Your ARTS Education stARTS Here!

School is back in session after a pretty hectic summer vacation. A lot of time was spent getting the new ARTS building ready to go, ordering new equipment, and trying to be ready for the opening day of the Fall semester.

Last Saturday we had the Opening Celebration of the building and it was a huge success. Over 300 people showed from the community, Butte students and faculty, and local artists. The event was catered, with wine, live music, theater events and a reception for the first exhibition in the new gallery space.

I was so busy giving tours, that I didn't have time to meet and speak with everyone I would have liked, but those who did get tours were really impressed by the new labs and equipment we have available for students.

There are new art signs on the backs of the buses and a new billboard on highway 99 for the new arts campaign: Your Arts Education stARTS HERE!

CHECK this out. A student in my MSP 74 design class let me know about a typography Website that offers users the ability to create random type designs. It adds some pretty nice designs to the type. Click here to view the site.

More to come. -Daniel

It's been a while since I've posted, but I've been surfing a lot and it's time to share.

A couple of weeks ago I re-designed my art portfolio as a magazine and uploaded it to magcloud.com. You have to see the quality of the printed piece they sent me five days later to get the full understanding of the opportunities it opens up for designers. The company prints its magazines using an HP Indigo digital press with an on-demand production quality rivaling offset printing. At ¢.20 a page, you can't beat this for any on-demand printing. Check out the site and my magazine.

Number two on this list of cool items that need to be seen is the Philips Cinema display Corousel clown commercial and micro-site. Load the Web site full-screen and then use the dragger bar to scroll through the video. Amazing work created by Stink Digital in London for agency, Tribal DDB Amsterdam.

And the final item for this posting is a Brush King, a free Photoshop brush Web site located in Europe, with a huge number of incredible brushes for downloading and using in your projects.

Have fun with these links.

-Daniel

FREELANCER RESOURCES

It's interesting how the blog world works. I just read this great post from NOUPE that lead me to the Design Cubicle, which sent me to the Freelance Switch Web site. Freelance Switch grabbed their idea for the list from the I Help You Blog.

However the final links and blogs come about, this link to "101 Essential Freelancing Resources" is a great source for any designer, especially students looking at getting into the freelance design market.

101 Essential Freelancing Resources

Section titles to the content include:

Timing
These are tools to help you time and track your work.

Invoicing
When you don’t invoice, you don’t get paid, so it literally pays to stay on top of your billing.

Project Management and Organization
These resources will help you stay organised and manage those projects and clients.

Stock Libraries
Templates, Photos, Flash files all to help make you look good.

Business Tools
Resources to help with the business of freelancing.

Legal
Because you have to protect yourself and your work.

Job Boards
A whole bunch of places to find jobs.

Web Tools
Tools to get your Web Presence Up and running.

Advertising and Marketing
A few ways to market and advertise yourself online.

Miscellaneous
All the many things we couldn’t fit anywhere else!

Check it out.

-Daniel

MORE JOB SEARCH SITES

Here is a list of job search sites for those looking for employment. Thanks to Graphic Fetish for this list. Contact me with other sites you may know of that I could list.

1. Freelance Switch

2. CoroFlot

3. Talk Freelance

4. Project for Hire

5. GURU

6. 99 Designs

7. Authentic Jobs

8. Smashing Jobs

9. Freelance Job Search

10. iFreelance

11. Freelance Jobs for All

12. Solo Gigs

13. All Freelance

14. No Agencies Please

15. Get a freelancer

16. E-Lance

17. Webmaster Talk

18. ODesk

19. Crowdspring

20. Freelance Writing 

-Daniel

BLOGGING and GOOGLE READER

WELCOME TO THE BLOGOSPHERE

It's taken me a while, but I'm finally surfing the blogosphere. I've limited myself to design and advertising-related blogs, but this hasn't stunted my options for great blogs in any way. Currently I'm subscribed to more than a dozen blogs that are pretty amazing for their content.

Graphic Fetish is the most recent blog I've subscribed to–within the last ten minutes. The "40+ Creative Postcards" posting is fantastic (postcards gathered from Behance Network). I found my way there from Noupe.com, which has quickly become one of my favorites for the number of great posts they send out daily.

