Catching Bullets

I have updated my digital portfolio that I created for Applied Art & Design II.  As I kept my Dulse Sheep Design studio for my analogue portfolio it made sense.  I have added some more works from the grad show, and a write up on the grad show. I ensured my contact information was up to date.  To be honest this was a last minute assignment to do as I was concerned more with the analogue portfolio and show works.  I do plan to keep DSD as a part of my presence, and the game related work I do through the second work term will be included.  It's been a blast, and to answer your question about the worth of applied degree, there are definitely places to improve, but the Art and Design degree is definitely worthwhile.  Communication is one thing that needs improvement.  Students, and especially potential students, despite what they should do, do not read course or program descriptions.  Work terms were a shock for many.  Attendance requirements ...

 Final selection of the contents were still based on the best photos, and best products from my previous portfolio.  I decided to do 10, and include 2 that were living:room works.  Pieces were still in progress and photographing them incomplete didn't make sense.  I chose a large drawing and a cast wax hand that could be easily photographed with good results (see below). I did waver a bit on my idea and consider doing a saddle stitched booklet, but stuck with my A5 postcards (see below for a test spread from the booklet). So I printed a test set, you'll have that, on light A5 paper.  It looked good but I thought it needed a start and end.  I thought, intaglio!  Package them up with string like a stack of old postcards.  I did a test print with the seed paper and it worked great. I produced two etchings and printed them.  Not so good, errors on the plate, I thought the difference in plate and paper sizes would work, it doesn't.  Also, the...

 I did get a bit focused on the portfolio development aspect of this assignment, but after reviewing the assignment sheet (several times) it is clear that the process is what is needed.  Having a portfolio at the end of it is a nice result, especially as we need one for grad. Documenting process is hard for me; believe it or not I am quite disorganized on paper/computer/physical media, but I have an excellent memory for things and where they go, and how they relate to each other. Here are my written notes:  One page with a lot of arrows. It started with the idea of working smarter, not harder, so I was going to base it on an older portfolio.  I looked at pictures from my portfolio production course and chose those that were still relevant, and good. Stylistically (top right) I initially wanted to go with a minimalist, wall of work style, but transferred to analogue.   Tauba Auerbach ( https://taubaauerbach.com/works.php ) and Paul Souellis ( https://soulell...

 Once things progressed into Figma, I rapidly increased to 14 layers from 9 sketches.  The final count was 18, double the sketches.  I think this is to be expected, a project is always more complicated that first expected, double the layers isn't double the complexity, it just reflects a simplification of the original plan.  Things I learnt about app development and design: Do not be wedded to your initial mood board and colours.  They were there to kick start the creative process. Use the assets that are available for free downloads.  They save time Be careful of using the assets that available for free downloads.  They clutter up your build. Arrange you assets.  I have not done this.  It would probably be a fairly short (2 to 4 hour) process. Don't worry about arranging your assets, its more important to get something that works, aesthetics can come later.  It won't take long. Don't worry about discarding assets you brought in or desig...

 So, you've decided to make an app to share books.  What, how and who are the next decisions you need to make. What! What to call it.  After having a revelation at 3am that Omlet was the perfect name, and could be used an acronym I thought this was easy.  After brain storming with Noah about what Omlet could stand for I realized that 3am ideas were not always great.  I wanted to stick with O so OLE was born, the Online Literary Exchange.  The military gives you skills to make words fit to acronyms! How was dictated to a certain extent by one of the assignment criteria, use Figma.  This is nice because we don't need to learn coding (HTML/CSS/Java/etc) but it is a bit more involved than mechanisms like Carrd that I used for the previous assignment.  Figma develops an understanding of the relations and mechanisms needed for an effective application. Who took a lot more work.  Luckily I took a year long program in equipment procurement that had a...

 My view of this assignment is making a good design.  We are of course not going to produce a bug free app, but rather one that, once it works, is easy to use and doesn't trap the user in dead end, a loop, or sell them things they don't want.  Things I thought about apping (that's a word now). Trail Cams Bus Track using Med Hat data (not available) Game app/Game Exchange Art student image exchange  Finally, a book exchange.  Decided on the book exchange while walking my dog and we went past one of little community libraries. I did some thinking about what a book exchange app would look like and decided on some things Local Volunteer Free Donation run Accessible I am not interested in coordinating book exchanges in Calgary or Cordoba.  If someone wants to make a localized one, that's fine.  Volunteers along the lines of Meals on Wheels are needed.  No charge, no one can charge for books, no sales of books (in the app), if someone steals your book s...