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Written by David Charney
Posted: April 17, 2008 (3 years, 9 months ago) | 1 comment
Hey all. For fun over a few evenings I put this UI design together. I am a big fan of the Apollo space program and thought I would build up a conceptual design based on that. I am actually interested in building a full-on Apollo interactive site where you can interactively go to the Moon. I wonder if I can get NASA interested in the idea…
Update: I had sent out a quick email to Jim Lovell, who owns a restaurant with his son about 5 minutes from me and was lucky to get a short reply (as I have in the past). He said the design looks great! Sweeeeeet. OMG (”Oh My God” for those over 16)! Mr. Apollo 8 & 13 likes it! Besides my telling everyone about this I am speechless! I am going to go have a Flavor Ice.
Written by David Charney
Posted: March 28, 2008 (3 years, 10 months ago) | 0 comments
I gave a short speech to the graduating class of the International Academy of Design & Technology at Chicago. The topic was on the steps between being a student and finding a job. I have had several questions about the topics I discussed and thought I would write up the basics I talked about. I know some of these topics will sound obvious and basic and if you think they are then you are headed down the right track. From talking with students and teachers in the past, I find many students are so overwhelmed by everything in their final stages of school that their next steps seem a little confusing. While every person must find what works best for them, I hope the following topics can lead you in the right direction. I also plan to expand on these topics in upcoming articles.
1. Define Your Goals
Before setting out to find a job, take a seat, find some paper and a pen and start writing down ideas on your long term goals. While you are still testing the waters and understanding what you like doing, creating even rough goals can help to shape your direction. A direction is going to help you strengthen and focus your skills and move up in your field.
Keep in mind your long term goals are not set in stone. You can change your direction at any point in your life as need be.
2. Work as Hard as You Can
This sounds obvious but after talking to many students and teachers, it becomes apparent that the steam can drop off right after graduating. This happens because teachers and parents are constantly telling you to “Work as hard as you can.” every year throughout school. So when many students graduate, their sub-conscious tells them “You are done with school! You don’t have to work hard anymore.” But now is the time to start working harder. And a nice motivator is that now you will be getting paid for it! If you are working a $60,000 project, work as hard as you can. If you are working a $200 project, work as hard as you can. It will get easier, you will produce better work, production will be more fun, and colleagues and employers will pick up on your hard work (which is always good!). So go out there and give it your all!
3. Developing Your Portfolio
Your portfolio is your presentation of yourself to others. It must show off your abilities and work in a quality fashion. Choose your best work for your first real portfolio, even if it is only a few pieces. Spend a little time upgrading any “not so hot” work that just needs some tweaking to be another good piece. It is pretty easy for professionals to tell that a portfolio is all student work but it is also pretty easy for us to tell if there is strong potential. And if a project was created as part of a group, make note of what you did.
If you are having difficulties knowing how to present your work, take a look at what others have done. Note elements you like in the design or presentation and let that stem new ideas.
Pet Peeve: Please don’t name your resume “resume.pdf”. Name it something like “yourLastName_resume.pdf”. It makes it so much easier to store everyone’s resume in one spot!
4. Finding Your Job
I am sure your parents have mentioned this a few billion times. I have three quick tips…
The first tip in finding a job is to look for one. I see too many students that don’t quite open their eyes wide enough to the internet, the paper, or even just cold calling a bunch of companies to request an interview.
Networking is number two on the list. Find events that make sense based on your interests. Go to these events and meet people. Ask them if they know of any more networking events and go to those as well. Keep doing this and soon you will build an umbrella of professionals and potential employers who can help you grow professionally. Online forums is another great way to network yourself to the masses.
Finally, my last tip, which works with my previous tips, is to spend the time looking for a job. If possible work a regular work day. Start looking at 8am and relax after 5pm. This will get you used to a schedule and give you some time to work on your portfolio, research, make calls, network, go to interviews, and get that job!
Note: Don’t let yourself get stuck in a job forever too. If you are not happy with what you are doing and the job doesn’t follow them long term goals, it might be time to take a step back and make a move. Don’t give up too easily. Give your job a chance and work hard at it. Test the waters.
5. Have Fun
My last tip… [drum roll]… Have fun! This is it folks. This is life. Don’t get stuck only looking forward to after work or the weekend. Look forward to work. It is up to you to decide the attitude you are going to have every day. Keep it high and keep smiling even when all hell is breaking loose. Stay creative, work hard, and have fun at work!