Credit for my newbie entrance to the designo-blogo-sphere (can I coin that term?), goes to my partner, Jeannie, who has been using Google's Reader for quite some time and I finally listened to her when she told me "once again" that I should start using it.

GOOGLE READER

The Google Reader is a Web-based aggregator, capable of reading RSS feeds online or offline. This means that you can subscribe to blogs through an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed and have them sent (fed) directly to your personal reader regularly, allowing you to check the blogs at your leisure. If you aren't using GR yet, or another similar reader, then it's time to start looking into it.

Here are a few of my favorite design blogs for you to check out on your own:

• Graphic Fetish

• Noupe

• AdRants

• You the Designer

• I Love Typography

• Just Creative Design

• New at Pentagram

• Logo of the Day

That's enough for now, if I give you all of the blogs I'm currently reading, you'll be in the same trouble as I am, and most of your time will be spent checking out all of the cool and interesting items they all have available.

Used to be my time was spent on Deviant Art, now it's split between blogs and DA. It won't be long before we start reading about bloggers anonymous groups starting up in cities near you.

Let me know if there's a blog I should be subscribing to that you just can't stop reading.

-Daniel

MY IN YOUR FACE DESIGN STUDIO

I talk about having a design studio, but very few people ever get a chance to make it to the studio to see where I do my creating. I just uploaded images of the design studio to Flickr. I'd like to say it's not always so messy, but it's how I work (organized chaos).

The images feature my collection of vinyl toys, art on the walls, book binding equipment, and my large library of design books.

Check out the tape-Doll, and cloth monster doll I purchased from students in our Design and Sculpture programs.

-Daniel

FREE TEXTURES

This is a quick posting to let students know about this site I just came across.

TEXTURE KING

Texture King has a huge number of free high-quality textures to select from, and they are all categorized for easy navigation and search.

Check the site out and start designing.

-Daniel

STUDENT PROFILE 2: DANIELLE BLIXT

At the beginning of this current semester I decided to introduce CrowdSpring.com to my Art-32 Typography students. None of my students had used the site before, so it was a new and exciting entry into the design industry and the use of speculative design projects.

Daniel Blixt, a second-semester student in our design program here at Butte is currently enrolled in the Typography class. After designing and uploading the first project the class was introduced to, Danielle dived into CrowdSpring and has participated in almost 30 projects to date. Out of those 30 projects, Danielle has won two project awards, each worth $300. Danielle says she spends three to four hours a day working on CrowdSpring submissions.

Before attending Butte and entering into our design program, Danielle attended Purdue University and took several design classes, including 3D Design, an AutoCAD class, and a 2D design class. Last semester, Danielle took associate design instructor, Dylan Tellesen's Art 31 Intro to Graphic Design class here at Butte.

Danielle's educational goal is to finish up at Butte and then head Cal Poly and enter the schools design program to continue studying. Her design goal is to become a logo designer, and if the paying client's on CrowdSpring are any indication, she's already on her way.

WHAT IS CROWDSPRING?
CrowdSpring is Web site that offers clients the opportunity to add a project to the site (usually logos, identity, brochures, or Web page designs). The clients offer a fee for the projects based on what they want to pay. The minimum fee is $250, and most clients offer the $250-$300 for basic logos, though more $1,000 to $2,500 projects are beginning to appear on the site.

Once the project is uploaded, the client selects from the 25+ designs that have been uploaded and must choose a design, or CrowdSpring chooses for them. The clients place the funds they set as the fee into an escrow account, so that CrowdSpring can guarantee payment to a designer.

DESIGNING ON SPEC
Sites like CrowdSpring are popping up across the Internet, and they are garnering as much bad press as they are good press. The good press is that designers are making money and client's are getting decent and sometime really great designs for cheap prices.

The bad press is that one designer out of 30 or 100 makes money, but they all design a project, speculating that they might win (hence the term designing on "spec"). The bad press continues with the idea that clients are getting a project designed for very little money.

Many designers are against designing on spec because of the amount of work that goes into any design project, and the idea that a client doesn't have to pay for the work unless they like it. Designers also feel that sites like CrowdSpring can take away from the credibility of a designer's skills, and diminish the value of design, when design is opened up to amateur designers (such as students), who win design projects.

