I thought about this for a while. Literally, I sat there staring at my Flickr trying to figure out what unifying pieces I have. I know I spoke with Meg in class about the fact that I'm both messy and organized, that I like the mixture of clean, concise code, and the disorder of art and collage and montage, so I thought that maybe that was my unifying element. But I also like boxes, WAY to much, so there's that too.

I use the color black a lot, and the times I don't, I have a tendency to over use bright colors in exchange. I like overlap and subtle pattern use. Almost EVERY design has some sort of overlapping quality, like the boggle blocks over the text box, like the Hayley pictures overlapping a pattern background, like the dolls on top of grungy backdrops, etc.

But I've also grown to like gradients, gloss, and 3D. The Alex project is, hell, an iPhone, that's as glossy and gradient as you can get. Even the Chanel redesign project has gradients on top of the tabs, but it implements a pattern in the Chanel logo and background, and in the imagery I chose to show. And the new design of my robotics team site is gradients, gloss, and 3D logos.

// Me Stuff //
5 things that you love to do
robotics, play in Photoshop, spend time with friends, write, read, though I can't often find the time

5 things that you hate to do
homework, paperwork, laundry and other chores, design based on other people's "good ideas", and babysit, as in, when people are supposed to be working on a task, having to sit there and make sure they get it done.

5 things you are proud of in your life
my robotics team, winning the information architecture 2008 hacker award, my web design reputation, some of my art skills - more specifically my pixel art, getting a perfect score at the Mercer County Teen Arts Festival with my flute choir back in high school

5 things you are good at
learning new software, photo manipulations, writing good, helpful tutorials, pixel art, web design and coding

5 things that make you unique
my broad range of knowledge, my ability to network without being intimidated, my outgoing nature, my design aesthetic, and my quirkiness - i know I'm a little weird, but I'm okay with that.

5 adjectives that describe you
weird, fun, spunky, creative, smart

// Work Stuff //
5 adjectives that describe your work
original, inspiring, bold, smart, clean

5 topics your work deals with
suicide/depression, robotics, art portfolios, vector-styled graphic design, pop culture

the media you use in your work
Photoshop - photo manipulation and pixel work, pencil sketches, Dreamweaver and Notepad2 (text coding)

Colors that you use most often
silver, black, red, blue

5 emotions your work conjures
passion, excitement, shock, pride, joy

Titles of the work you would like to highlight
"Alex" the movie
InToxicated
NYC/NJ FIRST
Paperdoll v. Riot
Paperdoll v. mixed up memories
Paperdoll v. Boggle

// Job Stuff //
5 adjectives to describe the kind of company you'll work for
modern, creative, casual, involved, original

5 adjectives to describe the kind of boss you'd like to have
fun, inspired, creative, professional, encouraging

5 things you will have to do for your job
design, network, program, develop, communicate

5 words describing your industry
creative, original, intuitive, descriptive, helpful

List the reasons your job exists
need for communication, creating a visual identity, product sales, providing a flow of information

Okay, so...I had a really hard time figuring out what to include here.
I've done a ton of web work - several layouts for my own personal use, designs for friends' sites, designs for clients, volunteer work, and all that jazz, but I am nervous about how that all fits together to show who I am as a designer.

I like to be a jack of all trades - it makes me glad to know video editing, and lots of programs, and lots of languages, so I want my portfolio to at least LIST that I'm capable of all those things, but FOCUS on web stuff. Because that's what I am the most excited about, and the career I'd like to pursue.

So it goes like this:

HERE is the web work I think I'd like to include:

Current Projects / In Progress:
New Portfolio design
MCCC LGBTF Website
MCCC Drama/Theater Dept. Website

NJ State Museum "Rising Tide" Virtual Exhibit
Create a visual pre-experience website for the "Rising Tide" exhibit to be displayed April 2009. Designer on Information Architecture team. Discussing implementing student to student navigation page with main focus of education. Strong desire to create pre- and post- visit experience for teachers in K-12 environment.


CSS Zen Garden Submission "Buttons"
Design fully-customizable css page to show strong graphic design sense. Create a modern, current generation, out-of-the-box design for CSS Zen Garden gallery. Generate strong design portfolio piece for well-recognized and respected website.



HHS FIRST Team Mercury 1089 Redesign
Revamp 2006 website layout to be "Web 2.0" stylized. Redesign flash header with improved Actionscript coding. Develop cohesive virtual identity consistent with team ideals and mission. Implement new gallery script.



