I’ll admit that when we first got this assignment, I was very skeptical that I would enjoy it, as this topic does not pique my interest AT ALL. The metaverse seems like a sad gray wasteland that is devoid of any real creativity or content. I mean, everything there is fucking really ugly, sterile, and just plain boring. Also, where is everyone? Supposedly there are real live people that own all this “real estate”, but I barely saw a soul. Is it just due to some weird virtual land grab, where “entrepreneurs” are investing in virtual properties, just so they can jack up the price and sell it to some other sucker for 1 million times its worth, thereby driving away anyone who might actually be interested in using this virtual property in any sort of legitimate capacity, again, thereby destabilizing the entire virtual world economy and sewing distrust among any potential investors IRL, because they see all these shitty tech-grifters using this technology just so they can make as much money as possible in the shortest period of time. The whole technology is covered with a greasy layer, that I would not touch with a 10ft pole, and I would certainly not trust any personal or payment information to anyone while in there. “What a crap assignment this is!”, I thought to myself…

Now, I have no problem admitting when I have made a mistake or passed judgment too soon. I’m a relatively emotionally mature adult, who is capable of taking a breath and analyzing my feelings. And I gotta say, I don’t think my initial impressions of the metaverse were wrong…

Where the fuck is everyone who is using these virtual worlds for events??? I couldn’t find shit. Only a bunch of corporate events that you had to pay for, or hand over your personal information inorder to attend. Like I said before, I’m not giving out my personal information to anyone associated with this nonsense and I’m certainly not going to hand over any of my dwindling student funds to pay some rich tech ass-hat to get trapped in a conversation in place that does not exist, other than on one of Amazon’s server farms, about crypto or some shit. So, long story short, the subject of this assignment made me so mad that I was chronically unmotivated to actually complete it, besides writing a blog post that no one will likely ever read. 

See you at the next vanilla, I mean “Virtual” boring ass bullshit, I mean “Event”!

Unfortunately, with the end of the quarter approaching, I did not get to spend as much time as I would like to work on this project. I ended up recycling the theme and images from my first project. I made an interactive card the celebrates the 6th year anniversary of the DEFY wrestling promotion. The only issues I encountered were remembering how to do the transitions and cues from last week. As well as getting the timing and positioning of assets correct for the triggers to work.

Interaction Flow:

FIN.

Test the Interaction with the Aero App via this link or QR Code:

https://adobeaero.app.link/mgHSnJsPQxb

I have been wanting to create a poster for a wrestling event for some time now, so thought this was a great opportunity to do so. I have been a fan and regular attendee to DEFY shows for the last year, or so, and wanted to do a poster for the last event, “YEAR 6”. This was the big annual event, so there was lots of content online for me to draw from, as well.

I used PS to create CMYK color separations of my images. We did color separations for a project in our color theory class and thought it looked really cool. Creating the color seps is laborious, but I had all the instructions I needed.I then imported the layers into AI, where I laid out the poster and added a vector logo and text. Once the poster layout was done, I exported a PDF to print, then I imported the layered AI file into AE. I had to redo the layers in the AI file a couple times to get the correct layers I wanted imported into AE, but it was just tedious and not so difficult. In AE, I animated the layers of the poster, so that it looked like the colors separated and fly off the page. I downloaded a trailer for the event and cut it down in PR to about 20 seconds and imported it into AE to play in the poster after the color seps flew away.  

See my original poster video at this link: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/LXsusRh13aY

This is the screen capture video from the Eye Jack app that shows the finished AR in action. Think it turned out great!

Many people who know me would find it difficult to believe that I have failed to meet the expectations of others during my life. I know! ME! FAILED! Due to this fact, I had a difficult time coming up with a suitable example of how I have not met peoples’ expectations in the past. This difficulty was quintupled when I had to figure out what I could have possibly learned from such an unlikely scenario, since I already know most everything I need to surpass any and all expectations placed upon my head. What could it be??? What have I underperformed at so badly that I actually learned something? Pffft… Heck if I know! 

Wait, there was at least one time, but I’m hesitant to bring up such a minor example of me learning from one of my “mistakes”. One time, at a job I disliked, I just didn’t show up for my shift and I got fired. Can you believe it?! I definitely learned to take the extra 2 minutes and call in sick, or make up some bullshit excuse as to why I didn’t want to go to work. I’m just not a liar by nature, so it did not occur to me at the time. 

