COPYRIGHT ZOMBIE

DESIGNING A DIGITAL PORTFOLIO
CHAPTER 12
COPYRIGHT & PORTFOLIO



There's a lot of toes to step on in the area of copyright protocol. Not only do you have to be careful not to step on them - but also watch out no one steps on yours!

COPYRIGHT:
"Exclusive rights to an identifiable expression of intellectual property, as definded specifically by the government that grants the copyright"
-pg238, Designing A Digital Portfolio, Cynthia L. Baron

TRADEMARK:
A logo or something similar that identifies an individual or group.

FAIR USE:
Certain things that can be called 'forms of expression' that use copyrighted material.

INFRINGEMENT:
Violating copywrite protocol. Stealing what another has already deemed copyrited material.

CEASE AND DESIST ORDER:
You are forced by legal order to stop using copyrited material --- wich usually ends up with a large fee ):

Ok, some of these still seem a little 'on the boarder' for me. Especially fair use. I've been taught about copyright several times and I know most people, like myself, are still not 100% sure what is really copywrite infringement and what isn't.

LOL @ 'Orphan' projects
I love the description of this:
"An orphan project is one where the client no longer exists. There is little chance that the client is going to rise from the dead, grasping for rights with its mummified hands."

I'll infringe on copyright laws JUST to see that happen.

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MORE CRAYONS WEB SMART PALETTE
This is actually really spiffy - if you click the color cube - it becomes this 3d representation of the color wheel and you can select a 'layer' of it and then zoom in to see each color on that layer.

IN YOUR (INTER)FACE!

DESIGNING A DIGITAL PORTFOLIO
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DESIGNING A PORTFOLIO INTERFACE



It's not a book, it's not a plane, it's not a bird - ITS A WEBSITE.

Thus you must create an interface that is not in the traditional sense of making a book.

There are many creative ways to make an interface for the audience.
It can be linear or nonlinear, it can have multiple connections from different pages.

Another thing to keep in mind is what your page size is going to be. Will it be vertical? or horizonal? Will it take up the entire page? Or just be a part of it? These are all things that you have to think about before starting your site.

I ran into this issue actually - I made a site that will take up just a portion of the screen and I wanted to find out how to position it not only horizontally - but vertically as well. Turns out no one knows how to vertically align a page out of my group of tech-ie friends. ):

Look and feel also contribute to your interface. Will it look very straight forward and business like? Or will it look more like free thought and expression?

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Link of the week:

STUFF ON MY CAT
What a wonderful site - its updated daily
Basically - its user submitted photos of thier cat with objects on them. Some people have gotten very creative.
There's an entire library of photos on the site now.

DON'T BUILD DISCUSTING PORTFOLIOS

DESIGNING A DIGITAL PORTFOLIO
CHAPTER X
DEVELOPMENT BASICS



Chapter ten talks about putting everything together and starting your website. It emphisises on having something simple, yet not too static and boring. Having a little motion and interation is important and will keep the attention of the viewer.

Having a metaphor to set your portfolio to is a good idea. You have to know what kind of portfolio you are making. Is it a gallery, narrative, diary, experience, or what? You have to find that out first before starting your site.

I think mine is focusing on the narrative. I just wish it was focusing a little more on the "COMPLETED" metaphor.

There were some really great examples in this chapter. I love the one slideshow one on the bottom of page 207. Really great idea, and really great illustration too (same with the color scheme).

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BUILDING DESIGN PORTFOLIOS
p140-to the END



OMG I LOVE the wood portfolio on page 146. How awesome is that. It opens up to show smaller doors to open that show the portfolio peices. This one is so spiffy because not only is it increadibly original and memorable, but it shows that the person knows how to work with wood.

hahaha...
When I first flipped through this book I saw that picture of the HUGE 15 foot portfolio at the end of a car on page 153. I love how the artist is actually standing on top of it.

Ok, the brain one...(page 157) just creapy. I'll give it kudos for being original... but I think its going to run into the problem of people NOT wanting to reach inside the head to look at your work. Lesson learned: don't make a discusting portfolio kids.