My take is that CrowdSpring and others like it open up a fantastic opportunity for upcoming designers and students to begin building portfolios and make some money from clients who would probably never hire a professional designer.

There is good and bad about these kinds of site, but seeing how excited my students get about the idea of being able to compete and possibly win a project, helps me to focus on the good that these sites can offer.

Let me know your thoughts about this subject.

-Daniel

One Trick Pony

Greetings all. As I'm sure most of you know by now I am a new student at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. I attended Butte College for 2 years before moving on to further my design career. There was a time when I held the idea of a design career as impossible, and something that really wouldn't amount to much as far as making a living. I was wrong.

During my first year out at Butte my eyes were opened to new possibilities in a field that is constantly growing. But how can you possibly keep up with an industry that has built up so much momentum? Really the answer is simple. Be as diverse as possible. Think about it, how much are you worth as a designer or as an employee if all you know how to do is graphic design and nothing else? As a designer you shouldn't stop at labeling yourself as any one thing, be more flexible. Skill diversity is one thing that is constantly preached here at AAU.

I was recently told of a student that got a job at Yahoo! some years ago. With the country's recent economic crisis the internet giant started making lay offs in the thousands, this particular designer was called in to bring his position amongst a team of 20 or so designers into question. His job was spared the first round of lay offs because he knew more than just graphic design, part of his curriculum upon graduating included motion graphics. During the second round they pitted him against several others who were motion graphic designers, he was spared once again because he was also well versed in 3d modeling and video editing. And so it all continued through 4 more rounds of lay offs, and to my knowledge he still remains at Yahoo! today. Being a multidisciplinary designer can lead you into more opportunities, makes you a more valuable individual, and can even raise your pay grade a few figures. But not all of us are in it for the money ;)

So, keep that in mind when you are choosing your classes. Maybe try everything out as long as your schedule permits, or take an online course and get certified; for those of you who haven't checked out some of the learning sites out there such as lynda.com, take advantage of them in your spare time, some of the Butte MSP courses have a membership there and you can surf it during your lab time.

Here is another blog that goes over this subject in a little more detail:

http://www.creativebehavior.com/index.php?PID=170

Thanks, and stay tuned.

URBAN ART: SHEPARD FAIREY

There's a chance you may not know Shepard Fairey's name, but unless you've been without a TV or any kind of news in the last few months, you'll recognize his art shown at right.

Fairey's iconic image of President Barack Obama has been shown on newscasts, plastered on walls and telephone polls across the nation, and featured on magazine covers such as TIME and Esquire. Just last week, an original of the Obama HOPE image was also selected into the permanent collection of the Smithsonian. 

Two months ago while I was in LA, I came across an original Obama poster that had been stapled to a telephone pole in Silver Lake. I didn't want to pull down the poster with a lot of people around, so I awoke at 4 a.m. and drove back to the place where I'd seen the poster. When I went to take down the poster, I saw that the bottom of the poster (and every other other poster on the block) had been ripped off. Unlike the "HOPE" image above, the poster on the pole was the "OBEY" Obama poster. I can only assume that the individual who tore off the OBEY on the poster, thought that OBEY was referring to something derogatory, and didn't know that OBEY is actually Shepard Fairey's tag that he has become known for in the urban art world.

I took the image anyway and have it hanging in my design studio office. It reminds me of the campaign, the hope that a lot of people are looking toward for the future, and it is a reminder that not everyone who comes into contact with your art will understand or agree with it.

CHARACTER APPROVED

Check out this great video of Shepard Fairey explaining his art and processes.

Other urban artists and sites you should check out:

WK Interact (NY street artist)

Wooster Street Collective (Street art collective in NY)

100 Artworks (urban art from the UK or sale)

Art Crimes (Best of Graffiti art sites)

Have fun.

-Daniel

THE BUSINESS OF GRAPHIC DESIGN

If you're looking for a late-starting class this semester, I'll be starting my Business of Graphic Design class in early February. The class will be M/W, 9:30 am-11:30 am. Look for flyers announcing the class next week.

In other business news, my current issue of Graphic Design USA arrived this afternoon. When I grabbed it out of the mailbox, the first thing I noticed was the cover; great look and texture. When I opened to the first page beyond the double-page ShutterStock ad, I noticed the paper that was used for the interior of the mag was a bright white and also had a great matte texture.