There is one other time that possibly might maybe count… It’s writing this blog post! I’m curious to see what I will learn from this experience. I’m honestly now sure that anyone actually looks at any of the content on this page. Pretty sure the only thing that happens is that someone counts our posts and MAYBE checks that the publish date is correct. Frankly, I would be pleasantly surprised to find out if anyone actually took the time to read this and give any feedback if this was indeed a constructive exercise and not just busy work that someone took 30 seconds to come up with. Happy to put in the same amount of time and energy that the SCCA puts into it.

Hard Skillz I Got

ILLUSTRATION is something I have been interested in and practicing from a young age. I have been focused on cartooning and graphic storytelling for many years, which I believe is a great skill-set to have when learning graphic design.

CODING has been an educational focus of mine for most of my adult life. I have gotten several certificates in coding for web design and development. This naturally gives me a sizable advantage over most of the other graphic design students in this program, when it comes to grinding through the interactive web design classes.

VIDEO & PHOTOGRAPHY is a recently acquired skill-set that I picked up in the last 6 years when I worked for SIFF as the Technical Manager. This knowledge has already come in very handy for our New Media classes and for capturing video and pictures for my various design projects and presentations.

Hard Skillz I Ain’t Got

PROJECT MANAGEMENT is something I would like to gain more experience in when it comes to design related projects. I enjoy working in a team and have enjoyed managing a team for many years at my old job. I think I could be good at it, if I apply myself.

COLOR THEORY was a subject that scared me at first and was a little difficult for me to grasp at first. However, I do feel like I am starting to get my brain wrapped around the basic concepts and I’m excited to learn more

Soft Skillz I Got

ORGANIZATION is a skill in continuous development for me, but one that I believe I have an aptitude for. I very much like to create spreadsheets, file structures, and naming conventions to help me keep organized. The ability to keep hundreds of assets  organized and easily accessible has been a lifesaver this first year of school.

TIME MANAGEMENT, again, is another skill that I am continuously honing and becoming better at. The key is being honest with yourself about the time of day and the environment that you are most productive in. Then you need to adjust your schedule and routine to incorporate those places and times to get shit done. 

ADAPTABILITY is a quality that I am particularly proud of. I don’t mind getting my proverbial hand dirty and digging into how to do something new. I feel like I fit right in with either the creative or technical sides of the design world.

Soft Skillz I Ain’t Got

PUBLIC SPEAKING… I am really not good at this. I suffer from anxiety on top of being a die hard introvert, so this is going to be a rough skill for me to improve. I’m not looking forward to this at all, but I am aware that I will need to improve in this area if I hope to succeed in the design industry.

INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION, again, I’m an introvert whom also suffers from ADHD. This often makes it difficult to establish and maintain interpersonal relationships with my co-workers, especially if I am “lasered in” on a task or project. I often come across as “cold” or “not caring”, when in fact I just have difficulty focusing on more than one thing at a time. 

Hello! My name is Mark Allender and I am currently in the Graphic Design program at SCCA. I spent the last 20 years working in the AV (Audio Visual) industry, which is very technical and labor intensive work. I loved the work, but have always wanted to work in a more creative field. I have always been interested in the arts, particularly comic books and poster design, so it seemed a natural transition to graphic design. With my interest in comics and poster design, I’m enjoying learning more about print design. However, I have been discovering other areas of design that I’m enjoying and excelling at, like UX/UI design using Figma and creating Motion graphics with After Effects. 

Going back to school has really helped me sharpen other skills that I had developed in the AV industry, but can now apply them in a different field. My eye for detail has gotten much better. I developed an eye for detail on a large presentation scale in the AV industry, but now I’m fine tuning it on the minute details of design. Organization has always been key no matter what industry you are in, but design is a whole other beast, which has really made me up my game when it comes to staying organized. When doing AV, I am used to working with a large team to accomplish a large task, however teamwork in design is much more close knit and leans to the left brain, as opposed to AV. It has really forced me to work on my interpersonal skills, as well as how to communicate an abstract idea effectively. 

I’m excited to continue learning more about design and working with other creative people to produce results that I’m proud of. I hope to get the opportunity to show you some of the projects I have been working on, when you are not to busy, and get your feedback on my work. Nice to meet you! (Direct eye contact followed by a firm handshake.)

My current personal project is that I’m writing a book / manual called, “Cinematic Exhibition for filmmakers”. I was a projectionist for 20 years and then the Technical Manager for the Seattle International Film Festival for 6 years. During this time I gained a professional level of knowledge about cinematic exhibition of films. One of the biggest hurdles to the job was that there was a very large knowledge gap between filmmakers and how films are exhibited in the cinemas. This book will cover the basics on how cinema projection works, best practices for preparing a video file for a cinema screening, and what you can expect to see on screen based on creative decisions you make for your film. I have talked to a number of filmmakers and AV professionals who are all excited about the concept of the book and would love to read it. 

