jeff-fitzgerald-design-blog

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Inspiring Through Video: Blog Post 6

Creating and editing video content is a skill that I've been working on this semester in my Audio and Visual class. Prior to this class my experience with video had been making rough edits of basketball plays and french projects in high school with comedically terrible transitions (or awesome if you really like star spangled variations). Now that I have an avenue to learn powerful programs like Adobe Premier coupled with After Effects, the video projects my group and I are putting together are improving with every take.  

Recently I made a vimeo account so I could archive favourites as a reference for shooting techniques and something to aim for. Some of them have no spoken word but are shot so creatively that the message still shines through (“Kilian Martin: Altered Route” for example). Others have a poignant script that is paired with gripping imagery as seen in the music video for “Om Unit - The Road”. In other examples, the blending of the 3D rendering program Maya is put into astonishing effect when mixed with the high energy beat making abilities of Sinjin Hawke and MikeQ in “ThunderScan”. One of my favourite videos is the animation that Joan Gausch put together for Barcelona based music producer Sau Poler. The visuals are fully immersive as you glide backwards through the illustrated setting.

The Gap - Ira Glass

http://vimeo.com/85040589

Om Unit - The Road (feat Charlie Dark) (Civil Music)

http://vimeo.com/77694380

Kilian Martin: Altered Route

http://vimeo.com/brettnovak/alteredroute

Sau Poler - Isolated

http://vimeo.com/90747156

Sinjin Hawke & MikeQ - ThunderScan

https://vimeo.com/83390368

Jeff FitzGerald

[jeff-fitzgerald-design-blog]

Design Resources on the Web: Blog post 5

Whether you’re an established designer or new to the field, it’s always a challenge to stay up to date on the newest innovations of web design or a new font and colour scheme in graphic design. The industry and trends that move with it are constantly evolving. Having a few websites in your back pocket that regularly post design stories, trend insights, and tools to give your design a new perspective is always a good idea.

http://www.type-finder.com/

Type Finder allows you to find reputable and applicable type fonts for web and print based on a questionnaire that helps you find a font that best applies to your needs.

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/

Hong Kiat provides tech news and interesting articles on new tools and apps coming to market to make designs work across multiple platforms.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/

Smashing Magazine is an incredible resource for web development and interface design usability. Videos, articles, and e-books.

http://www.howdesign.com/

“How Design” has articles relevant to design studios as well as tips to make it as a freelance designer. There is also a How Design U that offers workshops on topics ranging from Adobe programs to interface design.

http://www.fastcompany.com/

Fast Company posts an abundance of interesting design articles and industry news.

http://frankchimero.com/intros/quilt/

Although this is more of a portfolio site for a designer, Frank Chimero posts interesting talks and articles related to design and theories behind the concept of design itself.

http://tridiv.com/

Tri Div allows you to create and test 3D shapes using CSS. I’m really excited about trying this out and making some interesting logos and site animations.

//Hope this helps anyone looking for design resources and thanks for reading.

Jeff FitzGerald

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Brainstorming for Design: Blog Post 4

What is design exactly? And what are ways we can overcome creative blocks to achieve our design goals? This post will attempt to cover some basics. Wikipedia lists one of the possible definitions of design as, “a roadmap or strategic approach for someone to achieve a unique expectation. It defines the specifications, plans, parameters, costs, activities, processes and how and what to do within legal, political, social, environmental, safety and economic constraints in achieving that objective.” A long winded but comprehensive definition nonetheless. I would say design is having a vision or idea and laying out the necessary steps to make it a reality where you are and with what you have.

It sounds relatively straightforward right? But blocks in the creative process can turn the execution phase of a design into a slow trudge. It’s key to find ways to keep the process going. I often find myself stuck because I’m trying to put an idea down onto the screen or paper in some ideal form and get fixated on minor details. One way to combat this is to have a sketch book. Scribble down slogans, make random shapes, stray away from your preconceived idea and you could end up with something even better than the original design you were trying to execute from scratch.

Other times I can just feel tired or like I’ve been staring at a screen for too long. I would recommend going for a walk outside or getting out for a coffee. Inspiration can come from random conversation or something you see along the way. Working smarter and realizing a creative idea will probably come when you least expect it is a good way to stay away from being a slave to your screen. I hope this helps anybody who’s been experiencing creative blocks.

