IDD 480- Organization

Chapter 5 of Designing a Digital Portfolio is all about organizing. “Good portfolios are not created the night before you present them. You need to look at your entire body of work to evaluate its condition and current relevance. And that’s had to do when it’s scattered on multiple disks, file folders, and flat files (83).”

Everyone has their own version for organizing. My version is very random, just like myself. You look at my room and you would think I lacked the term organizing in my vocabulary. On the contrary, I know where almost (key word: almost) everything is. My computers on the other hand are much more organized. Every genre of music has their own folder. Pictures are categorized by date and IDD has its own folders according to class. Without the folders or any organizing of documents I’m pretty sure I would be lost. Even my buddy list for AIM is organized in to at least 10 different categories. Just as the rest of my life is (semi) organized, my portfolio needs to be organized. Not only in a way that I would understand it but organized in a way that someone else would be able to navigate around the site or other medium.

This will be the first website that will actually be full of information and may need more than just one page per topic. Many variables will come into play to help with the navigation system. The navigation system will be key in helping to organize the site. Without a form of navigation, organizing would be impossible.

Just as organizing is important, so is the media on which something is presented. Technology over the past ten years has increased and changed time and time again. Technology is forever changing. Since starting IDD, I have used three different versions of Photoshop. In Careers by Design, Roz Goldfarb points out just that fact, “Whenever one software, device, platform, or protocol becomes established you can be sure an improvised version is moments behind (85).”

Just as the software is always updating, its important to keep the portfolio up-to-date. Having everything under the sun isn’t always a good idea, whereas having the best and most recent pieces of work may be better. Organization is key when figuring out which pieces to put into a portfolio.

IDD- 480 The Portfolio

Designing a Digital Portfolio--
So many options to choose from when created a portfolio. So many different variables have to be taken in to account when deciding which medium to use, and whether or not to use two or more mediums when presenting a portfolio.

Chapter 4 of Designing a Digital Portfolio deals with the different kinds of portfolios. It discuses the pros and cons of each one as well as when they would be useful for. Some people are more comfortable to one areas while others have a wide array of different medium used to display the portfolio.

Size is one thing that needs to be taken in to consideration. File size of an image will be much larger if the item has a high resolution. Therefore, a CD would be better than a website, however using your own personal computer would be the best bet for such large files, but who wants to carry around their laptop which also may falter at the most unfortunate times.

Also as Cynthia Rabun points out, if someone e-mails her their portfolio, she can tell that person researched the company and would really like that job. Some companies and people prefer e-mails with attachments to CDs, DVDs or hardcopy versions of portfolios. It is all a matter of personal taste.

Just as important as choosing what to put in the portfolio is choosing which ways to promote yourself in the portfolios. Some forms would flow together while some having two different mediums of portfolios do not work well together. It can all be based on trial and error to see which ones work well together.

Careers by Design—
Just as there are different areas to view the portfolio, there are just as many ways to advertise products and designs. Advertising is used as for promotional purposes, can be used to identify a company such as a logo, and also can base their entire enterprise off advertising. Such a company is the Walt Disney Imagineering group. The term "Imagineering" combines "imagination" and "engineering." That group plans everything and everything that has to do with the Walt Disney theme parks such as graphics, the environments, as well as products.

Industrial design became popularized the 1920s with such products as Lucky Strike cigarettes, the Exxon logo, and the Studebaker. All were different aspects of industrial design. Lucky strike represented packaging, the Exxon logo was for corporate identity and the Studebaker was an car. “Industrial Design was instrumental in developing the concept of graphic design as a profession (79).” Just as there are many areas to advertising, there are many areas to industrial design such as product design, environmental design and signage. They all help to promote a product or good.

IDD 480- Research

Research, research, research. It’s something I’ve had to do since I was little. Even something as simple as spelling, my mom would tell me to go get the dictionary and to look it up. In second grade with Sister Ann Marie Kiah, I wrote two “papers” one on Shirley Temple-Black and one on Walt Disney. With both assignments, Dad and I trudged down to the South Portland Public Library, used the Dewey Decimal System, and found my books. For an assignment in high school junior year for English/Literature, Ms. Redlon made us all go to the library and use books for our research paper. We weren’t allowed to use internet resources. That was honestly one of the last times I went to a library to take out books.

For as long back as I can remember (since having the internet), I have been Googleing, Yahooing, Alta-Vistaing. Looking up everything from the weather in Florida to spoilers on Days I was always researching.

At all times I have at least three internet browser windows open. I will Google something and that will lead me to something else I want to know, so I will open a new window to search my new question.

I have the biggest case of self diagnosed ADD, but you stick me in front of a computer with Google, and I will be content for hours. My latest Googleing kick is for the Olympics. One question will just lead me to another and before I know it, I have a million and one useless facts and 10 screens open.

Over X-mas break I was Googleing and searching and researching for a possible job a Disney World. I did things which were mentioned in the book that I didn’t even notice I was doing, such as visiting online forums, and looking at vault.com. I didn’t go as far as doing in depth advanced searches, but I found my way around.
Even when I’m doing work for my Dad and designing stuff for Red’s, I Google. My project last year was to make re-chargeable gift cards. I couldn’t just open Photoshop and run with it, I had to look at other gift cards, to see what might work and what wouldn’t work.

For some reason I think I am the only one in the family who knows how to look things up. My mom…give her time and she will find it eventually. Dad…he’s pretty decent, he doesn’t really have all that much time to just surf the web and find random things, so I’ll let it slide. My sister…some day’s I don’t think she would be able to find her way out of a paper bag. Granted she has the attention span of a flea when it comes to Googleing, but still. If it’s not on the first page of results “I can’t find it.” So I get called in, take 2 minutes and for the most part, find what she was looking for.

Wow, this is the longest blog I have ever written! All about research and Google, I do it every single day and I feel lost if I don’t Google about some random new fact. I like being able to have the answers right at my fingertips.

IDD 480 - Design is a Business

The opening lines of chapter 3 in Careers by Design are, “The core message of this survey is the fact that graphic design is a business, and the various sectors of design are utilized as strategic marketing tools. The design business is unusual due to several factors: It is a service business, its product is creative, and it has no inventory (17).” The business of design is just that, a business. There are many different people who work in many different environments of that business who all work together to create a design for a company.

Each element of design must work together and flow with the other aspects in order to create a design harmony. “One should note that the visual image is the final result of the strategic positioning, not the first step, as most designers would imagine (19).” In which case, teams are needed to plan, assess, and take inventory of the company, which may need a new identity.

Some brands change their identity and packaging designs slightly over the years. Coca-Cola and Pepsi are the given examples. One example I thought of on my own are the Disney characters. The characters look a lot different in pictures now compared to when the parks first opened. Their changes were subtle, but evolved greatly and changed over the past 50 plus years of their existence.

Behind the designs there is a business side. “Consultants’, strategic planners’, and brand strategists responsibilities fall into the problem solving areas, working on concepts before the creative work and usually very closely with the creative staff (39).” The two fields of business and design must work together in order to integrate ideas which in turn create designs and help the business.