On FITC & Advice for New Designers

I'm happy to be working in this industry and am constantly encouraged by what other designers and makers are doing. Last year at FITC, I was inspired by so many speakers. Their work was varied, some doing traditional and digital illustration, others designing/developing for the web, still others working on motion graphics for films. It's incredible the variety of things you can do with design and technology.

I was lucky to attend FITC last year thanks to the FITC Women's initiative - HUGE kudos to the organizers for encouraging more diversity in the overall conference circuit! I'd love to attend again to (re)connect with people, to learn and discover new ideas, challenge existing ones and, of course, to be inspired by the speakers.

For those who are thinking of entering this industry or are just starting out, welcome! I know it can be overwhelming starting out and trying to figure out where to go, what to do, how to do it, but you'll find your place in it. 

I found my place in design. That's my experience and that's the place from which I give my advice to you...

1. Do the work

It's easy to talk about ideas, but ideas are useless if you don't do anything with them. Put your head down and do the work. Whether that's client work, personal work or contributing to an open source project. Approach everything as an opportunity to showcase your skills. Because the more you do, the more you learn.

2. Try new things

Meet new people, try new tools and processes, read different ideas, go to conferences and meetups, step out of your comfort zone. That's how you evolve and grow in this industry. 

About conferences & meetups: Whenever possible, go to them! You learn so much and you meet such incredible people.

3. Ask for help

No one builds anything in a vacuum. The beauty of our industry is that help is readily available - reach out on Twitter, email someone, go to a meetup. You'll find that there are so many people ready to help you. And remember #7 when you reach out to people...

4. Join the conversation

As you discover things through your work, put it out there. Share your ideas, opinions and processes. It's beneficial for you to be able to articulate what you're doing. You'll find that writing and talking to others helps you process your thoughts and ideas and builds your communication skills. No matter what part of the business you're working in, those communication skills will help you, whether it's talking to clients, team members or managers. If you can't explain why you did what you did (whether it be design, code or management style) then why should anyone listen to you–how will you stand by your decisions when questioned?

5. It's not about you

In design, and often in development, our work is for others. We design/build things for other people to use/consume. Think of the people who are going to be using what you're creating. Put yourself in their shoes. Open your mind to other ways of thinking or perceiving. How you do things or perceive things is not the only way.

6. Learn to say no

When you start out in your career, I encourage you to say yes to many things (read #2 above). Try working on different projects and with different people. But as you progress through your career and gain experience, be selective with the work you do and who you work with. This is your career, your life, your time - you can't get any of it back once you use it. Work on projects that you get excited about. And work with people who value your contributions and respect you.

7. Be nice

It should go without saying that you should be nice when working with and meeting new people. Be considerate and courteous, listen to people and really give them your attention. Contribute to the conversation and debate ideas but always do it in a respectful way. Opportunities come from the connections you make. The people you work with and encounter are just as important–sometimes more so–than the work that you do in your career. You may have great ideas but you will always be remembered by your character.

Also, defend against those people who aren't being nice to others. This is OUR community. Help to cultivate an environment where people are accepted and encouraged.

8. There is no right way

There are incredible people in this industry doing cool things all the time. They've found their voice and their way of doing things it's worked for them. Don't fall into the trap of comparing yourself to others. It can be hard, especially when you're inspired by others in this industry but do you. Cultivate your ideas, find the tools and processes that work for you. Everyone has their own voice and their own way, including you.

9. Have a life

It's so easy when you're working in this industry to constantly read things, do things, try things and stay connected. Many of us sit at a computer all day and when you're inspired it's hard to step away from that. But it's equally important to step away and live your life. Spend time with your family and friends face-to-face, go out into nature and enjoy non-digital life, talk to people outside of this industry, TRAVEL!! The things you do outside of work refuels you, recharges you and inspires you. It will clear your mind and soothe your soul. Being a more well rounded person will help you in your work and in your career.

10. Be grateful

This industry changes fast and you're always looking for the next thing to tackle or the next project to work on. But remember to take a moment every now and then to be grateful for the opportunities you have and the work you're doing. There will be challenging times but if you love working in this industry, remember to enjoy it and appreciate it. We are lucky to be living at a time where design and technology work together and where we can produce things so readily and share it with the world.

Good luck and reach out–we're here to help!

Make your unknown known

Sometimes it's not about the end result but about knowing that you tried and attempted something. Maybe it works out. Maybe it doesn't. Better to know than to always wonder.

The Shape of Design | Frank Chimero

I came across Frank Chimero's talk on design at Build Conference in 2010. I don't know how I didn't see this before, but it is such a smart and nourishing discussion on the design that I had to share it! 

It is extremely difficult to give an accurate definition of design. And those of us who work as designers often get lost in the everyday business and process of it that we forget the true power of our work. In this talk, Frank Chimero gives us a more acute definition of design (from way way back in time) and reminds us what it means to design. We have the power to delight our audiences, tell stories and nourish our lives through this practice. Most of us become designers for these reasons, and that can be forgotten all too easily as you meet deadlines, work with clients and pay your bills. We need this reminder every now to remind us why we do what we do.

Frank discovers, a most accurate definition of design from Aristotle's writings:

“The technical know-how, skill, craft, and art involved in production, manufacturing & making; using good deliberation, understanding, resulting in deliberate desire to be carried out with cleverness.”

