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Chinese Checker Game Review

Chinese Checker is my very first board game I played when I was a kid, I used to play it with my parents. It is a game that needs to be played by 2+ players, up to 6 players at once. When I was young, the checkers are those colorful marbles, each player pick their own color to play, and the board is usually made by plastics. The latest version I bought on Amazon comes with wood board, and wood checkers. But it stills play the same rule!

The objective of the game is to move all of your pieces from your starting triangle to the opposite triangle, either by hopping over other pieces or by moving to adjacent empty spaces.You can make multiple jumps in a single turn if a continuous line of empty spaces is available. You cannot jump over the same piece more than once in a single turn. The first player to move all their pieces to the opposite triangle wins.

Chinese Checker is a family friendly board game (I’ve played it over 20 years and still into it). The game is easy to learn, making it accessible for children, but it also provides enough depth to keep adults interested. The hexagram board adds a unique twist to traditional checkers-style games.

Pros:

  • Simple rules, easy to learn and teach.
  • Suitable for various age groups.
  • Encourages strategic thinking and planning ahead.
  • Can accommodate multiple players.

Cons:

  • The game might be less appealing to players who prefer more complex strategy games.
  • The element of luck is present, especially in the initial setup of the pieces.

On the marketing, package design and visual elements point of view, I think the variety of colorful checkers/marble makes the game so fun and charming, the hexagram of the board look is so classic on the package. It is a light weight, easy to pick up game, simple enough for first player to learn, meanwhile it requires a good balance of strategy and tactical thinking.

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Swiss Army Knife

It is interesting to me that I never thought all my skills as a Swiss army Knife, but now it’s a time to lists out the tools that I have; need to be developed more; and ones I need to learn.

Tools you currently have.

Illustrator

Basic Photoshop skills

Procreate

After Effects

Communication skills

Branding

Basic Figma skills

Research skills

Screenprinting

Printmaking

Basic Photography skills


Tools you have that need development.

Adobe Suite, especially Id, Ps and Ae

Figma

Presentation skills

Communication/connection skills, this probably something I need to continuously developed

Layout, printing, production

Photography


Tools you do not have that you need to learn.

I want to make more motion graphics besides graphic design

So I want to learn Cinema4D, Blender

I am also thinking about working as a freelance designer, so I need to learn how to time management, project management, and work/life balance

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Cats’ Park Party

“If a dog can do it, I can do it!”
I want the AI generator to make an uncanny image of bunch of cats playing Frisbee at a park. I don’t want human to be involved in this image, it’s a world ruled by cats only. This is the sketch I made.
I used the free version AI generator on Canva, I went with the style Dreamy. The first try prompt I just copied the task – “Playing Frisbee with a cat at a park”.
I am satisfied with the look of the park in the first generated result, but it looks like a parent cat playing with a kitty, and I want it to be a cats’ party with bunch of other cats. One other thing I noticed from the first image is that I don’t know if it is daytime or night time, so I added the “day” and “night” to the prompts, and these are the results I got.
Then I added cats’ party in the prompt to get the generated images.

Conclusion about the Canva AI generator, there are three features to get the image generated, prompts of description, styles and aspect ratio. Every time generating, there will be four similar results come out. More details in the description you give, closer results you will get. And my favorite part about using the Canva AI generator is after you get your image, you can use the elements on Canva to build the graphics. I think it’s a quick and easy tool to use overall.

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Once upon a time, I got to be a disruptor…

When I think of disruptor experience, I think of my background, culture, and my life stories that made me who I am today.

I grow up in a beautiful smaller city in China until 17. I was lucky to be accepted by an university in England, so I went to England for college by myself. Learning how to be independent and in charge of everything in my life opened a new world for me. Culture shock and trying to learn and understand a different language and culture were a special experience for me. After couple of years of living in England, I started to understand the western culture, and more than that, I started to develop my interest in art, I made one of the most important decision in my life that I drop out of college from my major (accounting & finance). I tried to explain it to my parents meanwhile start to apply schools to study art.

A year later I came to Seattle, I first started to learn painting and printmaking in NSC, after receiving my associate degree I transferred to Western Washington University, and received my BFA degree. Now back to SCC, I have a clear goal that where I want to be in the design industry for my career.

There are a lot of detour in my life that lead me to do graphic design today. But none of the path was wasted. I feel that living in different countries that allows me to know different culture which made me a disruptor. Leaving my family, put myself into a brand new environment helped me grow fast, it made me a disruptor.

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about “n”

I got assigned by the letter “N”. I thought it would be easy to find it in the wild, but unfortunately I didn’t get any uppercase “N”, I got some lowercase “n”.

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Can I survive in Melbourne as a graphic designer?

I will answer the question first: YES!

I always want to move to Australia one day. One of the biggest reason is the weather and nature is nice and beautiful. Also, it’s only 8 hours flight from Australia to China, comparing to the 15hrs flight from USA to China, it’s closer, so it will be easier for me and my family to visit each other.

I searched the jobs on The Design Kids. I know I want to be a brand graphic designer or a motion graphic designer in the design studio, I want my job to be in-person or hybrid. Because the living expenses are cheaper in Melbourne than Sydney, and Melbourne is such a chill and sweet city, I think I will move to Melbourne. Here are some jobs available now in Melbourne.

And the average income for a graphic designer in Australia is :


And according to the 2023 data, a single person estimated monthly costs is AU$4,495, so I can make it through, but it won’t leave me much savings.

I also did some search on the design studios I might be interesting to:

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Track my time 10/21-10/26/23

Saturday

7am Get up

7:30am-8:00am Shower, get ready, boil water for my oatmeal

8:10am-8:30am Breakfast, go to work

8:30am-9am Drive to work

9am-12pm Work work work

12pm-1:30pm Lunch Break

1:30pm-6:30pm Work work work

6:30pm-7pm Buy dinner

7pm-7:25pm Drive home

7:25pm-8pm Dinner, rest, watch TV

8pm-10pm Review for history quiz, doodling

10pm-10:30pm Shower, get ready for bed

Sunday

9am Get up

9:30am-10am Breakfast, get ready for work

10am-10:30am Drive to work

10:30am-12pm Work work work

12pm-1:30pm Lunch Break

1:30pm-6:30pm Work work work

6:30pm-7pm Drive home

7pm-8pm Arrive home, feeling sick, eat some noodle, get ready for bed

8pm Go to bed

9pm Feeling sick, send slack message to classmates&Jason

Monday

6am Wake up, feeling sick

7am-7:30am Get up, prepare breakfast

8am-10am Watch videos for html/css class, do homework

10am-1pm Feeling sick, back to bed

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Polycam Project – Kid’s Acting 101

First time using Polycam to create the 3D Version of my stuffed animal – Mr. Donkey, then I direct my student Leo to interacted with the Donkey. My actor Leo is very passionate about acting, but it’s hard for him when he can’t actually see the donkey there.

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poster for slayyyter

CAPITOL HILL BLOCK PARTY

Slayyyter’s music is mostly electro pop music. Some people call her genre hyperpop or bubblegum bass to be more specific. The visual elements on her album covers are very Y2K, the same way how she style her look. So I want to keep the Y2K style in the poster by using the same font as her album cover, glowing text, duotone colors, etc. I also add the venue information matching the font of the logo “Neumos”.

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