Volunteer Work:

"Alex" the Movie
Movie trailer on YouTube






Dolling Community Websites


Mu Beta Psi







Professional Work:
NYC/NJ FIRST Website






Personal Work:

Strong Classwork

Strong Site Layouts


And then I struggled to decide if I wanted to include some other graphic design work. Maybe mention a spot of 3D Modeling stuff, mention my pixel work, some video stuff... I also have some really good interactive flash pieces that I want to show.

I wasn't sure either, how to talk about the languages and specific coding things that are strong with each piece. Because, for me, I think my claim to fame is that I'm a good designer, but I also have a strong programming background behind me.

I'm not sure, I'm afraid I'm a little all over the place?

So I realized that Thing-a-Day has a gallery... Which means I don't have to clean out my server space. Except, I kind've did it already.

That being said, Thing 2: Default Photoshop Web Size

Leave comments/thoughts/replies below, or over on TaD.

I wanted to include non-volunteer, personal experience too, but for now I left that out. Admittedly, I should have another piece to add here, but I kind've shot myself in the foot.

Professional experience:

FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology)
New Jersey Senior Mentor and New York City/New Jersey FIRST Webmaster.

• Provided resources and communication to teams in area.
  
• Developed online content for new website.
  
• Co-wrote, designed, and edited bi-monthly e-newsletter.
  
• Created, edited, and maintained all 2007-2008 photographs, content, and layout.
• Produced materials for outreach presentations.
  
• Developed effective communication strategies for both teams and New Jersey and New York City Planning Committees.

AmeriCorps*VISTA
Volunteer for FIRST program in New Jersey.

• Developed online visual identity for New York City/ New Jersey FIRST website.
  
• Produced online visual materials for corporate presentations.
  
• Created original, interactive content for NYC/NJ FIRST website.

Volunteer Work:

"Alex" the Movie, MCCC TV4 Class
Co-Web Designer and Developer

• Designed original UI experience similar to the iPhone.
• Designed outer interface and digital graphics.
• Created cohesion between site content provided and site content created.
  
• Recipient of Web Design II Information Architecture and Popular Vote awards.

Mu Beta Psi (National Honorary Music Fraternity)
Brother of Pi Chapter, Rutgers University. Web developer and designer.

• Developed website architecture and overall content presentation.
• Designed content layout and website layout
• Created original content - bio pages, site map, etc.
  

US FIRST Robotics Team, Hightstown, NJ
6-year mentor of Hightstown High School’s FIRST Robotics team.

• Trained students in Adobe Photoshop, and HTML.
  
• Advised and edited updates to team website.
  
• Edited team newsletter, award application essays, student scholarship essays, and promotional materials.
  
• Designed all official team uniform logos, button graphics, 2008 and 2009 website Flash header.
  
• Co-wrote content and advised students on content writing for team website. Former student leadership member.

I opted only to look at entry level web design jobs, even though I'm not entirely sure that's what I want to do with my life. But, I figure, it's a good starting place. Based on a bunch of websites of research, I came up with the following general requirements: Photoshop, Dreamweaver, HTML, and CSS. They were listed as requirements almost everywhere. A few other places also wanted Final Cut Pro or video editing software, some other Adobe products (like Illustrator or Fireworks), and a lot of people wanted someone with cross-platform experience - ie, they want someone who can work both in Mac and PC.

Then, of course, there were the non-technical requirements like a bachelor's degree or equivalent experience, learning/working quickly, working under little supervision, etc. Which, to be honest, is almost as important to me as knowing the software. Personally, I could learn all the technology in the world, but if I don't care about attention to detail the design things that I could create would be a disaster. Knowing your work environment - groups or alone, etc. has a significant impact on the kind of designs you develop too.

I took all these search options, including the one about little supervision to see what other jobs I could find. Not surprisingly, even when I took "web designer" out of the search options, I still found a LOT of front-end design jobs. But I also found a few graphic design jobs, a few web DEVELOPER jobs (the back end, instead of the front) and even a couple marketing jobs focused on the "web" aspect of their companies.

There were a lot of New York jobs, and some California jobs, but there were also a lot of "virtual campus" jobs that were based all over the place. Big surprise, working digitally from anywhere?

Finished my first piece for Thing-A-Day: Kellypaper.

Now my goal? Clean up my server space, so I can upload new pieces.
That or, ask my hostess to love me and designate me more space.

Leave comments here or over at the thing-a-day blog, and let me know what you think!