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My cousin in Rhode Island is making her own cafe called "Kafe Lila". Her dad (my uncle) used to be a coordinator for Habital for Humanities and he's really great at construction (even though he was a math teacher lol). So he, my cousin and a friend are actually building this cafe. It should be done in a couple of months, I can't wait to see it.

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And the link of the week:

NINJA NEW YORK
A Japanese resturant in NY city themed on ninjas. Don't see any ninja's in the site?

EXACTLY

The flash intro to this is pretty spiffy, and I love the concept of the resturant - just wish it wasn't so expensive >.<

PAPER PRINT PORTFOLIO PERFECTION

DESIGNING A DIGITAL PORTFOLIO
CHAPTER NINE
CREATING WRITTEN CONTENT



"Someone showing their art should at least pretend they're competent."
This line in the book made me LAWL a little.

Some sugestions Baron makes when writing for your work are:
Identify your work.
Introduce yourself.
Explain your ideas and process.
Speak directly to your audience.

IDENTIFING YOUR WORK
Even if you aren't going to put a lot of text in your portfolio, and are trying to go for the minimalist look - you still need to at least have a short caption. A title and a short explaination (what the project was for, what part you had in it, etc.) are necessary.

INTRODUCING YOURSELF
You must keep your resume clean, otherwise the employer might not have the patience to read all of it. Include all the basics like contact info and a bio while still keeping a certain level of confidenciality. You don't want to put:

"I'M JACLYN LALLI AND I AM AWESOME AT VIDEOGAMES"

Even thought it might be completely true, it's not something you want to tell your potential employer, or let them know.

EXPLAINING YOUR CREATIVE THINKING
Having sketches, comps and other items leading up to your finished project will help show your process in which you work. It will show your audience that you take steps before starting your work. You come up with a plan, and an idea and develop them.

WRITING TO YOUR AUDIENCE
Pretty much, you want to explain the things that need to be explained to the EMPLOYER, not to your best friend. For example, you want to explain your process, what the piece is about, and esentially, what it is. Don't write:

"DUDE LOOK AT THE CAT I DREW THERE! ISN'T IT ADORABLE?!?!!!1one!"

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BUILDING DESIGN PORTFOLIOS
p94-p140



Here, we have a lovely look at many MANY examples of super spiffy print portfolios. It's a little intimidating building an entire book, but looking at some of these examples is very inspiring.

I really thought the one by Lorenzo Geiger on pages 138-139. Its VERY simplistic, yet is an excellent way of showing your portfolio. He just has a folder with vertical pockets. Each page is free and not bound at all (which makes construction SUPER easy) which makes showing each peice very convienient. Also, this makes adding or taking out peices very simple.

I might have to do something like that design, I really like it.

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My favorite band Deerhoof came out with this selfmade music video. They're an underground band and I absolutely love them. Their music can not be classifyied or put under any kind of music category.

They are just crazy.

I've had the chance to see them live a few months ago, and it was amazing. Go check out this video, it's so happy.

THE PERFECT ME

SUPER HAPPY PORTFOLIO TIME

DESIGNING A DIGITAL PORTFOLIO
CHAPTER EIGHT
REPURPOSING AND OPTIMIZING



Most of this chapter is about organizing your print work. Having the older versions of the finished product might be useful so you can show your thought process and development.

Having different file formats in your digital portfolio is nessesary. For example, if you have a video you'd like to show, you would want to make it downloadable in Flash, Quicktime, and Windows Media Player. Doing this insures that the person looking at it can make their choice based on preference or on what programs are already on their computer.

There are a lot of basics that are reviewed:
-Don't make your video pop up in a window that's bigger than everyone's sceen size.
-Don't make the file sizes of everything so huge.
-Don't make bad navigation.
-Have enough content to call it a portfolio.
-Don't make a bad site.
-Don't fail at life.