Reading through the magazine, I read that the paper GD USA used to print the magazine is made by SMART Papers. One of the most interesting things about SMART is that all of its papers are chlorine free, and by the end of 2009, all of its papers will be produced using 100% cellulosic biomass (primarily tree, yard and wood waste). This will eliminate the use of fossil fuels in its paper manufacturing and enable all its papers to be designated fully carbon neutral. Definitely a paper company worth using and supporting.

Inside the magazine, there's a lot of great content, but what has stood out so far is the "Hot Skills for 2009" article. The three additional skill sets that remain in demand in this poor economic climate are:

Project Management
Average salaries for positions of Web project manager, traffic manager and traffic coordinator are expected to rise 5.8% in 2009. The individuals in these positions keep projects within budget and on track, making them a valuable asset to companies. Those who can manage print and Web production processes are worth even more money.

Hybrid Abilities
Designers with diverse and complementary skills are in great demand. A print designer who can build a Web site makes the designer worth more, and a copywriter who can design a newsletter can be worth more than just a copywriter. Multiple skill sets will be in big demand in the coming years.

Presentation Skills
Duarte Design, a local design firm whose main office is in Mountain View, has known this one for a long time; PowerPoint is an important and lucrative application to know in the business world. If you can learn PowerPoint, Keynote and Flash, you're making yourself worth even more to a company that develops presentations. Starting salaries for Presentation Specialists with up to three years of experience are expected to rise 5.6% in 2009.

For more information and a nicely designed Salary Market Guide from The Creative Group, call 1-888-846-1668 for their free brochure, or ask to see my copy I picked up at the MacWorld conference.

Check out Duarte Design's Web site and watch the video that shows the making of Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth PowerPoint presentation.

Get a free subscription to Graphic Design USA.

-Daniel

FINDING A JOB

With the economy in dire straights and companies across design industries announcing freelance hiring freezes, this seems like a good time to offer up some valuable ways for our current and past students to find potential employment.

One of the questions students ask me on a regular basis is "How do I find a job in the design industry?"

This is always a great question, and I want to offer some links on where to look if you're one of our students who already has a portfolio and a bit of experience.

Indeed.com is a link that was just sent to me by John Avakian, Statewide Director of the Multimedia & Entertainment Initiative. Indeed.com is a great resource. Go to the site and type in "freelance design" or "freelance graphic"and "California" and take look at the large number of jobs (163) that pop up in the search results.

For local work, craigslist Chico is a great site to check on a regular basis. I check the site at least once a week, and often end up sending e-mails to students I think might be interested in specific postings.

Checking today, there are postings for: (School Portrait Photographer), (Wedding Photographer), (Apparel Graphic Designer), (Web Graphic Designer), (Sign Maker Assistant).

Below is a list of design and technology related job links:

Craigslist Chico: local jobs. Click California and then "art/media" to see recent jobs.

Creative Hotlist: Jobs for creative professionals and portfolio site.

Reel Exchange: A professional networking website connecting film and video professionals with clients and collaborators.

KROP: Creative and Tech jobs

Computer Love/Coroflot: Design and Tech jobs.

GURU: Providing/connecting freelancers for design projects

HOW design magazine: job bank and portfolio resources.

Indeed: Design jobs

While I'm listing job sites, I think it's also important to give some links for agencies (temp agencies) that hire temporary and full-time positions for the design industries:

Aquent: Check out the agencies video resources.

Big Creative: Freelance, Project-based, Permanent

Visuals: Freelance and direct-hire for creatives.

Artisan Creative: Finding jobs for top creative talent

The Creative Group: Marketing and advertising jobs

If you have any links for creative jobs that aren't listed here, send them our way.

-Daniel

ART IS WORK: MILTON GLASER

I recently purchased a great book featuring the work and writings of renowned designer and artist, Milton Glaser, titled "Art is Work". Glaser is known for his posters, illustrations and logos, such as the "I Love New York" logo that has become a recognizable icon for New York, and has been replicated around the world.

