Pretty interesting posters

http://designyoutrust.com/2010/12/09/shareable-social-network-posters/

Chapter 3, 6, and 7: Talent is not Enough

So overall these chapters were pretty helpful on the aspects of trying to get yourself set up as a freelance designer. This really brought into perspective how much you should be charging, making sure you have all of your bases covered as far as setting up a business, getting contracts written, and making sure you have all of your legal set up. Overall I think a lot of this is a great reference, which I know I'll be using in the future, although much of it I feel will make a lot more sense once I start doing it rather than just reading it.

Some things for myself to think about

6-degrees of seperation
Human interaction via web e.g. VoiP (ventrillo, skype, sorta chatroulette)


possible book leads
Tribes by Seth Godin
Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection
"Up in the Air" seperation of human to human to human to monitor
Introverts vs Extroverts with technology
Personal connection vs Connection through technology
technologys influence on interpersonal relationships
Always on by Naomi Baron
Internet paradox: A social technology that reduces social involvement and psychological well-being?

Chapter 6: CGD

So the last chapter, or how I see the total branding chapter was one that I probably got the most out of through this book. Although a lot of it is back to refreshing things we have already learned specifically more when it came to presentation through choosing color to evoke feeling, etc. There was information that gave out good detail, such as the different brands (which I didn't know about) such as Monolithic, Subsidiary, Endorsed, and Pluralistic brands. Granted looking at them now it seems very clear on what they do such as the Endorsed being iPod and a Mac computer being different pieces of Apple but still are recognized as Apple products. The other thing that seemed relatively common sense was about package design and making sure usability right from the start is key, which goes right across the board on design field in general.

Chapter 5: CGD

So for this chapter I thought it was pretty consistent with what we had been learning and with the AIGA talk that we had. First and foremost that I thought was interesting was right from the get-go it talked about the difference between branding and identity being that branding is how the market feels about a company and identity is the systems which a company presents itself. Outside of this I thought the rest were a bit of ringing the same bell which we have been taught for the last few years in which it comes to identity its the intent to create something with logevity rather than designing for the current trends, etc. Alongside with this came the talk of colors, typography, consistancy of materials and components of stationary systems which I thought was a bit of commonsense that its better to keep everything in a style guide to make sure there is consistancy thoughout it all.

Jeff Fisher - Self Branding

So after going to the AIGA thing where Jeff Fisher spoke, pretty much the main thing I got out of it was "toot toot". It was kind of lame hearing it over and over and his version of twitter tooting being twooting, but one thing I think personally I forget is to make sure you really sell yourself up, as field is competitive and until you have a solid backing you really have to sell yourself. As for the rest of his speech it was that social networking is good, and you should utalize it all to help sell yourself as it is what everyone uses currently.... So that was a bit of iteration I feel most younger designers understand already just because its what sort of grew up using. Other than that he didn't really give us a good idea of what his logos look like aside from his logomotion logo, and CAT which was not accepted by the company. Although he did mention the books that he has written, and his experience with clients and how you should trust your gut on accepting clients and such.

Chapter 3: TCGD

So going through the reading seemed very similar to the first week of typography going over issues of using the grid, keeping proper hierarchy, the difference between serif and sans-serif. Really in all honesty the reading just went over elementary elements that every designer should take into account and utilize without really having to think about it to begin with, and just make it something you do. every project before hand print or otherwise I make sure my grid is set, I know the visual hierarchy and work forward from there on out.

Aside from that making sure everything you are using you either own the rights to or its copy-right free especially when it comes to things you are paid for is key. One of the things that I didn't know was that came from the government is public domain.

Resume

Talent is not enough reading

From going over the first two chapters of the Talent is not Enough it has a pretty good outline of the formal approaches to finding a job from the initial phases of research and finding postings that you'd be interested in applying for to giving resume, portfolio, and up to interviews and follow-ups.

For the most part it seems pretty self-evident in which its formulated by looking into fields that you are most interested in and depending if you are a generalist or specialist could vary the type of job you are looking for generalist being most likely recent grads, or free-lance designers.

After which finding a posting or job that is interesting making sure you do the proper research to find out what the company is all about, who is head of the hiring process (so cover letters are personalized well enough) basically to prep enough for interviews.

Obviously also along with this, making sure you are personable to anyone and valuing everyone as important, basically making sure you have proper personal and networking skills which later on serve valuable to find other work outside of which.

After the interview just making sure you are professional follow-up with a thank you letter that may also be used to serve to answer follow up questions.

And lastly being able to preform the job that you applied for rather than having the end game in mind that to switch the type of work rather than what you were originally hired for.

Thesis thoughts

So after a not-so-productive summer, I'm sort of back at square one on what I've been thinking as pursuing as a thesis topic. For awhile I've been batting around two separate ideas;

1. Is based around the development of elements of online communities, and socially whats based around them (more dealing with gaming communities such as MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role playing games) ie. World of Warcraft, EverQuest, City of Heroes, etc. as this is what I'm more familiar with and have experience in myself and has interested me for awhile).

2. Is the basis of marriage, delving into divorce rates and stuff revolving around the institution of marriage, to the changing definition of concept. Along with this is the reasoning on why people still move into this institution. The basis of my idea is commitment and whats around it, and can it still be achieved without the institution of marriage.

Both of these I've been super interested in as each have played some sort of role in my life one way or another. So I've been of the interesting aspects of each and I've came to a conclusion that both are relevant to human interaction, and have a basis of developing connection with one another. Although both are vastly different, I felt that both have many similarities in the regard of human connection.

So I guess what I'm interested and after is the basis of human connection through various means and medias. Technology has a huge role to play in this regard, it has changed the basis of human connection, it has developed less and less from actual human to human contact to this weird middleman of human to device to human connection creating a barrier and what I would sort of consider a bubble around ourselves. In regard to that it makes you think of into basis of human connection in institutions of marriage which I would consider to be one of the most interpersonal relationships, and going into things such as dating sites that brand themselves as being the "matchmaker" going off of personality traits and all that bs. Another aspect of the human connection is the basis of online communities to various different aspects of anonymity, avatars, aspects of voyeurism, deviance (closely relating to anonymity), personal image, etc. On this aspect I really feel its interesting in the gaming community because you have such a high volume of people, although what I suppose is predominately young to middle aged males (although this could vary depending on what type of gaming your talking about). Through this as well the connections made between people from different areas of the world.

Although when it comes to personal connection I do see it lending itself to something more interactive, I want to make it accessible as a motion project. Although first of which I need to figure out a question that can be solved by design. Shit.