
After that, I took screenshots of things such as the menu, to serve as other panels and provide the user with some information about the restaurant.