In the introduction to "Art is Work", Glaser discusses the defintion of Art:

"If one of the definitions we have concerning art is that it serves its public by reflecting and explaining the world at a particular moment in history, it is hard to believe that design does not serve in a similar way. …There seems to be much confusion about what we mean when we use the word art. I have a recommendation. We eliminate the word art and replace it with work and develop the following descriptions:

1. Work that goes beyond its functional intention and moves us in deep and mysterious ways we call great work.

2. Work that is conceived and executed with elegance and rigor we call good work.

3. Work that meets its intended need honestly and without pretense we call simply work.

4. Everything else, the sad and shoddy stuff of daily life, can come under the heading of bad work.

This simple change could eliminate anxiety for thousands of people who worry about whether they are artists or not, but this would not be its most significant consequence. More important, it could restore art to a central, useful activity in daily life – something for which we have been waiting for a very long while."

Glaser's words, not just within the Intro to the book, but also within the book's interview with Glaser, chapter lead-ins, the Role of the Poster, The Monet Project, and other chapters focusing on specific design and art elements, are well worth reading and offer up more insights into art and design. 

To watch Glaser speak personally about his work, Hillman Curtis has a great video of the designer speaking about Art as Work, in Curtis' Artist Series located on his Web site, hillmancurtis.com. You can also head on over to miltonglaser.com to see more of Glaser's work.

Not having gone through formal training in either art or design, I missed the educational challenges that many artists and designers I've spoken with had to endure; art instructors putting down designers and design programs because design wasn't "art", commercial art instructors forcing students to adhere to strict definitions of design, rather than allowing exploration within the media.

If you have stories to tell about your experiences in either direction, let me know and I'll share them with our readers.

-Daniel

STUDENT PROFILE 1: SHERI HAMILTON

We get a lot of great design students taking classes in our Digital Art & Design department here at Butte College. Every week I'm going to post profiles of current and past design students.

Our first Student Profile is Sheri Hamilton. 

At the age of 24, and after three and a half years, Sheri graduated with a Graphic Design and Multimedia degree from Butte in 2006.

Sheri was one of our top design students for the years she was at Butte. In 2004 and 2005, she won awards for design in the Digital Dialog juried art shows our department held in conjunction with the CSU Chico Design department. Sheri took Best in Typography for one of her type posters in 2006, beating out CSU Chico design students.

While attending Butte, and for a year or so after graduating, Sheri worked in Oroville California as a Digital Artist/Retoucher for the Creative Imaging Center . CIC's focus is photo-retouching Senior photos for yearbooks. Sheri also designed labels for packaging, produced business cards, and worked with large format printing services for CIC. Working in this fast-paced environment really helped to develop Sheri's Photoshop and Illustrator skills.

Sheri interned with a company in Oroville for a semester, and also as a paid contractor and intern for In Your Face for a semester. Currently, Sheri works for Improvement Direct, a local Chico start-up company that sells home improvement products through their Web site. Improvement Direct has become one of the top home improvement sites on the Internet, and it's a real opportunity to get hired by them.

Sheri's job position for the company is Graphic Designer. Her job responsibilities currently include Web banner design and print design. Always wanting to increase her skills and knowledge about design, Sheri is also teaching herself CSS so she can begin taking on additional design responsibilities such as working on Improvement Direct's article pages.

END QUESTION: Do you have any plans beyond working for Improvement Direct?

SHERI'S ANSWER: "World Domination" (with a :-)

STATS:

Sheri Hamilton

Age 26

Employed as a Graphic Designer

Portfolio Link

If you would like to be profiled on our blog, get in touch with me here. I'm always looking to re-connect with our students and promote them any way I can.

-Daniel

CRAIGSLIST JOBS AND DTG

Last week I was out at Butte designing and producing t-shirts for our Recruiting department's Campus Orientation students. Since last semester, Campus Graphics (our in-house design organization) has produced about 300 shirts for Butte College special projects. 

Last year our students also designed and produced over a hundred shirts through our MSP66A Super Graphics class and other design classes. This coming year, we plan on building our apparel and textile design curriculum through the purchase of new equipment and new classes. The research I've done into the Direct-to-Garment (DTG) industry, shows significant growth in the future, and I want our students to be ready and trained with the skills to enter this market.

I was just on Craigslist and saw that Fifth Sun has posted a job announcement for an "Apparel Graphic Designer (In house only) (Chico)". 

