Dream Job as a Designer

My dream job would have to be as a freelance designer. There are plenty of reasons to become a freelance designer, and I think these are some pretty good ones.

One of the most common reasons for people to become freelance designers is the ability to be your own boss. You’re essentially free of someone telling you what to do around an office or in a cubicle all day. You can set your own deadlines and pick a schedule that fits your needs perfectly. You don’t have to worry about anything at all because you’re the one setting the schedule. This is a huge and compelling reason to become a freelance designer. You also don’t have to worry about any office drama since you wont be working in an office. You wouldn’t feel confined to a cubicle or have to deal with any rude people in the workplace.

Another huge perk of being a freelance designer is that you can choose when, where, and who you work with. You don’t need to feel pressured about a time or a place or even a specific person you want to work with. You can decide all of this yourself with no worry at all. In my opinion, this is the best part about freelancing. Freelancing also allows you to travel (depending on what you do) and that’s pretty amazing.

You can also choose your clients. You get to choose who you want top work with. If you feel a client is being rude, you can choose to stop working with them anytime you wish. You also get to choose what types of projects you want to work on instead of being assigned something. If you decide that you want to do something related to Photoshop one day, then you can choose to do so. Choosing the clients and projects you want to work on is a major reason why people choose to freelance because it gives them a freedom that you would never have in the workplace.

Something else that people love about freelance is the salary. Yes, it takes some time to build up a portfolio of amazing work that people would love to have for themselves, but its worth it. If you have the drive to do the work, then it will pay off. You can choose to do your work hourly, or by project. Some designers can charge up to $80 an hour depending on how good their work is. This is something that draws people in to freelance design, but it does require a lot of time and patience.

Overall, freelance design is pretty amazing and I wish I could do something like that in the future.

Photo by Sara Riaño

What is a Creative Commons License, how do I use it if I’m a Pro or Student?

What is a Creative Commons License?

First, we must learn what a Creative Commons License is. A Creative Commons license gives people who create work a way to share it without having to relinquish copyright or license their work individually. This provides the general public with the ability to use works that aren’t created by them without having to pay for a license or pass any royalties along. A lot of people, sadly, do not know what all of the symbols and icons mean and how they work. This leads to challenges for the creators that find their work not being used how they originally intended it to be used. Every Creative Commons License requires you to give appropriate credit, and it’s very important to know what that means. There are a total of six creative commons licenses available to the public, and they apply worldwide. These licenses last as long as the copyright on the work does.

What do the Icons Mean?

The first license is Attribution Only

This is the most straightforward of all of the creative commons licenses because it is the one that they are all built off of. This licenses requires people who use the work that’s copyrighted to provide “appropriate credit” and indicate what, if any, changes were made. This means you have to give credit. Once you understand that then you can do what you want with the work, regardless of how you use it even for commercial, non-commercial, non-profit, educational, etc. As long as you give credit and say how and what you’ve changed, then it doesn’t matter how you distribute the work.

The second license is the Attribution, ShareAlike

This license contains all of the flexibility as the Attribution Only License but it brings along the rights that you have to give your new work. This means that once you’re done with changing the work then the new work you share carries the exact same license and you can’t prohibit others from changing it.

The third license is the Attribution, No Derivatives

This license means that you have to give credit for what you’re using but you can not alter any of the work. You can’t crop, lighten, make it monochromatic, etc, it must stay in its original form. You can use this for any purpose, as long as you provide “appropriate credit.”

The fourth one is Attribution, Non-Commercial

This means that you can’t use the works for any commercial purposes. IT’s pretty straightforward and you have to use it for non-commercial purposes only.

The fifth one is Attribution, Non-Commercial, and Share Alike

This means the same as the Non-Commercial one, but it adds share alike. The new work must be licensed in the same manner as you started with. Meaning if you use the Non-Commercial, you must add the share alike to it.

The sixth one is Attribution, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives

This one means that you can only share the work, you can’t use it in any way shape or form. You still need to provide appropriate credit.

The last one is called Public Domain

This last license means that any of the work under it is free to use in any way shape or form by the public. It means that is had “No Rights Reserved.”

Offline vs. Real-Time Video Editing

Offline video editing or proxy editing is a technique that is used in video editing to make large files more manageable. Essentially, you’re creating lower-quality copies of your higher-quality original raw footage, then use the lower-quality “proxy files” during the editing process. There are a bunch of pros and cons associated with offline editing. The most obvious pro about offline video editing is the massive performance boost. It allows you to choose how small you want your proxy files to be, which allows you to choose what ever resolution, codec, and bit-rate that your hardware can support. These files will be much smaller than the raw footage files, which is also a major plus since video files are pretty large. This is extremely useful if you’re using a computer or laptop with low storage capacity on it. Make sure you know that even though the editing process will go much smoother, you’re going to lose time on the front-end and back-end because you will need to trans code and then eventually replace the lower resolution footage. This is primarily used in the industry for people working on solo projects who can’t quite afford a better system or online video editors.