Good Luck!
Written by David Charney
Posted: February 16, 2008 (3 years, 11 months ago) | 0 comments
Being a creative director I am often asked by people “Why push the visuals?“… It is a good question which can crop up anytime you propose spending some good time and money to better the look and feel of a project. This question can be interpreted several ways:
1. Why should I spend a lot of money just for the cool factor?
2. Why spend the time on the design?
3. Why use 3D when we already have graphics that show everything?
4. Why spend any more money then is absolutely necessary?
5. Why rework all… - actually - I think you get the idea…
These questions pop up almost constantly… or let’s say mid-constantly. So what do I say to these questions? Good question. First, pushing for really powerful visuals - the 3d, the design - is not always the right way to go for every project. Take a step back from any project (look behind yourself first) and think about the scope of the project, the goals and objectives, the audience, and the long term possibilities. How will the audience benefit from the visuals?
What is so great about visuals? Why spend the time? What is the audience going to get out of it other than the “cool” factor? I feel another list coming on…
Number 1
A more graphical user interface can provide a more intuitive user experience. Spending more time on the look and feel, navigation, and creativity of project can increase ease of use and even be a motivator to continue exploring.
Number 2
Interactivity can provide a more “hands-on” feel to the user. It can allow them to make a connection by providing feedback. This can be key when expressing information, understanding, and retaining it. Fun is another word that comes to mind. Someone enjoying themselves can pick up new things without even realizing it. Again a motivator.
Number 3
3D can entertain and educate. What if you have the best video footage in the world but it can’t quite show the nerve that needs to be avoided during surgery. 3D can tell that part of the story by fading back the anatomy to show just what to be aware of. Again… motivating.
Number… where am I… 4. Number 4
If long term goals call for several applications that all work together, then developing a good brand structure can help bridge that gap. Thinking ahead can determine how much to push the visuals. Motivating.
Number 5
Motivation.
Number 6
Cool factor. Yep. Sometimes it is good to just be cool.
My time is almost up. You can start getting the idea. It’s not all about the cool factor, although it can help as it breaks down into several smaller reasons to push the visuals. A budget is important but if it makes sense for the benefit of the project talk over why pushing the visuals can be important both short term and long term. Think back to all those projects that you actually remember, enjoyed, and told your friends about. Did they have a little something extra to them?
Written by David Charney
Posted: November 17, 2007 (4 years, 2 months ago) | 5 comments
Long before fire, the wheel, and the bagel (sometimes considered nature’s ‘wheel’*), man has yearned for the power to instance layers in Photoshop. This meaning the ability to create a layer or external Photoshop file and reuse the contents (buttons, headers, footers, design components) of that object on other layers and across multiple files. Simply change the layer one place and see that change occur all places. Now I know what you are thinking… “Man I sure could go for some all you can eat shrimp at Red Lobster right now - oh and those biscuits they have…”. I am thinking the same thing. But forget about the shrimp because we are going to take another journey, a journey into Photoshop [place awesome music score here].
SCENARIO OF THE LOST ARC
Jimmy just created four user interface designs for his client. Two of the designs are mock-ups of the home page and two are internal screens based on the home page designs. His designs all have the client supplied header (consisting of the logo and project title) and a button heavy navigational system. All seems good as the deadline is approaching until the client has a few changes for Jimmy. The first change - They want Jimmy to play around with the look of the buttons in both designs. Change number two - There is a new header graphic. Now Jimmy doesn’t want to spend all his time adjusting a button and then duplicating the layers, changing positions, duplicating layers again, changing positions again, etc… Jimmy needs a quick way to do it. But how?
TUTORIAL AND THE LAST CRUSADE
There is a reason most people have not heard much about instancing layers in Photoshop. The reason is because Photoshop was not made to do it the way we would assume it would be done… It is possible to do a couple of ways and these ways are what we will explore. Personally, this humble writer (to keep him anonymous let’s just refer to him as D. Charney) has requested many times over the years that Photoshop make a clean and direct way to instance or reference layers from an external Photoshop file. Many new features and abilities have been added to Photoshop but my request is still passed out on the couch. Depending on your needs you can either use Smart Objects or Data Sets. I will explain both.