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Ok so this ISN'T a web portfolio. But it's an amazing webcomic. The artist has the most beautiful color pallets and style.
http://normallife.livejournal.com/



I've always loved her work, and very envious of her tabelet she works with. I would love to work with one, if only they didn't cost so much! Unfortunately, her previous work isn't viewable currently for some reason.

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BUILDING DESIGN PORTFOLIOS
p75-p94



Woooooo! It's page nintey four dude!

Anyway, about this part of the book: It emphasizes that you really want to have a web portfolio thats exciting, new, and awesome. Meaning, that you want to have something stimulating to gain the audience's attention.

Lets put it this way:
The more they like your portfolio, the more they like you, the more likely you'll get the job, the most likely you won't starve to death in your early 30's.

So make an exciting and happy portfolio ^___^

I know i've said it like two posts ago, but I LOVE how this book actually has examples in it. Not only that, but they're GOOD examples. Very temportary, very modern, which is exactly what's in style in the design world. Its just nice that finally one of these books can tell you what to do, and SHOW you what to do.

Something that the book mentions that I've heard many times before is, if you're gonna have music in your portfolio, you have some choices:
-Have a way to turn it off.
-Don't have it start automatically.
-Don't put music in your portfolio.
-Work at Wal-mart.

I was so happy to see Chip Kidd's work on page 87. I LOVED his book "THE CHEESE MONKEYS" any graphic designer (ESPECIALLY STUDENT) needs to read it. It's absolutely hillarious and creative writing, yet very informative about the real design world. But it does get very (VERY) weird at the end, but go read it anyway, its one of my favorite books.

ZOMG ITS: AN UPDATE

DESIGNING A DIGITAL PORTFOLIO
CHAPTER SEVEN
CLEANING UP



NOTICE:
I am very sorry for the lack of silly pictures/humor in this post. I went to Arizona for this spring break and my Saturday flight back was canceled D: and the next flight I could get was on Monday NIGHT. I got back at 5am this (tuesday) morning. So I'm all suped up on Mountain Dew and ready to blog away.

This is a continuation from Chapter 6 - Digitizing Art. After you scan/photograph/other means of digitizing your art, you might want to touch it up a bit before considering it finished.

Problems that you might see in your digitized work is
"Tonal problems
Combining and editing
Size and resolution
Sharpness"

TONAL PROBLEMS:
If you scanned your work, then most likely than not, it lost some contrast along the way. So that should be the first thing you look for. Fixing this is super easy in photoshop. You can either go to brightness/contrast and do it that way OR go to the histogram and toggle the settings there.

COMBINING AND EDITING:
If your art was SO BIG that you had to scan it in segments, you'll have the amazingly fun time of stiching it together. You have to make sure that all of it is relative size, color, contrast, and everything. I've done this a few times before and its pretty hard to get it EXACTLY right. It usually needs a lot of photoshop love to look good in the end.

SIZE AND RESOLUTION:
Of course the scanned/photographed size is going to be way off what you really want. Make sure you keep the original scan when cropping and resizing.

SHARPNESS:
I've never liked the sharpen tool. It always tends to make things look grainy and gross, but like the book says; only use the sharpening tool if you absolutely need it.


BTW I had no idea we had to have links IN the posts - I thought we had to add links to the side bar. So here's the first link of the blog:
SQUARE I
Great design company. Its almost like a portfolio, in that it IS the portfolio. The flash animations used throughtout the site are just awesome, and i love LOVE LOVE the theme its just so cool. My judgement might have been turned by my love of airplanes but who knows. Go check out of the short clips of each designer, they're great.

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BUILDING DESIGN PORTFOLIOS
p40-p74



The mountain dew is running out, hopefully I'll have enough awareness for this next part.

Something that was mentioned before was to have 'flexible content'. Meaning, you can add and remove peices easily. This is almost vital to any portfolio, because it's never complete. You will always be adding and removing peices as you grow, and being able to easily do this will make your life much better.

Portfolios are all about presentation. Your work might be mediocre, but if it's in a super cool portfolio thats innovative and creative, that might make your crappy work look a lot less craptacular.