I've heard a lot of great things about Fifth Sun. The company sounds like a great place to work and a growing company that entered the industry at the perfect time to set themselves up as a leader in the t-shirt apparel industry. In an economy that is in a major downturn, getting a job with a local company such as this, with benefits, would be a great opportunity for the right person.

The job sounds like a great entry-level position. They require the experience listed below.

• Best candidate stays current with popular culture and current trends in fashion and music.

• Highly motivated and responsible persons only. No Slackers.

• The best candidate will be familiar popular Cable TV shows and maybe the gaming industry and be able to visualize how these can be transformed into graphics for apparel. Cleverness helps!

• Must be able to follow directions and be able to create graphics from studio design style guides or or other references. Must be detail oriented.

• You must be able to follow art direction well and take criticism even if it means several design revisions. This is important as we produce graphics not for ourselves, but for the masses.

• Must be able to work under pressure and meet deadlines while juggling multiple projects.

• 3 years minimum Adobe application experience such as Photoshop and Illustrator (we work in a mac environment) . Appropriate education may be substituted.

• Industry experience in retail or screenprinting a plus.

• Must have a keen eye for good design, color and typography

Note the requirements for the job. Must know and be proficient with Mac computers, Photoshop, Illustrator, and typography. These are what we tell our students on a regular basis. You must know typography to be a good designer. More on this later.

If you know someone who might fit this position, pass the word on to them to check out Craigslist.

-Daniel

Macworld review

Last week I attended the Macworld Expo in San Francisco. This is reported to be the last conference that Apple will attend. I don't know if this is such a bad thing. Apple really didn't need to be at this conference as a vendor since there was nothing new to announce. I think it was the first time in years that I remember seeing empty slots at the Apple booths, where you could just walk up and play with one of their computers without waiting in line to see the coolest new toys. We'll see if the conference can continue without their namesake as part of the conference. I already received a survey about the 2010 expo asking for input to make the expo better. Apple had posters announcing the new 17" Apple laptops, but nothing special about this other than the size.

I saw a few items worth sharing:

1. I purchased a keyboard cover from KB Covers.. The company has some really great covers, and functional ones such as the Adobe Photoshop, After Effects, Aperture, Pro Tools, foreign languages and Final Cut Pro covers. The cover I purchased is a Large Print cover with large white type on a black keyboard. No, I'm not so old that I need this one, but I wanted to show it to our Disabled Students' coordinators so they could see what's available for students. I had a student last semester who could really have used this cover.

2. Another item was the updated Delicious Monster scanning software. I have a bar code scanner for scanning in all of my design books (over 400 and still scanning), but this software uses the built-in iSight camera on Apple computers, and DM's drag and drop function for book covers and other items is great. I think what really sold me on it was the interface design for managing scanned content.

3. The final item that I left Macworld without (only because it doesn't ship until June), is the new 15" Modbook . If you haven't see this Apple laptop Cintiq-esque drawing tablet, then you need to head over to Axiotron and check it out, or look on Youtube and watch a few videos of them in action. I would have purchased one on the spot if they'd had them for sale.

Other than those items, not much more to speak about. I think the Apple iPod and iTouch and i-everything else has put a huge damper on Macworld in the past few years. Everywhere you turn there's someone selling an i-product of some sort, and it gets a little old having vendors ask if you've seen their latest product (yeah, about two vendors back on every isle of the conference). I got to where I was turning my badge around so they'd stop asking me by name how I was doing and if I'd seen their product.

Of course, with the MOMA bookstore just around the corner, I couldn't pass up an opportunity to see what design books they had on their shelves. I picked up a great book on branding: "What is Branding? (Essential Design Handbook)", a graphic design book that I'm thinking of using in our design program at Butte: "Graphic Design (The New Basics)", and a really great postcard design book:"POST CARD". Check out my reading list on LinkedIn for a list of new books I've purchased in the last month.

That's it for tonight. I'll leave you with a couple of links I found this weekend.

The Grid System: The Ultimate Resource in Grid Systems.

and

Booooooom (art, design, music, film)

-Daniel

SPRING 09 CLASSES AT BUTTE

We're less than a month away from the new semester and all of our classes are filling up fast. The classes with space still available are: 

DAY CLASSES

Digital Video (4 spaces left) - Dennis Wickes instructor

2D Flash Animation (3 spaces left) - Dan Seward instructor

Intro to Multimedia (2 spaces left) - Daniel Donnelly instructor

Super Graphics (12 spaces left) - Dylan Tellesen instructor

Art 32 Typography (1 space left) - Daniel Donnelly instructor

EVENING CLASSES

3D Modeling & Animation (9 spaces left) Jason Roberson instructor (welcome back!)

