Branded07 Portfolio Assessment

I chose to review branded07.com because it is very different from my style. The pale blue colors and cartoon birds are not something I would envision for any of my designs, but they fit perfectly here. It shows a soft even fun side of design that a lot of potential customers might want. Even though it has a less serious feel, all the images and layout are completely professional. The artist, Rob Palmer, also shows how diverse his skills are in the sample pages. He has a great variety of designs ranging from grunge to elegant and each example describes the discipline needed to produce the end result. This is a great portfolio site.

Ethical Dilemma

I came across an ethical dilemma that fits in perfectly with one of my portfolio review assignments. We are working on getting our foot in the door with several European auto manufacturers. I usually produce samples with our visitor’s logos, and did this for BMW when they came in last Wednesday. BMW stayed late, and Thursday morning I was doing testing, so when Audi came in I still had their samples in plain sight. They seemed very interested in these, but no one addressed the issue. My dilemma is - should we have clarified that we are not currently producing parts for BMW? I feel that by having these samples in sight we might have implied a more substantial relationship with BMW than we actually have.

Seether Design Competition

Just a quick reminder - don't forget to vote in the Seether design competition today!

http://www.talenthouse.com/creativeinvites/preview/afefd8083570483da9ccdc98d64086bd/491

Design Competition

Talenthouse.com is a great place to participate in creative projects. I found out about the site on facebook because of a competition they are offering. Contestants are able to submit designs for the merchandise being offered during Seether's upcoming tour. This is one of my favorite bands, so of course I had to submit a design. My time is very limited lately so I didn't get to put as much effort into it as I would have liked, but you can check out my submission at http://www.talenthouse.com/creativeinvites/preview/afefd8083570483da9ccdc98d64086bd/491. Voting is on March 14th if you would like to support my design.

Paul Fox Portfolio Assessment

This blog has become my go to place for posting anything and everything related to graphic design or school. One of my assignments to complete my degree is to review and assess other web portfolios. The first site I thought of was Paul Fox Design. I stumbled upon the Paul Fox Design / Paul Fox Photography portfolio sites (http://www.paulfoxdesign.co.uk/) some time ago, and while the content did not impress me, the site design did. I’m not saying that his content isn’t worth while; it’s just very similar to every other professional out there. The site design, however really caught my eye due to its simplicity. The limited color and graphical elements were brilliant because your focus is quickly drawn to the most important aspect of a portfolio site – the samples. This site made me completely re-think my own, and that is one thing good design is supposed to do.

While I thought the over all site was wonderful, I did have a couple of complaints. I didn’t like the fact that I could not click on any of the images for further information or functionality. I also didn’t like the fact that Paul Fox Design and Paul Fox Photography were completely separate sites; I consider design and photography to go hand in hand. Other than these little complaints, I feel these are superbly designed sites.

Career Options Discussion Part 3

I moved into the RD&D (Research, Design and Development) department just over a year ago. Our company had been trying to utilize digital printing technology for quite a while, but with limited success. As the technology, specifically the computer processing power, has progressed, we got closer and closer to being able to design a system to meet our goals. We needed a machine that can print as fast as , if not faster than, a screen printer, that can utilize spot colors rather than 4-color process, and that can do it all using a piezo electric print head. I am pleased to say that we have built such a device; two of them actually.

The first machine utilizes a single print head that prints as the part runs underneath it. The head can also be moved in front of a high speed camera for testing purposes. The second machine truly is an "Alpha" machine, but it is extremely promising.  The machine has 6 modules giving us the ability to print 6 separate spot colors. Each module has 4 print heads mounted in an array giving us the ability to print a 12 inch wide image. Once these machines were built, there was no one to run, test, and optimize them. That is why they brought me in.

Each image to be printed must be handled a little differently than a standard raster or vector image. My experience working with multiple graphics applications and RIPs allows me to understand what is needed. I can create the image from scratch, or modify an existing image to work with our system.

Secondly, we have to make sure that the print heads are optimized for our purpose. As the parts move under the printhead, we have to make sure that they are firing at the right time. We also have to make sure that the drops are the correct size in terms of drop diameter and volume, that the drops are falling at the proper speed, and at the proper trajectory. This is all handled through a program that can modified in C++.

The final issue we are faced with is the fact that there are currently no inks / jetting fluids that will work for our applications. Our chemists are working on those now, but once these are developed, we will have to make sure that the fluids are firing properly through the print heads, and that the final printed product matches our high quality standards. =

None of this would have been possible without my education from Edison. The knowledge I gained at school is essential to fully understand, create and manipulate the graphic files to be printed through this system. The programming classes I took are equally important. Without them, I would not be able to make changes to the print controller. The diploma is probably most important of all. My company places a lot of importance on continued education. One condition of me getting the job was that I must complete the degree program.

Career Options Discussion Part 2

I moved to the IT department with a promise of application development, but the actual position was titled "Helpdesk Technician". I didn't mind providing IT support throughout the company if it meant I would also get to develop applications, but over time I started to become disillusioned with the position and the department. While I was sent for training on a recently purchased business process management application development software, I ended up spending only about 5 percent of my time working with it; the rest of my time was spent answering the phone, responding to emails, ordering supplies and renewing our various licenses. I even questioned when I would get to work on the next application, and I was told it was at least 6 months away. It got to the point that I dreaded going to work every day.

