Monday, April 17, 2017

Folio, Card, Resume Hand In

On or before Friday April 21 at noon, students need to submit all of the following portfolio items:
  1. physical portfolio; the instructor needs the physical folio for grading, but will return it next week, beginning on Apr. 26
  2. 3-5 printed business cards that are kept in the VCOM archives
  3. 3-5 printed resumes that are kept in the VCOM archives
  4. URL, a.k.a. web address of online portfolio
  5. DIFD students: one printed leave behind kept in the VCOM archives
  6. PDFs of business cards and resumes
  7. PDFs of folio as spreads
  8. PDFs of folio as pages
PDFs go onto Turnstile2 in our VCOM-578 folder. All PDFs must be submitted for High Quality Print:
  • from InDesign, export using…
    File > Adobe PDF Presets > High Quality Print
    needed in two separate files, two separate formats: 
  • once as spreads saved as lastname-folio-spreads.pdf
  • and then single pages saved as lastname-folio-pages.pdf
  • spread control is in the PDF export dialog

DONORS, PARTNERS THANK YOUS

During our Monday April 24 class from 8:00 a.m. to 10:45 a.m., all students will sign posters and thank you cards for our donors. I will have pens/markers on hand, as well as posters and card.

Folio Presentations

Students will work in pairs on Wednesday's class, presenting all of their work from their portfolio, one by one, to their peer. This is part of the graded class participation, and factors into the 50 points you can earn in that category for the semester.
  • Illustrators and Designers: PDF portfolio will be okay, but your book portfolio, the printed one, would be best
  • DIFD: use your web folio, and also your printed leave-behind if you have it on hand
See the class syllabus for point values and maximum points for the semester.

Monday, March 27, 2017

Final Folio Progress Review

On Monday Apr. 10 and Wednesday Apr. 12, the final round of in-progress portfolio reviews will take place during class. Place these items on the class server for one of those deadlines, either Apr. 10 or Apr. 12, and they will be reviewed and graded.
  • personal website online, with URL accessible through a web browser
  • VCOM + ILLO: book portfolio layout as PDF spreads
  • DIFD only: printed leave-behind mock-ups, layouts, other visual prototypes
This review and the work presented counts as 25 points towards the 50 points in Portfolio Review 2.
  • 5 points, organization, use of grid system to layout 16 works
  • 5 points, use of size and space to create hierarchy, unity & variety
  • 5 points, typographic hierarchy and labeling of content
  • 5 points, progress made towards completed folio
  • 5 points, formatting, presentation, following directions
See the class syllabus for a complete list of point values, and how they factor into your final grade.

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Morning Work March 20

Use our Monday March 20 class time in order to complete the followings tasks, all of which are due on Wednesday March 22.

Promotion and Mailing: each student must contribute mailing addresses and email addresses for us to send out the poster/mailer and save the date; use the Microsoft Excel template in our Turnstile_2 class folder to add content to each of the required fields; follow the formatting as shown in the examples, and if you don't have text for a field, leave it blank

Website team: prepare the site for a test run, seeing how it functions on the following, testing for mobile on tablets and phones using both iOS and Android; Poster Team should provide support where needed by providing the most up-to-date and finalize graphics from the poster
  • Chrome mobile and desktop
  • Safari mobile and desktop
  • Firefox mobile and desktop
  • Microsoft Edge (on Windows) 
  • employ all class members to assist with testing (that should be 7 of the seniors who are not working on the website); Web Team should observe people using the site, give them scenarios to click through, things to find; Web Team should document any issues that come up with the images, text, and layout and if problems arise, identify what needs to be fixed

Social Media team: create/update the following accounts and/or events; Poster Team should provide support where needed by providing the most up-to-date and finalize graphics from the poster
  • Twitter: need landscape header graphic and square profile graphic; needs bio text updated for this year
  • Instagram: need square profile graphic, and be sure to post a "Save the Date" image with information about the event day, time, location; needs bio text updated for this year
  • Facebook: create a Facebook page and also a Facebook event, and note that we are a non-needs landscape header graphic and square profile graphic, be sure to invite Chad to the event so he can share it with alumni these are the prior years' event pages for your reference in 2016 and in 2015
  • AIGA Community Events: will need to include header graphic and feature graphic, sizes forthcoming
Venue team: we need a floor plan designed, including where the students' design portfolios will be displayed, round tables for watching the lecture, etc.

Catering team: food items will need to be decided on soon; see Ms. Ledwell for information about how to browse food for ordering at Sam's, one of the places we will purchase food; take inventory of the items we have on hand in the DoD faculty kitchen, with the help of Ms. Ledwell, counting existing plastic utensils, plates, napkins, etc.

Hospitality team: create a schedule for our guest artist's visit, including the days/times you want to have lunches/breakfasts with her, and when she can have "down time" to herself; see examples of schedule from prior years in our class folder on Turnstile_2


Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Portfolio Reviews 2

The second round of preliminary portfolio reviews will begin in March.
  • March 1, Wed.
  • March 6, Mon.
  • March 8, Wed.
  • then we head into Spring Break that weekend

All students are required to submit the following for at least one class day, March 1, 6, and/or 8:
  • design and/or illustration that has been revised, these can be composed in your folio layout, or as loose PDF or JPEG, or other singular images
  • revised layout of portfolio, especially with type, grid, and hierarchy improvements made since round one folio reviews
  • website portfolio should be a designed site done in Squarespace or your chosen content-management system, and it need not be public (we'll discuss this in class)
  • PDF as spreads for print content
  • functioning website, with a URL and operational links, interaction
This work counts as 25 points towards the 50 points in Portfolio Review 2.
  • 5 points, use of grid system to organize 16 works (or slug for temporary identification)
  • 5 points, use of size and space to create hierarchy, unity & variety
  • 5 points, typographic hierarchy and labeling of content
  • 5 points, progress made towards completed folio
  • 5 points, formatting, presentation, following directions
The second and final component for Portfolio Review 2 is forthcoming. See the class syllabus for a complete list of point values, and how they factor into your final grade.


Sunday, February 5, 2017

Student Works for Show Website

Preliminary review Feb. 15

Your Work: Select three (3) illustration or design pieces that will appear on the show website. Each image should stand alone in one layout, and work well when viewed small.

All three works should be different and they should all say something about you as an illustrator or designer. The three works you select need to be formatted as:
  1. JPEG or PNG
  2. RGB
  3. Highest Quality, No Compression
  4. 72dpi
  5. Landscape format of 1024-1280 pixels in the widest dimension; but dimensions haven't been established yet, so for now get the work on Turnstile2 even as a hi-res PDF, TIFF, JPEG, or PNG and we will size it later
Your Bio: Revise your third-person biography for the show website, telling readers about you, your work, and your goals. Aim for 2-3 sentences, but if you can write more, 3-5 would work well too.

Your Headshot: This is still open: Will it be a photograph or illustration of each student?

Put your three images and also your bio (as a TXT or DOCX) on the class Turnstile_2 folder.

Participation, meeting deadlines, and following directions for this work will count toward your Show Participation points.

Photography How-To

Sampling of how-to videos for photographing your work.

Photography with One Softbox

How To Photograph A Beer Bottle/Product Photography

COMMERCIAL PHOTOGRAPHY | Shoe

Guide on how to do product photography on the cheap

Product Photography Tutorial using tabletop continuous lighting

Prodigy: iPhone for Studio Photography

Prodigy: Studio Photography from Beginner to Professional