Digital Photography-Photoshop (5 spaces left) - Don Campbell instructor

If you've been considering taking a class or two in our design program here at Butte, you'd better act quick, by the time the first week of school comes around, there will be a dozen or more students trying to add classes, with no design classes available.

Back in the days when I attended Butte, around 1984/85, it was much easier to add a class than it is now. I don't remember ever signing up ahead of time for a class back then. I dropped in on a class and there was almost always space available. Times have changed quite a bit since then.

With the worsening economy, and the lack of jobs in many sectors, statistics are telling us that more students are going to be attending classes during the Spring and Fall 2009 semesters. I think the current figures are 10% more for Spring and 12% for the Fall.

When word gets out about our new Arts building and the extremely cool equipment and labs we'll be having in this new building, we can expect that the design program is going to become even more impacted.

Consider the new 3D Printer we'll be getting. Imagine being able to render a 3D toy or sculpture and then print a solid model from it that you can take away from the class. Or the 54" Textile Printer that will offer the ability to print on silk, nylon, polyester and about 15 other materials. Or how about the new Laser Cutter we'll be getting, new Adobe software, the lab of 21" Wacom Cintiq drawing monitors, or the brand new printmaking lab we'll have.

Who wouldn't want to take classes in our department. I can't wait to begin testing out all of these new pieces of equipment and seeing what students are capable of creating with them.

Now is a great time to begin taking classes at Butte in the Art and Design programs. The future is looking really good for our students and the skills they'll be able to obtain.

We're heading into an exciting new year for our departments and our programs. Join us by taking a few classes, and sign up EARLY!

Heading for MacWorld Conference tomorrow. I'll let you know what is was like when I return.

-Daniel

BECOME AN ADAD BLOGGER

I just received an e-mail from a current student, Sean Orozco, who said he would like to help with our blog. This is exactly what I'm looking for. I want a large group of students and faculty to become bloggers for ADAD. I am also hoping to begin adding other designers that I know as bloggers.

Students in our program are constantly looking at new sites, new technologies, and new software. I want this blog to be dynamic and current with all of these things, and more.

If you're a designer, design student, or faculty interested in contributing, write to me and let me know.

Thanks,

Daniel

WOMEN IN DESIGN AND MULTIMEDIA

Green Fashionista posted a really great comment this week regarding her noticing the gender inequality at the Pentagram design firm: "I find it interesting that only 2 of the 17 partners at Pentagram are female..."

On the eve of the New Year, I think this is an important topic to consider in going forward into 2009 and beyond. Six years ago when I started teaching in the Design department at Butte, it was immediately clear how wide the gender gap was between men and women taking classes or going for degrees in our Graphic Design and Multimedia Design programs. At best, one out of fifteen of the students attending classes were women. The percentages are often larger now, but still far below what they should be. Where the percentages have gotten higher is in the Graphic Design classes (typography, Intro to Graphic Design), but not the Multimedia classes (Flash, Web Design).

Here is an example of what I often see:
In my Careers in Multimedia class this coming Spring 09 semester, two of the twenty-seven students enrolled are women.
In my Typography class, nine of the twenty-one students are women.
In my Intro to Multimedia Production class, two of the twenty-one students are women.

Just this small sampling of my own classes is troubling on many different levels. Where are the women that should be going into Web design and Multimedia industries? What is happening in high school design classes? Are young women being directed away from multimedia or just not being informed of the opportunities? What will the high-tech design industry gender-gap be like ten or twenty-years from now?

Graphic Design focusing on print is a great industry for a career, but statistics show that Web designers, Web developers, and Multimedia designers on average make higher wages than Graphic Designers who limit their skills to print design.