As much as I ended up hating it, working in the IT department did help me understand what I wanted out of a career. It helped me realize that I missed designing; I needed a creative outlet. I also missed producing anything. I just could not stand dealing mostly with paperwork. Thankfully, after about a year in IT, the director of the Research, Design, and Development department came to see me. The RD&D group was in need of someone who could handle designing automotive interior trim pieces and also be responsible for developing a new digital printing system. I felt very confident with both aspects of the position, and I really wanted out of IT, so I accepted the position immediately. The knowledge I acquired from Edison in dealing with all aspects of digital imaging and design allowed me to leave a position I was not happy with and move on to a much more rewarding opportunity.

Next, my move to RD&D...

Begining of Career Options Discussion

For my portfolio review, I am required to share how my career options have changed as I have progressed through the Internet Technologies program. Looking back, I am amazed at how things have changed in such a short time.

I had aspired to secure a position in the art department, and after a lot of time and effort, I achieved my goal.  Working as a production artist wasn't bad work, but by the time I was 28 I was maxed out in pay and position; there was nowhere I could go in that department. The new head of the quality department wanted to modernize the quality systems, but had no luck with the IT department so he came to see me about database development. After our initial discussion he offered me a position that was a great leap forward both my career and my finances.

My new boss suggested I pursue a college degree to continue progressing in the company, and I decided that the Internet Technologies program offered the best combination of art (given my background in graphic design) and programming (a skill I always wanted to develop).

I appreciated the structure in the quality department, and really enjoyed developing new systems that improved quality, but a restructuring in the company saw me reporting to new supervisor. He was a great boss, but not nearly as forward thinking as my previous one. Several of my ongoing projects were cancelled and I ended up doing more of my work with paper and pen rather than a computer, so when the head of the IT department came to see me, I was ecstatic.

Next, my move to IT...

New Projects

I had a meeting today to discuss some new responsibilities. I will be working with an outside company to develop a customized RIP for our printer, currently in development. This is a great opportunity to make sure the printing software interacts perfectly with our art files.

Profiling the Printer

I spent all day profiling the printer, making sure I will get the best prints, because I was just informed that a potential customer / partner will be here tomorrow to check out our facilities. I have been asked to print various samples ASAP.

Eye-One / iMac

The Eye-One colorimeter and the iMac arrived today. The Eye-One will allow me to profile the printer to achieve more accurate color. The iMac will allow me to use the image expert software to quantify the print quality.

WoodGrain 3

While researching our printing options, I came across information stating that the bitmap conversion in Photoshop has the screen option I need to get the proper frequency and angle to print the woodgrain pattern. I ended up selecting each channels separately and changing to bitmap mode using the necessary settings. I then save the resulting image as a tiff, imported into illustrator, added the cornermarks, crosshairs, and art tags. This turned out to be a great way to accomplish this, because now the frequency and angle of the dots are rasterized into each image, rather than being subject to the RIPs interpretation.

WoodGrain 2

The decision was made to pursue the woodgrain pattern via traditional screenprinting techniques. I was able to take the CMYK image, convert it to a multichannel document using existing colors for the separations. I am working in Adobe CS3, so when I called our production art department, we ran into an issue. While I could send images to the RIP/imagesetter using the screen options in Photoshop, they could not. It seems Adobe removed these options from the print dialog in CS5. Tomorrow I will work with the art department in Sidney to get these printed.

Marketing board

I have been asked to print boards for displaying some of our finishes. I have never printed on foam core boards before. Aside from adjusting the head height, I didn't expect any differences, I was wrong. The board was slightly wider than the metal blanks I usually print on, so the vacuum did not hold it to the belt on one end. This caused some head strikes. I added the additional vacuum chamber, but this time the paper that sandwiches the foam started to curl at a corner causing some head strikes. After cleaning the heads a couple times, I finally got the boards completed for the marketing group.

Marketing Meeting

I was asked to participate in a brainstorming session with the marketing group. An intern had researched existing displays of kitchen backsplashes at local hardware and home improvement stores. We then discussed the best ways to display and market our product. I had never been involved in such a session, and found it extremely enjoyable.

Ghost image / shadow

Over the weekend, the printer seems to have developed a severe problem with satellites / overspray. I spent the entire day cleaning and purging the heads, re-running the alignment test and readjusting the head heights. This seems to have reduced, if not eliminated the issue.

New RIP

I was just informed that I will be working with an outside contractor who is developing a RIP for our application. This will be very beneficial. I will have input on how the files will be handled, and the RIP will be tailored to our needs.

Test Results

All of the testing has been completed with the off the shelf inks. Though it did surprise us with a few of it's results, there is no way it will be acceptable to any of our customers. The next step is to either develop inks internally, develop a topcoat internally, apply an existing film, or any combination of the three. Thankfully it is not my call. For now, I will just continue testing and tweaking the printer.

Photo

In a break from design and digital printing, our marketing department asked that I take a stock image of a kitchen, and make variations of it as if the cabinets were made of different woods. Luckily the original image had white cabinets. This allowed me to add an overlay layer for each wood pattern (with a layer opacity of 79%). I then duplicated the original image and masked off everything but the cabinet handles and placed this in front of the wood layers. I added additional layers to enhance the shadows and highlights. I am pretty happy with the final results, and the marketing department was pleased.

Wood Grain

We are once again pursuing a viable woodgrain look. At one point we had screen printed a burl walnut pattern for the interior trim pieces of simi trucks. Our process resulted in about a 20% success rate. 80% scrap meant that this was not a profitable business. The new goal is to produce the parts using digital printing. I have created the pattern and printed a sample. Every thing looks good. There is so much movement in the pattern, that stitching it together seamlessly was not difficult, just a little time consuming. Now if we can come up with a topcoat that passes customer specification, we might be able to sell the product.