simone jenifer design.

Aug 23, 2015

This Week: Website Redesign

By Simone Subversive On 06:13 In Web Design

This week, I'm taking my own best advice; creative professionals need to have an accessible online presence and a place to showcase their best, recent work.

It's time again for me to update my website. In the last 3 years I've completed several campaigns, design projects, and PR writing gigs. It's been a busy thousand(+) days! My current website doesn't completely reflect these fresh new projects; they really should be collected in that location. Plus, there are 4 blogs that I maintain--this blog, a personal blog, and two educational blogs that I use for undergraduate courses. That's a lot of web assets! Hence the update.

While I still rely on a responsive design model for this site, my approach is more personal (updates should be completed byAugust 28).

Here are a few shots of what's to come:

The brand is creative, informal, and personal. A change from the last, a quirky take on academia.

In my current site I reference student work--posted on the educational blogs--but now I showcase them.

If you haven't seen my last site update. Check out my last redesign--way back when.

Why Do I Need a CV?

By Simone Subversive On 09:45 In resume/cover

This week I met with a new freelance client who is stuck in the rut of a fruitless job search. We went through her identity package with a fine-toothed comb before I made the suggestion that she develop a Curriculum Vitae (CV).

She asked, “Why do I need a CV? I’m not in academia.”

That much is true, she’s not. However, there are good reasons to have one. Especially for someone who will likely create and send out a dozen different tailored resumes this month. In her search, she’s looking for a variety of positions in the nonprofit sector—not specializing in one area. A CV will her to:

Be Organized: The CV allows you to keep your skills, accomplishments, awards and experiences organized in multiple pages, under specific and relevant subheadings. If this document is thorough and well written, you can borrow huge chunks of text from it to update resumes for different jobs. This saves time. It’s like the master document from which you can borrow and add.

This client’s thoughtfully laid out, comprehensive CV will have her project management, budget management, and event planning experience clearly delineated—and therefore easy to copy and paste into an application, interest letter, and/or resume.
Be Prepared: In the past few years, more US companies have begun adding the words ‘…apply with your resume OR CV…’ Developing this comprehensive personal marketing piece can take hours, days, even weeks. In today’s market, that dream job that shows up online on Monday could be unlisted by Friday. This master document could easily move into the primary role in a personal identity package. Again, saving time.

At the end of our meeting, this intrepid young woman came away with homework. Use a CV Template to begin to get organized.

There’re several available online, covering content and design:
CareerOne: Australian website specializing in job posting and career search resources
Duke University: CV resource page for students and faculty
Pinterest: Several boards offer design options for you

Note: University and college career centers are often great resources for finding downloadable templates. Always be careful when downloading any files from the internet.

Adobe Illustrator: Identity Packages

By Simone Subversive On 12:05 In print design

We've worked long and hard to get these pieces put together. They showcase a range of shape, color palettes, typography, balance, contrast, alignment, repeated elements, and proximity. We'll discuss these in depth when class next meets:

Tutorial: Create Simple Blog Header

By Simone Subversive On 17:18 In tutorial

Using Adobe InDesign

Activity I: Working with Images - Header

Create a Header image / Banner for your E-Newsletter:

We will reuse this image file when working with the various E-News creation tools.

Click to view full-size

a. Open Adobe nDesign and create a new document: Create New > Document

b. Uncheck: facing pages, and Primary Text Frame

Width: 600px (type this in the field)
Height: 200px

Note: Notice that the sizes are converted to Points and Picas (typography units of measure)

Hit OK or Save

Shape tool is a Rectangle, by Default--but expands to several other shapes.

