My first MOOCs begin soon, I’ll be taking a photography course and a hand-tooled typography course. I’m inspired to share freebies with you. Here are a few hand drawn fonts that got me inspired this week.

I’ve shared some samples to get you guys inspired as well. These lovelies have a relatively high x-height and most have built-in leading. Check them out:

Created by Jusebox

Created by Nice and Ripe

Created by Vanessa Bays

This may be my favorite!

I've got something to say to the lazy folk. You make me sick!

There's nothing  wrong with having a relaxed attitude toward work. Being relaxed is important to being effective. However, some people just take it a bit to far; stretching the boundaries of relaxing into the realm of apathy.

Now that the opinion piece is out of the way let's talk about it. Here are a few tips to help you NOT be perceived as lazy in the workplace:

1. Be on time - Oh my god, just be on time!
2. If a project is overwhelming, ask for assistance or guidance early.
3. Know what you're referencing - If you've got several projects in the hopper, keep their titles and parameters straight. I'm talking about in conversation. You could be perceived as apathetic or worse dumb if constantly referencing the wrong name, team members, or goals of a project.
4. Are you exhausted or feel overworked? Take a break - Yes I said it. Get up and get away from your desk/office. If you need to, call it a day and head home. Fatigue makes it hard to concentrate and get things done. Instead of trying to power through a project, or doing a half-assed job, step away from it and come back fresh.

Source: http://danielbischoff.blogspot.com/

A recent encounter with a former co-worker brought back vivid memories of an on-campus work-study job. The thing that she remembered about me was that I enjoyed doing one of our mandatory, crappy jobs early in the morning--cleaning the facilities early in the morning. Funnily enough, I hated the task. But instead of avoiding it, I got to it as quickly as possible in order to get it out of the way.

My job is at times trying, challenging, rewarding, and sometimes just plain fun. In the upcoming semester, I'll be presenting as part of this lunchtime lecture series, and I get to design the print and electronic promo materials. This is a monthly series and we plan to promote primarily via web contact, but there will also be a few print/ digital posters around campus.

The series title and typography speaks to the informal setting and the feeling that we want to convey. The Autumn color palette lends bit more sophistication, while also giving a nod to the season. My goal is to reuse this layout/format and only switch out the colors for each semester series (yes, that is Greek text):

I know I should be ashamed that I'm finally getting around to reading this book. It's been on my reading list for over 15 years--no kidding. When on our honeymoon in June, we stayed at a lovely B&B in Annapolis, MD; Chez Ami. One of the decorative books placed around the room was a hardbound copy of the Oscar Wilde classic. I began reading it on our first night while trying to beat back my chronic insomnia. I got through four chapters before nodding off. Then we left the inn for the second leg of our bike trip.

Click to view full

I'll stop right here and say that this is actually more of a review on the design of this book--the Penguin Classic paperback version of Dorian Gray.

On the third leg of our trip, we spent the night in Washington, DC. And in the morning we headed off to find the Rock Creek Parkway bike trail into Northern Virginia. My new husband surprised me with this book after we crossed the bridge and I was elated!! When we paused for a water break, I examined the book jacket and became disappointed in the Penguin Classics graphic design team.

Wilde's descriptive prose--and my imagination--drew a picture of a dewy youth with light eyes and a warm complexion whose androgynous good looks could charm men, women, and the stars from the skies. Regardless of the text, I pictured this unlined boy with dark hair that contrasted with his pale eyes and added  a bit of rogueishness to the cherubic innocence that Wilde presented.

Folded cover, detail

The Penguin design team didn't agree with me. Instead, they gave their readers a pasty- faced, rosy-cheeked fop, with fair close-cropped hair, and very little attraction or appeal. When I pulled out the book to continue reading, I realized that the cover portrait was ruining my enjoyment of the book. I folded the cover back and continued reading.

Between, biking, strolling, dining, and enjoying the wonderful company or my new hubby, I finished the book. It was a *good read. In it, Wilde alluded to the exploits of Dorian in the chastest of terms (by today's standards). Our young Mr. Gray was a sociopath, who used his appeal to poison the lives and reputations of others. He then killed without remorse and easily placed the blame for his actions on the innocents who loved him.

FYI, the cover portrait is a John Singer Sargent piece painted in 1900.
*Wilde, like many of his contemporaries, is a great lover of the English language. His words paint a canvas in the imagination and he leaves nothing to chance. That said, it's a departure from the utilitarian style of modern fiction writers.

I really can't go into all of the details right now, but I will make the presentation available online to the Instructional Design Group for feedback once my first draft is complete. The goal of this training is to help instructors organize their course content to keep students engaged. Too often, academics believe that online instruction is akin to in-person, and it's not. Lectures no longer work. Therefore, presenting wordy blocks of text and exhaustive lists will get your course content ignored. Period.

Broken down to the barest of facts,  effective course pages and homepages both:

• introduce the subject matter, 
•  present clear navigation, 
•  are easy to visually scan, 
• and lead to more in-depth, robust content.

A recent project I built a HTML5 video player. For these players to work across all the major browsers redundant video formats must be created. There are several free online services that will convert video formats to ogg theora, mp4, and webm for you. However, once you get to long/large video files, they act up (require payment, or freeze).

VLC media player is free and will convert your vids to the desired format, relatively quickly. One drawback is that you can't run more than one conversion instance at a time. If you need to convert, say 1000 videos, then you'd better get some help.  Here' the quick and dirty of using this player to make your job easier:

For the first time in recent history--four years or so--the graphic design job market does not lead the pack in creative services job postings. A newly graduated friend sent me his portfolio to review and then wanted to talk about the fact that his job search seemed to be in limbo. He's been applying for a couple months now, with nary a nibble.

Photoshop Magazine Mockup

When I originally put together my online portfolio and printed leave behind, I took several photographs of my samples so that my work would be well represented in both media. It was a mostly successful project. However, some of my conceptual pieces--ones that never went into production--had to be altered to fit stylistically. There were ways to get around this. I found an awesome Photoshop mockup that allowed me to share more of my work. I also created so ad hoc mock up scenarios that were also successful.

For conceptual posters, I photographed gallery walls and inserted appropriate sized design samples into frames or in a salon style hanging.

Poster Mockup II

Here are some other great mock up options to help get your portfolio a second glance:

• Photoshop -
  Photoshop Magazine Mockup (video tutorial)
  Business Cards Mockup (video tutorial)
  Poster Mockup
  Poster Mockup II
• Illustrator -
  Vector Macbook for web mockups
  3D Brochure (video tutorial)
  3D Packaging (tutorial)
• Mockups for Sale
  Graphic River Poster and Environmental Signage
  Graphic River Magazine Mockups

In no particular order...

I got a question from my former intern last week and had to share. She’s ready to graduate and is now looking for her first ‘real job’ (thanks).

Her question: Do I Include Student work in My Portfolio?

Were this anyone else my answer may be different. In the past four years she has built a portfolio of exceptional student work, freelance projects and a few pieces from her internships.