Online video editing is a trend that has been gaining a lot of popularity lately. It’s essentially having all of your editing processes off-loaded on to a remote server so that your computer doesn’t take the brink of the process. It’s kind of like a cloud, but instead of storing files, you edit your videos through it. It’s extremely useful for people with lower speced computers. While you are the one uploading footage and using their web interface to edit your clips, all of the actual rendering and computer work happens from the service’s own server (which is extremely powerful). This helps save you a lot of money because it allows you to use a service rather than buy a fully speced out computer that could cost well over a thousand dollars. Another major benefit of online video editing is the fact that it uses a cloud system. This allows you and your editing team to work on the same project at the same time. This is extremely useful for people who are living in different areas such as cross-country or cross-continent. File management is another major advantage of online video editors because all of the source files are on the cloud and your team doesn’t need to download them every time they edit something. Everything updates in real-time rather than you having to export/import every time you make a change. There are some disadvantages to this however, internet speed is a large determining factor on how efficient your editing is. It makes it harder to upload/download things if you have poor internet. Another thing is that these services do not have the features (not even close) that Final Cut Pro X or Adobe Premiere Pro have. This is primarily used for people working on team projects and for people with lower-end hardware who don’t want to spend a lot of money on a new system.

Photo by Kushagra Kevat

What is Bootstrap CSS and why is it so popular?

To understand  what Bootstrap CSS is we must first know what CSS is. CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets and its a style sheet language (which is a computer language that expresses the presentation of structure documents) that is used for describing the presentation of a document which is written in  a markup language such as HTML. CSS is widely used as a cornerstone technology of the worldwide web just like JavaScript and HTML are. CSS is designed primarily for the separation of presentation and content, which includes layout, colors, and fonts. This allows for easier accessibility, more flexibility and control,  and allows for multiple web pages to share formatting.

Now that we know what CSS is, we can move on to learning about Bootstrap CSS. Bootstrap was created as a free and open-source front-end framework mainly for designing websites and web applications. It contains HTML and CSS-based design templates for typography, forms, buttons, navigation and other interface components, as well as optional JavaScript extensions. It’s  modular and consists of a series of stylesheets that implement the various components of the toolkit. It allows for responsive web design, which means that the layout of web pages adjust dynamically, taking into account the characteristics of the device used. These stylesheets are generally compiled into a bundle and included in web pages, but individual components can be included or removed. It supports Google Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and more web browsers.

Now, why is Bootstrap so popular? A major reason why Bootstrap is insanely popular is  because a lot of the components are pretty much ready to use right out of the box. Some of the reasons why Bootstrap is so popular include and are not limited to: fluid grid-based layouts, flexible images and media, CSS media queries, and many more. Fluid grid-based layouts organize elements on a web page in a user friendly/readable way to make them responsive on any kind of device or screen size without any mishaps or issues. In addition to making web pages responsive, it also makes images and media responsive. This allows you to put whatever you’d like on your website and have it be completely accessible by anyone on any device. Using CSS Media Queries, you can specify when and where certain CSS rules must be applied on the basis of device characteristics – usually the width of the browser. This makes it easier for the user to have a good experience on your website.  These are just a few simple reasons why Bootstrap is so popular.

Now that you know more about Bootstrap and why it’s so popular, try using it yourself and come up with your own opinion.

Photo By: Pankaj Patel

5 Types of jobs an Audio Designer can get

A sound designer is someone who creates an assortment of sound effects for entertainment industries. To become a sound designer you don’t need a degree, you can get a job with a certificate rather than a degree. Sound designers create sounds for film, television, theater, video games, music, and a bunch of other things. They create everything that you hear in these types of media. There are different types of jobs that you can get as an Audio Designer and they vary.

The first type of job you can get as an audio designer is a video game audio designer. These audio designers work very diligently to create all of the amazing sounds you hear in your video games. They use a bunch of different tools to create these sounds such as real items, sound from royalty free sites such as freesound.org, and sounds they create themselves. The software they use can vary from audition to audacity and more. Typically they make around $49,000-$59,000 a year.

The second type of sound designer is a movie sound designer or movie sound editor. They manage literally every single sound that goes in to the movies you watch. They have one of the most difficult jobs when it comes to sound design because they have to make sure everything is 100% crisp and clean. They also use Audition or Audacity with help from other editing software. These designers make around $80,000 a year.

The third type of sound designer is called a Foley Artist. These people create all the sound effects that you can possibly think of. Foley is the reproduction of everyday sound effects that are added to film, video, and other media in post-production to enhance audio quality. They are one of the most creative people in the world turning anything into some unimaginable sound such as birds flapping, waves on a boat, horse hooves, and many more. Foley artists typically make around $105,000 a year. This job is extremely difficult because you have to have the creativity and the drive to do it.

The fourth type of audio designer job that you can get is as a video sound editor. These audio designers are the people who edit the sound in the videos that you watch all the time. They make sure that the videos you watch have the best sound possible. They cut out stuff like coughing, p-popping, or any unnecessary sounds that interfere with the video. These audio designers also make around $30-40,000 a year.