USE THE SHAPE TOOL

Select the Rectangle Tool from the Tools Panel
Click and drag a large rectangle that’s slightly bigger than your artboard. It has not color.
Change the Fill Color: Open the Swatches Panel on the right > Be sure that the FILL is active, choose the green color swatch

ADD TEXT

Select the Type tool in the right-hand tool bar
Click and drag a large rectangular marquee above the green shape. This is your first Text Frame (notice the black cursor inside of this frame) >
type in this content: the HUB (hit enter to create a line break) monthly e-news for loyola university Maryland educators

EDIT TEXT

Double-click in the first line (this selects one word)
Triple-click in the first line – All text on that line is selected

Change font-face to: Arial
Change font-style to: Bold
Change font-size to: 22pt

Now change the second line to Arial, Regular, 10pt

EDIT THIS TEXT FRAME

Choose the black arrow tool from the tools panel and select the text frame (blue outline and corner anchors)
From Top Menu > Object > Text Frame Options > check Preview
Inset > Use arrows to make the inset 0pt 8 > OK
Use the black arrow tool to move this text frame toward the bottom of your artboard
Drag on the white anchor points to stretch this frame outer margins to reach the left and right of your artboard.
Got it?

COLORIZE THIS TEXT FRAME

With the text frame still selected, open the Swatches Panel
Make sure that the Container Icon is selected and choose PAPER from the swatches.
Now select the Text Icon in the Swatches Panel and chose the Dark Blue Color swatch.

So far so good...

ADD AN IMAGE TO THIS DESIGN

Go to Top Menu > File > Place > UNCHECK replace selected item
Navitgate to one of the campus images and hit Open > Your cursor is loaded with the new image
Click anywhere outside of your artborad and drag a rectangle. Don’t worry too much about size, you can adjust that
Move this new image so that it aligns with the right-side margin of your art board.

Ideally, this image should be taller than your artboard. If it isn’t…

…use the black arrow tool and click on one of the white anchor points on the left of this image frame. WHILE THE IMAGE IS SELECTED, hold down Ctrl + SHIFT (or Command + Shift).. Drag left with your mouse.

When you’re satisfied, let go of the mouse. You can redo this change until it suits you.

Note: To undo any new edits, hit Ctrl + Z (or Command +Z)

LET'S WRAP THIS UP

Image is moved to the back of the art.

Move the image frame behind green rectangle
Select Image > Object > arrange > Send to Back (Ctrl + Shift + { )
Select the Green Rectangle with Black Arrow Tool
Then choose the Gradient Feather tool from the tool bar (Shift + G)

The Cursor turns into a crosshairs >

Click on the region of the rectangle where the partially hidden image ends
Drag to the right a couple inches.
When you release the mouse, the rectangle with be partially transparent.
Almost done: Select View > Preview in the tools Panel (all the way at the bottom). Look Good?

(It's tough to get a screen shot of the crosshairs cursor, sorry)

EXPORT THE FINAL DESIGN

File > Export > Name it "header" > file type PNG
(save location > enews Practice Folder
Image > Quality= High
Resolution = 150 ppi

BONUS ACTIVITY: Quickly Optimize an Image for Web in Photoshop

Open Photoshop > File > Open >choose another image from practice folder
Under image size (lower-right), constrain proportions and choose 400px
File > Save for Web > Choose 4-up tab preview in upper-left

Notice the different file sizes for the different levels of image quality
NOTE: Ctrl + 0 will fit the image into the window.

Select one of the optimized images and Save as ‘optimized.jpg’ into the Practice folder.
Close Photoshop (don’t save).

Okay, Let’s build an Enewsletter!!

Enews Options (for a small budget)...

By Simone Subversive On 11:16 In This Week

Not Just Nonprofits

I'm in the midst of researching an upcoming presentation and thought it best to share what I've learned.

In the half(+) decade since I began working with the various email marketing service providers and cloud hosted tools, little has changed in the realm of e-news. However, access to tools and resources is better. In 2009, we used MagnetMail, in 2011 we used Constant Contact, and today I swear by MailChimp.

I'm all for a free alternative, versus reinventing the wheel.

This week I'll meet with an on-campus client who is hell-bent on making an HTML e-newsletter that is distributed monthly. Their original design tool was MS Publishser. The finished HTML content was embedded into the body of an Outlook message. This, however presented a new problem with each email blast; usually the content was transformed into a single image that went to the first URL on the page, without exception.

This client has become convinced that they need to learnAdobe InDesign in order to create less worrisome e-newsletters and they want me to conduct these in-depth trainings in under 8 hours. Maybe there was an article on Wikipedia that explained how this is possible.

