Cindy Au

Going into Seattle Central Creative Academy as a design student, there were many things that I did not expect, and I had very limited knowledge about graphic design and the creative field in general. There’s still so much that I have yet to learn, but I had a very narrow view on what exactly I was getting myself into. Before when I think of a graphic designer, I mainly thought of branding, logo design, typography, the possibility of going into UI/UX and nothing more really. I had no interest in photography or videos at all and honestly never wanted to deal with that aspect of the creative field.

I know it’s still very early on in our program and we have only had one module—my first being After Effects—and that completely blew my mind. The idea of animation and motion graphics never crossed my mind because I thought that might require more specialized education but knowing that is another avenue that we can take, has made me more excited than ever discovering a newfound interest. Additionally, we worked with videos and photos, and it made me realize how interconnected it is with graphic design. Both businesses work hand in hand and learning the process of video/photography will be helpful in the future, even if not working directly in those industries too.

For our portfolio next year, I believe we feature three projects and present them at the end of the year. For one of my projects, I hope to focus on motion-graphics and animation. I think the idea of incorporating different mediums can be powerful and make a larger impact when designing. The ability to use animation in combination with graphics has so many possibilities and knowing that we can create such things has motivated me a lot more. Even when producing my first ever blog post of a “mash-up” I utilized stop-motion animation (although not the best work), combining many photos together compared to simply taking a video has two very different impacts on the viewer and can be utilized in many ways. I also learned how difficult it is to take a still shot without the proper equipment and how lighting really does matter. For our design history class, we have to create a 15-minute video on a specialized topic. If recording and video editing is already one hurdle to jump over, being behind the camera is a totally different wheelhouse and I applaud those who are comfortable in front of a camera (the number of times I had to practice my script was unreal).

Learning more about video and photography has opened my mind to different career paths in the future—if anything, it has made me more confused (I guess in a good way?) as to what I want to focus on because there is an endless number of avenues we can take. I by no means necessarily want to be behind (or in front) a camera, but I think I have come to appreciate the work behind every shot (eg. poorly shot green screen videos vs amazing ones where you don’t have to do as much work taking the green out) and how to integrate that into my work. I am excited to see what else this field has to offer and the boundless possibilities to explore. Let’s go learn some more!

Here’s a video of what I created for our After Effects class week 4-green screening! The green screen videos I used were very clean and it definitely made me job easy creating this footage. ☺

This week we had Margaret, a Senior Principle UX Designer share her experience at Amazon. She discussed Amazon’s 16 leadership principles and how they can be good guides to follow but at the same time contradictory.

The first principle I want to talk about is “learn and be curious” I think I have not only demonstrated this in my previous jobs, but I think this has been my mindset for a majority of my life. For instance, when I was working evening shift as a scientist, I wanted to learn more because I know that different shifts are responsible for different tasks. I ended up moving to night shift for six months and during that time I learned not only new skills in troubleshooting and quality control, but also learning how to be independent when there is less staffing on graveyard shift. I am constantly on the lookout to expand my knowledge.

Next is “think big” and “insist on the highest standards” because I think they both go hand-in-hand. I work at a hospital, specifically in a lab. Often, it’s easy to forget who is on the other side of things because we have no patient contact and really no contact with nurses or doctors face to face (besides phone calls). Working in such a setting, it’s important to remember the bigger picture and to remind ourselves that these lab results do impact patient care and their lives. Leading to the next point—providing the highest quality care possible. I acknowledge when I do make mistakes because we are all human, but when these situations do occur, it’s important to act accordingly to make sure no patient harm was done, learn how this could have been prevented, and take a moment to reflect. Mistakes are learning opportunities and a time to possibly raise suggestions on how our system is already built to perhaps modify when needed to prevent further occurrences.

Lastly, “earning trust” is something I’ve slowly been gaining from my colleagues. I’m not the most outspoken person (especially when initially meeting someone), but my actions speak louder than words. My coworkers can depend on me when most needed because I am always there for questions, an extra-hand, or a listening ear. I try my best to always deliver the best care and it shows because of my attention to detail.

The principle that I think is the hardest for me to adopt is “frugality.” First off, we never think about being frugal, especially working in a hospital or lab, because we do not want to find something cheaper and compromise patient care. Additionally, that would be a very limiting factor, not just in the healthcare field—and I want the tools needed even if it may be more expensive. I do understand the idea and it is something I am working towards—especially if it does impact the environment in a positive way. Less is more and there are creative solutions to be resourceful!

This week’s blog post is about an experience when I chose to say yes even if I was not quite prepared for the challenge. This occurred when I was working night shift at Seattle Children’s Hospital. During that time, I recently transitioned, having moved from evening shift to working night (graveyard) shift. Night shift is known for being the skeleton crew as we have bare minimum staffing, there isn’t always leadership there to answer questions and in general was already difficult for me to change my body clock to different time. During this time, I had only worked that shift for a few months—there were many things I was still learning and yet to feel comfortable with. Within the next couple months, I became the most “senior” Clinical Laboratory Scientist because many people either left for different shifts or new jobs. To replace those people, many new hires were put onboard as expected, and I was asked by my supervisor to train the new hires. I honestly was not confident, but I also wanted the experience of training other people, because in the process, I get to learn things that I might not know the answer to, and it can also solidify what I already know by being able to explain the process to others.