The final audio designer job that you can get is as a music producer. I’m sure you know quite well what these people can do. They edit all of the music you listen to and include some of the most famous people such as Kendrick Lamar, Beyonce, Rihanna, etc. These designers can make any amount of money in the range of $20,000 a year to over $1 Million a year.

Photo by Samantha Hurley from Burst

GD Illustrator Character

I Tried

Banner Ad Sizes for Web

Display advertising plays a huge role in persuading customers to check out your product, eventually leading them to purchase your product or service. Because of this, its important to make sure your web ads are memorable and effective so that visitors are more likely to click your ad, or even search for your business later. Designing your ads doesn’t have to be hard, but you want to take the time to make sure they are optimized to perform at their best and not perform badly. Making sure your ads are the right size and checking for text restriction rules will save you time when creating and uploading your ads. According to Google Adsense and other marketing websites, the worst sizes for Internet banners are the smaller sizes such as Microbars (88 x 31 pixels large), Full banners (468 x 60 pixels large), and Square button sizes (125 x 125 pixels large). These are very unattractive and tend to deter your target audience. You should really avoid using these banner ad sizes as they are rarely clicked on due to how bad they are. As google also recommends, it is advisable to use text and display ads.

As a rule of thumb, wider ad sizes tend to outperform their taller counterparts, due to their reader-friendly format. Readers absorb information in “thought units,” or several words at a time. Wider sizes let them comfortably read more text at a glance without having to skip a line and return to the left margin every few words, as they’d have to with a narrower ad. If positioned well, wide ad sizes can increase your earnings significantly. The sizes that most people find the most effective are the large rectangle (336×280 pixels large), the medium rectangle (300×250 pixels large), the leaderboard size (300×250 pixels large), the half page ad (300×250 large), and on mobile, the large mobile ad banner (320×100  large). Keep in mind that while these ad sizes typically perform well, you should use the size that best complements your pages.

Typically, the most favorable ad banners are the ones with the nicest design and how they hit their target audience. Most ad banners aren’t the greatest because they have too much information for the consumer to read or look at, causing them to leave. You want something simple enough to get the message across without making them leave, but at the same time persuading them to visit your product over someone else.

Storyboard for Spex Animation

This week, we were given the task to come up with storyboards for our animated web banners. I came up with these ORIGINAL ideas, and I think they’re great. I am not a Kwolanne. I came up with this idea because it directly shows what our app does. The looping animation is my favorite.

 

 

UI/UX in Web Design

What is UI/UX? Simply put UI is user interface and UX is user experience. They go hand in hand when it comes to working with anything where a user will be involved. For this blog post we will be focusing on the web side of things.

You should always take in to consideration the usability and purpose of a website. With UI/UX you take into consideration who your audience is going to be and learn to appease them. A large majority of UI/UX professionals stick with the saying keep it stupid simple, or K.I.S.S for short. What they mean by this is that you should never over complicate your website, because people are deterred by difficult things.

What makes a good UI/UX? Well a lot of different things can make it either good or bad. Finding a median between user interface and user experience is a very important thing to keep your audience. User interface deals with the overall design of the website and how items are placed for you to easily see. User experience is how people use the items on your website. This deals a lot with how and why people click on things. It’s mainly psychological.

One way to make this a little easier to understand is to think about using a door. The first thing you do is look for a door handle (which is essentially UI) and then you use the door handle to open the door (basically UX).

A prime example for students and teachers would be Google. Look at how easy it is to use. The overall usability and UI/UX of it is amazing and well thought out. It is very easy to use and allows for quick sear hes to be done. You can use Google at any age really. You can see its incredible UI/UX everyday you search things up.

Most websites that have a good UI/UX attract a lot of visitors because it makes you feel welcome. Usually it shouldnt take longer than 20 seconds to complete a simple task and that’s what makes a UI/UX good or bad.

User Testing in Web Design

In web design there is something extremely important, and that’s usability. Anything that a person can interact with should be usable. In the case of websites and software applications, usability has been defined as the ease at which an average person can use the software or website to achieve specific goals.

Usability is comprised of learnability, memorability, efficiency, satisfaction and errors. Learnability is how easy it is for a new user to accomplish tasks the first time they visit your website. Memorability is how easy it is for someone to come back to using your website after they haven’t used it for a period of time. Efficiency is how quickly users can complete tasks on your site after they are familiar with its use. Satisfaction is whether users enjoy the design of your site and errors refers to the number of errors users make when they use your site, the severity of the errors and how easy they are to recover from.

Explorative Usability Testing

Before a new product is released, explorative usability testing can establish what content and functionality a new product should include to meet the needs of its users. Users test a range of different services where they are given realistic scenarios to complete which helps to highlight any gaps in the market that can be taken advantage of and illustrate where to focus design effort.

What’s the importance of website usability?

The main reason that usability is so important is because there are so many similar websites that people will go to the next site if the first one they visit is not usable. You can have the most beautiful website in the world, but people will leave immediately if they are unable to figure out how to navigate your site quickly.

To conclude, all of this user testing plays a very vital role in the design of a website. It is imperative that we have a website that fulfills the peoples needs and expectations. The best way to do that is to get the peoples opinions.