Let me go get a Mountain Dew. I am back, sporting my new dew. Sorry about the wait.
Using Smart Objects
Smart Objects can allow you to instance one object many times in one Photoshop file. Make a change to one… and they all update. It is not the best when you need to make an adjustment within multiple Photoshop files.
The good: Use the same layer many times. Make a change to one, update them all instantly. Fairly easy to use.
The bad: A little confusing. Can’t use Smart Objects smoothly across multiple PSDs.
Step 1 ) Create a new layer.
Step 2 ) Draw a button.
Step 3 ) Click Layer > Smart Objects > Group into New Smart Object.
Step 4 ) Now duplicate the layer as many times as you need. Now the client needs a change to all the buttons, like make them red instead of black.
Step 5 ) You can click Layer > Smart Objects > Edit Contents or double-click the thumb image in the layer palette on any layer that contains the Smart Object you need to change. The Smart Object will open in a new Photoshop file (a .PSB file).
Step 6 ) Make your adjustments and Save the file (Don’t Save As! - It won’t link correctly).
Now click your main Photoshop file to bring its focus back and FWAMP!, your Smart Objects will update.
Using Data Sets
Data Sets can let you do a lot more than what I am about to tell you but they can be annoying and a bit confusing based on what you are using them for. On the bright side, Data Sets can let you instance an embedded external Photoshop file over multiple Photoshop files. What sucks is for your changes to the external file to be updated, you need to apply the external file to all other files.
The good: Use the same external file across multiple layers and multiple PSDs.
The bad: A little more confusing. More steps in every aspect. Meh.
Step 1 ) Create three files. Two files to act as two main designs, and one file to act as the external file to be embedded. Save all of them in the same directory.
Step 2 ) Go to the external file and draw in some shapes. Keep it creative. I will wait. Save your changes.
Step 3 ) On one of the two main designs, create a new layer and click Image > Variables > Define to open the dialog box.
Step 4 ) Check the Pixel Replacement check box. Choose As Is from the Method drop down box. Adjust the image alignment if you would like.
Step 5 ) Click the Next button to jump over to the Data Sets area. Click the tiny little floppy disk icon with the green arrow to create the data set. Click the Select File… button and choose the external file you saved earlier. Click Open and TA DA, there is your image on the canvas. Make sure you hit Apply or all hell will break loose. Then hit OK.
Step 6 ) Follow from Step 3 through 5 on the second main design PSD and make a data set with the same external file.
Step 7 ) Now go back to your external image and make some changes. Save the file. Go back to each main design file, click Image > Apply Data Set… and click Apply. You should see your external file update.
You can’t just copy a layer and have it update next time you re-apply the data set. You have to create a new layer, make a new data set, apply the external file to it, and when you want to update it you have to click each data set to apply the changes. This can be annoying but much quicker than making adjustments and copying and pasting 200 buttons around a UI.
The potential power of instancing layers in Photoshop is clear and can be very helpful. I hope Adobe sees the power as well and develops a real tool to do this quickly without the above tricks to sudo-do what we want. There are a lot more settings I skipped over on each method so please explore and have fun!
* After some extensive research I have become aware that the bagel has never been referred to as nature’s ‘wheel’ and apologize for any confusion or ‘ruined lives’ that resulted from my misstatement.
Written by David Charney
Posted: October 3, 2007 (4 years, 4 months ago) | 0 comments
Hey all, a few books I recommend (I will add more soon):
Web Design: Flash Sites & Portfolios (Tashen Icon series)
http://www.taschen.com
These books contain page after page of full color designs. I don’t know about you but it is nice to get away from the computer from time to time when you start to think about a design. These books let you get away without distancing yourself from any reference designs.
Flash Hacks(by O’Reilly)
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/flashhks/
This book is full of quick little ideas and issues we all run into from time to time. Each idea and issue is quickly broken down and explained. It is a great book to get your mind working in a more creative manner when it comes to programming.
Flash Application Design Solutions - The Flash Usability Handbook (by Friends of ED)
http://www.friendsofed.com/book.html?isbn=1590595947
This book breaks down usability like never before. I know Ka Wai and must say he really knows what he is talking about. He is very passionate about usability and programming solutions. Buy this book - you would be stupid not to.