In researching the conversion using InDesign (ID), I learned a few interesting facts:

InDesign does not do this easily.
The individual using ID should have some prior (and advanced) knowledge of HTML/CSS in order to make it work.
The thing about ID that makes it the ideal tool for graphic designers, total control over placement of content, makes it a terrible resource for the novice. Success relies on the skill and knowledge of the user. So, someone with no coding ability will not learn how to effectively create an enewsletter in ID...not in 8 hours anyway.
Lastly, even after all of the boxes are ticked, and the syntax is correct, the user must then alter the CSS further to create a workable finished product.

This is my challenge. I love teaching ID and HTML. It takes my undergrad students half a semester to get a handle on either. Today and tomorrow I'm streamlining my course presentations and turning some of my hands on activities into 'homework'.

Enter MailChimp

I've worked with this free tool off and on for 5+ years. Users don't need to worry about HTML/CSS or responsive design if they don't want to. WHEW!

However, the free option means limitations. Campaigns can only go to a mailing list of 2K, and the users of this service can only send 12,000 emails per year. That's a tough sell for my clients who are convinced that they will go over the freebie amounts. In addition to the crash course I'm planning there will also be 20 minutes dedicated to an in-depth MailChimp hard sell!

It’s Time Again: Summer Intern Search

By Simone Subversive On 09:07 In Rant

Last year I was relatively tight-lipped about the intern search process when writing for this blog. There are a few reasons why I chose to keep my lip zipped and pen still. In spite of the thorough search that I usually employ when seeking out interns, I was given some unsolicited help from one of the veeps in my organization. This thoughtful individual found two students who had enough creative experience to be called novices, no design portfolios—and not enough pieces to club together a single portfolio between them, and they hadn’t even seen the position description posted online or in print. However, these two students were her choice.

In the question of their employment, I had no choice.

For my part, I had a few quite good design students in my Digital Publishing class last spring, and one who was exceptional. This young woman was creative, a decent writer, paid meticulous attention to detail, and was a fearless self-starter; taking the initiative to learn tools and concepts that went far beyond my course curriculum. When I approached this student, I gave her the option to apply as my summer intern—without a guaranteed post. That was completely false on my part—there was no way that this much talent would slip through my fingers.

So my dilemma last June was, what to do with so many interns.

The student that I vetted was sleighed to learn Adobe DPS, and build an entire section of our organization’s newest mobile app, while also learning to storyboard, record convincing voiceover, and edit video, and design digital signage for upcoming campus-wide events. I was informed that the others would also assist with video and graphic design projects. Early on I was mostly mad and seriously skeptical, but as the summer unfolded I became slightly less skeptical.

After all, we had unlimited access to Lynda.com, and neophytes should have been able to learn the principles of graphic design, plus complex software in a semester, right? Right. Lynda was actually one tool that I employed to help my surplus assistants get up to speed.

As each intern started their tenure with me I gave them a list of projects for the semester, this also included links to the corresponding video tutorial(s) to help them get up and running with each project. I felt like a genius. Instead of using valuable time to give hand-holding instruction, I let each individual work at their own pace. Of course, there were daily check-ins, and I treated my students to at least one lunch date where we talked about progress, challenges, and opportunities in their projects. My goal was to treat my summer interns as colleagues, rather than students. It was a mostly successful tactic.

Where did I fail, you wonder?

One of the interns that I was given—it turns out—had problems working autonomously. While he was a good student and eager to learn about video production and editing, he lacked the self-motivation to learn and effectively solve problems on his own. This information I learned after an encounter with his video production professor. In addition to his chuckle of surprise that I chose that particular student to assist with such an advanced series of projects, he gave me some insight. The phrase used was “you gotta keep on top of him.”

My reply to that bit of news was that I’m not a mountain goat (mine is a quick wit).

At the end of the summer season, I’d gotten a chance to work with three interesting young people who knew more than they did at the start of the summer. And I had a diplomatically worded conversation with my boss’ boss’ boss about my internship interview process and its importance to the quality—and quantity—of completed design collaterals.