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Communications Design Industry Discussion, Inspiration, & Tutorials


Know When to say Yes

By Simone Subversive On 03:28 In professional development
I recently read a blog post on idealist.org about saying “No” without committing career suicide. It’s a good read. Check it out. 

Posted by Simone Subversive No comments: 

Jul 18, 2013

Book (cover) Review

FYI, the cover portrait is a John Singer Sargent piece painted in 1900.
*Wilde, like many of his contemporaries, is a great lover of the English language. His words paint a canvas in the imagination and he leaves nothing to chance. That said, it's a departure from the utilitarian style of modern fiction writers.
 


This Week: Preparing a Seminar on Online / Hybrid Course Design

By Simone Subversive On 09:28 In Web Design I really can't go into all of the details right now, but I will make the presentation available online to the Instructional Design Group for feedback once my first draft is complete. The goal of this training is to help instructors organize their course content to keep students engaged. Too often, academics believe that online instruction is akin to in-person, and it's not. Lectures no longer work. Therefore, presenting wordy blocks of text and exhaustive lists will get your course content ignored. Period.

Broken down to the barest of facts,  effective course pages and homepages both:

My basis for this talk is presented in this video Labels: Graphic Design, Instructional Design, This Week, Web Design

Jul 13, 2013

HtML5 VIdeo: Use VLC MEdia Player to Convert Video

By Simone Subversive On 17:28 In video
A recent project I built a HTML5 video player. For these players to work across all the major browsers redundant video formats must be created. There are several free online services that will convert video formats to ogg theora, mp4, and webm for you. However, once you get to long/large video files, they act up (require payment, or freeze).

VLC media player is free and will convert your vids to the desired format, relatively quickly. One drawback is that you can't run more than one conversion instance at a time. If you need to convert, say 1000 videos, then you'd better get some help.  Here' the quick and dirty of using this player to make your job easier:
 Labels: tutorial, vid, video

Jul 12, 2013

Where have all the Graphic Design Jobs Gone??

By Simone Subversive On 13:29 In Web Design 

I'm looking forward to hearing about his progress--and he can take me out to lunch after he lands the next awesome job. 


Mock-ups Round Up

By Simone Subversive On 16:50 In tutorial
When I originally put together my online portfolio and printed leave behind, I took several photographs of my samples so that my work would be well represented in both media. It was a mostly successful project. However, some of my conceptual pieces--ones that never went into production--had to be altered to fit stylistically. There were ways to get around this. I found an awesome Photoshop mockup that allowed me to share more of my work. I also created so ad hoc mock up scenarios that were also successful.

For conceptual posters, I photographed gallery walls and inserted appropriate sized design samples into frames or in a salon style hanging.

Here are some other great mock up options to help get your portfolio a second glance:
 Labels: freebies, portfolio, Resources, tutorial

Jul 9, 2013

Three Job Search Pet Peeves

By Simone Subversive On 08:48 In resume/cover 
First: I’ve always made the argument to soon-to-be or recent grads that they should narrow their job searches; applying only for positions in industries where they want to work, instead of casting a wide net. I usually add that folks should have some idea about where they want to work before they graduate. Then I challenge them to consider design firms, nonprofit agencies, corporate arenas, finance, legal practices, medical centers, etc to help them decide.

Some graphic designers completely disagree with me.  They make the reasonable argument that the goal of early jobs in our field is to gain expertise and test-drive different industries. That may be the right thing to do for some, but my approach may work for others.

In undergrad I was offered an agency job with a company whose major clients included a car manufacturer and a soda company. As someone who advocates for non-processed foods, low-carbon footprint lifestyles, pushing polluting private vehicles and promoting obesity was not for me. An advertising agency could never be my creative home. I declined the position and opted to work for a non-profit that promoted women’s health and education instead.

Today, I still run into a few people who are three or four years post-graduation floundering to find their niche in the professional world.  I’m talking about the "graphic designer" who can’t decide what to apply for when the choice comes down to entry-level designer, program coordinator, or child minder. Our education was an extensive and expensive one. We should be out there using our skills to pay back those student loans, spreading the gospel of good design, and propelling ourselves closer to our life/professional goals.

Next: What’s up with inappropriate resumes hitting hiring managers’ desks? An over-designed, or unsophisticated resume is the main thing that gets applications overlooked. Design firms and creative companies expect applicants to showcase their creativity with a well-thought-out identity and maybe even an infographic resume.  Corporate and non-profit agencies expect applicants to submit traditional-style resumes in application for jobs—even in their design departments. Sophisticated design is expanding the traditional definition of a resume, but origami still won't fly in most arenas.

When we use inappropriate formats and odd-sized paper to apply for design or communications positions, we send the message that we know little—if anything—about the company, industry, or position. That equals apathy, and get’s resumes discarded.

Finally: We should always be on the lookout for robots! Robots pre-screen online job applications and resume submissions. If application materials don’t contain keywords found in the original position posting, then the entire application gets discarded before a human being has set eyes on it.

One more thing: Can we stop submitting Word doc resumes? PDFs retain any special formatting and styles regardless of computer software and versions. This is just common sense.

I recently had a potential employee apply for a job with a Word file and when I opened her submission, two sentences were pushed onto the back page. I knew that this was a mistake, but I still asked her why she made that design decision during our phone interview. Frankly, if she came up with a convincing answer, I may have given her a shot at the job.

It feels good to get all that off of my chest, Labels: Career Advice, Internship, interview, job search, Rant, resume/cover


Dos and Do-Not-Dos: Student Portfolios

By Simone Subversive On 13:07 In portfolio 

Her question: Do I Include Student work in My Portfolio? Labels: Graphic Design Toolkit, Internship, portfolio

Hello There... 



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