I definitely did learn a lot from this entire experience (and even currently day still training people and learning lots). I learned how different people have distinctive learning styles that I must adapt to—some being auditory learners, while others are visual learners, and kinesthetic learners where I must show them first. Also, I realized how I don’t often question what I am taught. I accept how things are done but it might not necessarily be the most efficient or effective—this was honestly eye-opening for me, and I’m in the process of being more actively cognizant of what I am doing and why am I doing things a certain way. Lastly, I learned to be more confident in myself and assert myself more. I’ve always struggled with this, so it is an on-going journey, but I believe being confident is a self-fulfilling prophecy to set myself up for success. Saying yes to this challenge is an experience that I will bring with me to working in the field of graphic design and other opportunities in the future as well.

This week, Joe Hallock, principal design director at Microsoft spoke about different types of work we will encounter depending on our target audience (specific or broad) and information density (high or low). As an aspiring designer, I see myself working for a small agency—which can vary depending on the client, but helping others create a brand identity is something I hope to dive into. Brand identity encompasses many different layers and is what consumers use to distinguish one company from another. Things that embody a brand identity include the mission behind a company, the culture and ultimately what builds a connection between a company and its audience. Many things can be created to bridge that connection, such as logos, websites, product packaging and more. It really depends on the business/company because that in turn dictates the target audience, but I do see myself working on brand identity for companies that have a larger target audience base and generally lower information density as well—essentially for large consumers. Consumers go hand in hand with capitalism so it’s not the most ideal to feed into this market, but not all consuming is bad—if it can be made to be intentional (depending on the company and its values then helping with brand identity wouldn’t necessarily be a detriment to society. I want to put brands out there that are honest companies, but I know that won’t always be the case.

            An additional area I’ve always wanted to go into is creating murals and designing large pieces of artwork for the general public. This area most definitely goes into a low information density and broad audience—for almost everyone’s viewing pleasure. I think creating something where everyone can consume and take in your creative designs is one of the most satisfying goals I aim towards, but it is also extremely difficult. On one hand as a designer because there is such a broad audience, do we now need to restrict ourselves more to be mindful towards everyone? At the same time, it’s impossible to cater towards everyone and there will always be people who may not appreciate the work that we produce. Ultimately, I hope to be proud of what I design and what I stand for, it may not be easy at times but that’s just another challenge I look forward to as a future designer!

Hi! My Visual Mashup is comprised of some drawings (graphite, colored pencils, markers), paper cut outs (from our intro design class), various photos and Adobe After Effects was utilized to put them all together. 

I wanted to start off with a pencil drawing of toddler me, as that was the first medium that got me interested in art and transitioned into the actual reference photo–as I used that same photo in my presentation about myself in our Illustrator class. I wanted to keep the theme of my kid self because I had no idea I would end up here today. I took snippets of my colored pencil drawings and the thought bubble reminded me of our Intro Design class where we drew icons. My icon was a cloud like shape; I used the leftover paper cut outs to transition into our first project we created for our stable and dynamic pieces. I especially wanted to include the dynamic piece (with the blue text that says “wait up!!”) because that is exactly how I feel going into the program and currently. There’s a vast amount of knowledge I have yet to learn and it’s a lifelong journey into the design field. There will be times when I feel like an imposter and having doubts, but those moments are fleeting and I hope to learn, grow and develop in these next 2 years! Lastly, I used Adobe After Effects (which I am currently learning) to piece everything together and attempted to make transitions!

I definitely had many setbacks and there are things I wish I did differently/wish I had more time to develop my ideas. If we were given more than a week, I would have liked to incorporate other mediums–such as paints like watercolors and possibly go into more digital drawing. Also, I noticed after uploading my video that my animations could have been smoother and more elevated–which in part might be related to the following problem. I had many issues with exporting my file from After Effects. My 2015, 128 GB Macbook decided it wanted to give up on me and did not want to even try exporting my animation whatsoever. My only solution to that, was to take a screen recording of After Effects and to upload that. The problem with that–the file size was too overwhelming for my Mac and even playing it on AE caused every snippet to have lag time in between (which you will notice the choppiness in the video-feel free to speed it up to x1.5 if needed, it was initially only supposed to be a 20 second video). Lastly, I finally got a video but the file size was too big to post on this blog so I uploaded it on Youtube and hoped the quality isn’t too bad after having to jump many hurdles to present this short!

If you made it this far, thank you for your patience and you’ll see me next blog post! 

Re-uploaded version! Finally got it to render and the keyframes are smoother since it’s not a screen recording of After Effects!