Design requires some degree of cleverness, technical know-how, skill, craft and art. Frank notes that "logic breaks when we work with people." What he means by this is that technology operates on logic, but the systems we build and the things we want to communicate with design is meant for people, and people are not logical, they're emotional. It takes more than technical skill and logic to design. It takes cleverness, heart and empathy. Designing with data only gets us so far. It makes sense for logic and for business to work from data. It's very scientific and it makes sense. Often people don't understand design; they understand data and logic. But the most important and impactful designs and discoveries are such that because they delight people on an emotional level. They resonate with them because it hits them in their gut or in their heart. It elicits a reaction. That can't be designed based on data alone.

Frank Chimero's talk makes you fall in love with design all over again.

Mission 4 "City of Immigrants" is LIVE!

It's that time again! The 4th installment of Mission US is LIVE!

"City of Immigrants" follows Lena Brodsky, a 14 year old Russian Jewish immigrant girl newly arrived in New York City in 1907. She is faced with the challenge of supporting herself and her family, dealing with labour issues for women in the garment industry and her increased need for independence as she outgrows adolescence.

I've been working on this project for the last year with the wonderful folks at EFS and it's been as rewarding as all the others. I am still in love with the idea of leveraging technology and games for education. It's an innovative and fun way for students to learn some difficult concepts and really delve into history and story telling. It's one thing to read about history but it's another to get a sense of what it felt like to live in that time, and Mission US gives students just that.

This particular mission is close to my heart because it takes place in turn-of-the-20th-century New York City. Firstly, I love NYC. Secondly, I love history. It's been fun to go back in time and consider the life people lived back in 1907.

As with all the other missions, we worked with a lot of historical references...

It was important to ensure the character designs were appropriate for the time, so the hair styles and clothing was important to get right.

As NYC was ripe with new immigrants, we wanted to capture the different ethnicities of the characters. In the game, Lena meets other Russians and Jews in her community, befriends an Italian girl, and meet white, Protestant Americans at her work in the garment factory.

Rosa's family are immigrants from Naples, Italy.

James Poole encounters Lena to talk about her work at the garment factory.

The game environment was built in 3D and although our characters were designed in vector form, the combination of the two works quite well.

Each character illustration started with a character description and their storyline in the narrative of the game. Some reference material was collected for each character. Historical characters, especially, needed to be as accurate as possible to their real life counterparts. For example, this character illustration of Clara Lemlich, a leader of the massive strike of shirtwaist workers in New York's garment district in 1909, was based entirely on one of the few portraits that exist of her.

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Photo of Clara Lemlich

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Character art of Clara Lemlich

For the fictional characters, including Lena, I took the reference material and the character description to outline a sketch of the character. Some sketches are detailed, some are less so capturing the pose of the character more than the details.

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I then take my sketch and the reference materials into Illustrator and draw out the character in vector form.

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To get a glimpse into my illustration process, check out this time-lapse video of the Rosa character illustration.

The character vector art is then sent to the folks at EFS to check for accuracy. Some back and forth may be required to get things right, but generally it's good to go.

For the major characters that the player encounters, a talking head was created from the vector art. For that several different expressions for the face was created and various lip states which was turned into a talking head. The different states and expressions was turned into a spritesheet which is used in the game engine for use in the dialog. This allowed us to bring the character to life using different expressions at appropriate moments in the dialog. The character talks and blinks giving it a more life like feel.

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A unique character in this mission was the character of Isidor, Lena's baby nephew. He doesn't talk but he does what babies do - he doesn't sit still and he cries. So the character art was created as well as a small animation of him crying. You only ever see him carried by his mother Sonya.

Here is a shot of some of the major characters for this mission...

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And some minor characters that you come across throughout the game...

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I had fun creating the cast of this game. Bringing character descriptions to life and seeing them in action in the game is incredibly gratifying.

You can check out details of the game and play it at mission-us.org.

Onto the next mission!

Goodies

Changing Perceptions and Saving the World with Design
I love design for many reasons, one of the top reasons is it's ability to instigate change and progress and make us think about things differently. I discovered this campaign to reduce food waste by store Intermarché in France last year and since then this idea has spread to the UK, Portugal, Australia, and in Canada.

Designing For The Elderly: Ways Older People Use Digital Technology Differently
I've been thinking a lot recently about designing for seniors and this Smashing Magazine article gives me plenty to think about. It's a really interesting topic and one that I think we'll consider more and more as web and interaction design matures. Interactive design involves thinking about your users and your audience. It's important that we design not just for our peers or our generation but for the whole population, especially when it comes to the products and services that many people need/should use. Older people may be slower to adopt technology but they are adopting it and are willing users if we are considerate enough to include them.

Short Documentary of Rear Admiral Grace Hopper
As part of the Women&&Tech team, I encourage a more inclusive view of people working in technology, and that includes women and people of different backgrounds and cultures. This short documentary about Grace Hopper is an incredible look into this amazing woman who did amazing things at a time when the barriers to women were much more and much harder to break down. Her contribution to history and computing should be remembered. She was a trail blazer who didn't even think a trail needed to be made. She just did the work.

Illustrator Pascal Campion
I love illustration. I'm always inspired by an illustrator's point of view and how they look at the world. I recently discovered Pascal Campion's art and I am in love. I love it's whimsical, childlike love for all things ordinary. His work delights in the small every day things. They tug at my heart strings. The stories he tells with one image is both personal and universal, beautiful and purposeful, fantastic and ordinary. He's been doing "A Sketch A Day" for over 10 years and still continues. Check out his tumblr here.