Here are a few statistics from the AIGA's salary survey results for 2008. These are the lower end of the scale:
Solo Designer (can be print and Web) $40,000
Graphic Designer: $38,000
Web Designer: $44,000
Web Developer: $50,000
Web Producer: $60,000

There is a glass ceiling in many areas where women and men work the same jobs, but imagine how low that ceiling will be when the majority of high-end Web and Multimedia designers are men. Kottke.org has an interesting piece on Gender diversity at Web Conferences

In the Design Observer, a well-known design site (edited by Michael Bierut, a Pentagram NY Partner, and also edited by Jessica Helfand and William Drenttel of Winterhouse design studio), Drenttel wrote of a recent flag design competition hosted by Adbusters magazine. Drenttel's point of the article was to show a gender discrimination on the jury, which was comprised of 7 jurors, all of them white males. He noted that all the jurors were respected and qualified designers, but wrote "…how did we get to the point where a jury was formed with no representation from a larger, more diverse community?"

It's a good article, but more important to me are the number of posts and comments to this article that followed, mostly by men, who are not able to, or do not want to grasp the idea of equality or the inequality in the design industries.

Another great article in the Design Observer by Michael Bierut can be found here inThe Graphic Glass Ceiling. Read the quote from Milton Glaser and follow the links to the Gothamist for more info.

Here is a great article on Zeldman.com. "Women in Web design: just the stats." In this article regarding IT workers (not specifically Web designers or graphic designers), three items emerge:

• Men outnumber women in this workforce by over three to one.
• The percentage of women employed in the field is declining instead of growing.
• Women who participate in the field may not be promoted as often or as high as their male colleagues.

The article is definitely worth reading.

Back here at Butte, in our own design department, you'll notice that we have no women teaching classes as Associate faculty in either the Graphic Design or Multimedia programs. This has been a major concern for me since I started teaching. Every time I meet a woman designer who is qualified to teach, I almost beg them to consider teaching a class or two for us. As you can see, my attempts at recruiting still haven't paid off for our students. And to me, this is the most important element of not having women design instructors in our program. I believe that without a mix of women and men teaching in our programs, we are doing a disservice to our students. How can we show that the design industry is a viable opportunity for women, when we don't have women designers teaching our classes and showing the students this is true?

This should give you all some information to think about in the coming year. Let's see what changes we can make. If you know a talented woman designer who may like to teach, send her our way.

Here are the links for today:
Women of Design. A new book I just purchased a couple of weeks ago. Great book!
Women Designer's Group

and just a few of the women designers I admire:

April Greiman
Bonnie Siegler and Emily Oberman
Jennifer Morla
Margo Chase
Amy Franceschini

See you in the new year.

-daniel

DESIGNING INTO THE NEW YEAR

It's just a few days before the New Year, and as I sit here surfing from site-to-site and seeing all of the amazing designers and design sites I keep coming across and bookmarking on my DELICIOUS, I wonder how many of our students and faculty are designing during the break?

During that first week back to school every semester, I ask students how many designed something, or who played with design software during the break, and the number of hands raised is sad. Usually, it's only one out of ten or less that actually did something design-oriented during their off-time.

I hear from so many of our students that they want to be designers, illustrators, photographers or multimedia producers, but many of them are caught-up in the get-rich-quick, reality-TV, dot-com millionaire concept of making it big fast, without having to work hard and build their way to becoming great designers. Let me tell you now, it's not going to happen. The way you become a great designer is by working your butt off and learning how to manage a business and people, by putting yourself in the right place at the right time, and by looking at design and making it happen every day.

So, start now and create something. Design today and tomorrow, and the next day. Don't stop until school starts again, and even then, keep up your own projects while doing school work!

For anyone checking this blog during the break, here's an assignment for you, go to CROWDSPRING, sign-up for free, and take on a project and upload it to the site. Begin building your portfolio now, so you have some content when you graduate.

Here's a site for a design firm that all design students and design faculty should know about: PENTAGRAM. If you haven't browsed the firm's work, then take the time now to do so. I also suggest you head over to the HILLMAN CURTIS Web site and view his short interviews with Pentagram and other well-known designers. Be sure to view the Philip Glass, Stefan Sagmeister, Paula Scher, Milton Glaser, David Carson and Pentagram videos

Here are a few links that I think are worth looking at:

Design is Kinky (not what you think)

Wooster Collective (street art)

Imaginary Friends Studios

View the three links above and then let me know what you think about them.

-Daniel