This book suggests that your first peice shown must be eye catching, but not nessesarily your best peice. Probably becuase you want to get your audience interested, but have something later to WOW them again and hopefully get their attention once again.

First impressions are very important, whatever they see first is what they most likely will relate with you FOREVER. So make it a good one.

Oh yay it talks about JOB HUNTING
I've worked on my resume like 10,000,300 times. The text is set for the most part. Seriously, I've had everyone and their monther check over my resume, including career advisors, so I'm set, 4-sho.

But now I have the lovely task of putting it together with my letter head. Wee.

Something that I've been thinking about a lot is PROMOTIONS. Having something small to give to the employer to remember me by. I remember that Pattie Belle told us that a past student handed out paper cranes with her logo and info on it. I just thought that was so awesome. I really want to do something like that. I was thinking: since my logo and theme is airplanes and clouds, that i could make a unique paper airplane with my info and stuff. I used to make my own variations and models of paper airplanes (that really flew) so I figure I'll give it a shot at least.

AUTOBOTS DIGITALIZE!

DESIGNING A DIGITAL PORTFOLIO
CHAPTAH SIX
DIGITALIZING TRADITIONAL WORK



Well, look at you. You've done work in the computer AND outside too? Hot damn you've done everything. Or so you thought.... What is truly awesome is putting the two together into the computer world or 'digitalizing' (which I didn't even know was a word).

There's a few ways to go about this. Wrong and right ways.

SCAN
If it's a flat painting or anything 2D, it's a good idea to just scan it. Some things come into effect here. First, if it doesn't FIT in the scanner, you can either scan it mulitple times and photoshop it together, or just photograph it. Also, if your scanner is pretty old/terrible/my scanner you might just want to go to a professional company like Kinkos or something similar.

Another bummer is that scanners usually don't do fantastic with a large value range, so you might have to touch it up in photoshop after scanning it.

PHOTOGRAPH
If your work is 3D, you will do much better with using photography to DITITALIZE it into your computer world. How the picture is taken is very important. In a sense, it has to be creative and interesting (aka: photographed well). Make it a composition, setting the object(s) in a certain manner that works best for the item.

For example, if Starbucks wanted to photograph their coffee, they're not just going to put a cup on a table and take a picture of it. They're gonna poor coffee beans arround it, put coffee bean bags with their fantastic logo on it next to the cup, and set some other items with it to make it a composition.

The background it important too. Don't forget about your negative space! It has feelings too! Something you might want to think about is to make the background consitant with the other pictures your taking if they will all be on the same webpage.

Another thing: If your digital camera is old/terrible/my camera you might want to buy a new one or borrow a good one.

DIGITIZING VHS TAPES
Thank god I don't have anything on VHS becuase the convertion to DVD looks painful. There's a lot of equipment you have to buy and software as well. (although if you do have work on VHS you ... probably have these things already). If you don't have the equipment, your best bet is to go to a company that can do it for you.

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BUILDING DESIGN PORTFOLIOS
p0-p40



This book is pretty rhombus - the cover is MAGNETIC and the pages are lined with shiny metalic ... stuff. Trust me, this image above doesn't show the awesomeness of this book. AAAAND the cover doesn't even describe how totally algebraic the contents of the book are. Sara Eisenman puts tons of imagery in this book, just flipping through the pages is inspireing.


AND FOR JUST 40 BUCKS
YOU CAN ADD THIS WONDERFUL BOOK TO YOUR LIBRARY

Something that eased my thoughts was that Eisenman notes that when first making your portfolio, it does not mean it will be your final one. You'll be redesigning it and editing it FOREVER BWAHAHAHA - which is a good thing. Because even if you're not entirely happy with it initially, at least its done, and you can then focus on improving it.

This segment shows the different methods and mediums of book like portfolios. This is really great and also really initmidating. You not only have to come up with a really eye catching idea, but also you have to MAKE IT in most cases.

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In other news: My kitten got neutered last week.

Poor Samson.