Jeff FitzGerald

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Wordpress Customization: Combining Design Interests to Reach a Goal-Blog post 3

       In BCIT’s Digital Design and Development program we create digital content or New Media across multiple platforms. Equally as unique as the projects we create are our goals and dreams for turning this content into something that can be appreciated and applied to a career. My dream would be to work for an electronic music industry leader such as Size Records or Toolroom Records creating artist websites and interactive apps. Alternatively I could create sites and apps on a freelance basis from my own studio for the music industry as a whole.  Having a place to display a portfolio as I develop my web development and design skills is essential and is why I chose to make my portfolio from wordpress where I can learn from templates and develop towards hard coding more customized sites.

    I found some interesting articles on Wordpress customization that will integrate my HTML and CSS knowledge with some new tricks.

   Presscoders provides a comprehensive step-by-step tutorial that in their words, “will allow you to customize any theme using the best practices in child themeing, with a little CSS and PHP magic”. I like this option because it goes through the entire process, including “rookie mistakes” and explanations that can teach you rather than just assuming you know how to implement customization.

 http://www.presscoders.com/wordpress-theme-customization-guide/

    Another solid option is the codex support section of the wordpress.org site itself. It essentially covers each individual element of pages with easy to find links describing the process.

  https://codex.wordpress.org/Site_Design_and_Layout

  I hope this helps anyone in the early stages of Wordpress customization like myself.

  Jeff FitzGerald

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Wordpress SEO: Blog Post 2

  Today I looked into SEO for wordpress and found the site Yoast.com had a great article elaborating on the topic, as well as a plug-in used by heavy traffic generating sites such as Mashable and SearchEngineLand. The plug-in can be found at this link for free download: https://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/seo/

There were some interesting tips to further ones knowledge of SEO. One example actually led to the changing of the title of this blog post. Originally I had named this post "Blog Post 2: Wordpress SEO", which is what I now realize is a common mistake. The keyword rich "post title" should actually be first because search engines put more emphasis on the earlier words and people scanning results pages are more likely to click on a link if the keywords they are looking for are at the beginning of the title. 

The Yoast plug-in enables you to actually establish a template for your posts including their titles and meta descriptions which will ensure that you don't have errors or missing elements in the SEO of the wordpress site.  

Another tip is that the meta description should be handwritten. In the example of the SEO plugin, the blank space in the meta description template should be used to write a snippet that contains the "focus word" (the word most relevant to the topic) at least once. The brand name of the site, or my name in this case ie "Jeff Fitzgerald Design", should also be included to create recognition on multiple searches. 

This only skims the surface and I'm excited to read further into Wordpress SEO and the many tricks of the trade to create an efficient site.

Jeff FitzGerald

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Blog Post 1: Choosing a WP Theme for a Portfolio (free)

        Today I’m looking at Wordpress themes and deciding which ones would be best to show portfolio work.  There’s a question of whether it would be ideal to go with image based content themes and I think it’s most applicable to my project. Interactive galleries and quality image holders will be key for showing illustrations and graphic work.  I’ve been reading through a few theme options. Portfolium is free and presents images in a flexible, grid-based theme.  It would also take care of social bookmarking icons.  Imbalance is another good free choice for artists and includes simple, clean typography and a jQuery powered header.  To make a portfolio that is more universal and easy to share, it’s also important to consider responsive design for the theme. 

       vFlex offers a no charge solution for a responsive layout across devices and a built-in FlexSlider so you can easily select featured images. The VibeOptions panel supports logo upload and import/export settings. Folder is another great option that is responsive and free. Features included are five unique widgets (video, latest work, twitter feed, recent posts, and contact form).  The custom project posts and admin panel make it ideal for portfolios. Workatility is another powerfully responsive theme for portfolios as it’s compatible with all mobile devices and major browsers. Scaling down images, videos, and texts to make them precise.  These are a few of the theme options I am considering for my Wordpress based portfolio and I hope they help anyone searching for a similar solution.

  Jeff FitzGerald

   //links

http://wpshower.com/themes/portfolium/

  http://wpshower.com/themes/imbalance/

  http://www.vibethemes.com/vflex-free-responsive-wordpress-theme/

  http://luiszuno.com/blog/downloads/folder-wordpress-theme/

  http://northeme.com/theme/workality-lite/