I’ve already completed about 75% of the first draft. I imagine if I was able to dedicate a fair amount of time to the writing, I could get the rough draft finished in a couple weeks. Then I imagine the text editing process would take another couple weeks, if all goes well. Designing the page layouts for the book would take the lion’s share of the time, so I’m guessing 3-4 months to do that properly. There are a good amount of graphics / images I would need to create for the book, so I figure that would take me another couple months to complete. Then I’m guessing another month to go through the final editing and printing prep. I’m estimating the book would be under 100 pages once it is finished.

Total timeline would be in the ballpark of 8 months…This is all assuming I am proficient in InDesign and Illustrator. As well as, fitting this work into my current schedule.

The only cost incurred would be for whatever physical printing and distribution I decide on. If I distribute the book completely in digital formats, the overhead would be very minimal.

Type Creation Gone Wrong Different

I think it would surprise literally NOBODY in the SCCA Graphic Design program that I had to do a major pivot in my project planning regarding one of Jason’s assignments. This pivot was for Jason’s most recent project, “Type Creation”. The parameters stated that you need to pick a plant or animal and then use the letters in the name to create a graphic image of that animal. Easy, right? The first step was to pick the animal, so I went with the first one I thought of, “Alligator”, natch. (Actually the first animal I though of was “Aardvark”, but fuck that…) Second we had to select a font that we feld best represented the animal we had chosen. Simple. I chose “Poster Cut Neue” cuz I was  bold, rough and bumpy like the skin of an Alligator. Third, this is where things get dicey, we need to take the font we had chosen and use the letters from our animal name (In my case A,L,I,G,A,T,O,R) and use only those characters to make a graphic illustration of our animal… 

SO, all the examples Jason showed us, of the final deliverables from past students, were VERY illustrative and looked very much like paintings… I won’t go into specifics, but I did not like how most of them looked. I did my best to mimic what I had seen in the examples, but I was not pleased with any of the results I was getting and was starting top resent this project intensely. After wasting hours and hours on this project, with nothing I liked to show for it, I finally said “Fuck it!”. I switched from trying to do a realistic illustration / painting of an Alligator, toward a more lofi cartoonish representation of my animal.

I also gave it nipples…

I really enjoy the study area on the South West corner of the 5th floor. The large windows that wrap around the corner and the open floor in the center, really help me relax when I’m feeling claustrophobic in a busy classroom environment. I think it would be nice to design this study area so that it looks even more open and relaxing. I figured the best way to open it up more would be to add a blue sky to the ceiling. Then keeping with a PNW theme, add the element of water, with a glass flooring that is suspended over a pool. The side wall would be pained green to represent the grass of foliage while the support beams would be painted brown to represent a large tree. Time to RELAX!!!

When I first applied to the Graphic Design program, I also had a strong interest in the Visual Media program. I do not have too much actual filmmaking or photography experience, but it has always been something I’ve wanted to explore artistically. I was quite pleased to find out that as a student of the Graphic Design program, I would also have access to the Visual Media resources. I love the Graphic Design program, so far, but I’m quite jealous that Visual Media gets to play with all the cool toys. 

I feel privileged that I get opportunities to have a little taste of another area of study that interests me here at Seattle Central. I think the experience with Visual Media has only strengthened my interest in working in the entertainment and arts industries doing design. 

When it comes to working with video, I think it combines both my love of AV and art… If that is even a thing??? Shooting and editing video has helped me develop a keener eye for detail and composition. Each time I have done a video, I learned very quickly how I could have done it better next time and made me excited to try and film something else. I just started the Narrative Filmmaking class, which I’m very excited about. I can already sense that I am going to have to dial back my enthusiasm, so that I don’t come up with ambitious ideas that get me in over my head. I’m mainly excited, because it gives me the opportunity to use this Canon EOS-M that I installed the Magic Lantern firmware hack on. It’s a little fussy, but super fun to tinker with and see what you can get out of it.

Finding pictures and images to work with in graphic design is a constant pain in the ass and a major time-suck. Getting to know my way around a camera will hopefully allow me to occasionally go out and take the photographs I may need for future projects. I’m sure my photos will not be of professional quality, but it might help save me in a pinch, or if I need some local images for an event or something.