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I haven’t failed, I’ve only found ways that don’t work….

By On August 2, 2014 In coding, Javascript, the meaning of life With No Comments Permanent Link to I haven’t failed, I’ve only found ways that don’t work….Permalink

Ah, failure. I’m coming to terms with it. I think as a kid, I was one of those people who just caught on to things rather quickly. I didn’t fail enough. Or if I did fail, it was by laziness on my part. Now however, I’m really trying. really. and dammit, this is teaching me how to fail and fail gracefully. As I’m going through this endeavor of learning javascript. Really learning it as Mr. Unused Genius would say not just finding snippets and making them work for me. I’m also looking for a job. I may have a chance to return to my previous job remotely, but that’s up in the air. I made some effort to speak to recruiters which I’ve never really done before. You see, I’ve never had a problem finding a job. Until now. ok, granted I’ve only been looking for a month. I’m a type ‘A’ personality, welcome to my support group. Having this work ethic and trying to change what I do while trying to convince someone I can do the job is a little challenging. I’m used to talking about my portfolio and ow to deal with clients (which I still do), but now I’m having to know far more jargon and buzzwords about coding than ever. Something which I do better by demonstrating rather than speaking about it. Phone interviews…I’m just not that great. I need to learn this skill as well. So here’s to hoping the former job returns as I believe I could turn it into something really great now that I’m more aware of what I should be doing to improve myself.

What’s been happening:

1. Finished Code Academy Javascript Track (they’ve added a new project track which I plan on trying out)

2. Bought this book and have gone through 6 chapters (I’m forcing myself to write the book in order to comprehend) Handwriting is improving.

3. I have access to a Lynda account and will be going through and looking at angular.js

4. I have conceived of a couple of projects to give me a better portfolio when I redo it.

 

I object!

By On June 20, 2014 In coding, edumacational, Javascript With No Comments Permanent Link to I object!Permalink

mmmmm. objects. These are quite cool, but the syntax is getting quite complex fairly quickly. I think if I do like 100 of these in a row, I’ll get it. Mr. unused genius tells me this is where all the cool javascript code hangs out and switch statements are basically useless.

On another note, Mr. Unused Genius and I went on a date to the IBM campus to visit Watson and hear more about their new endeavors to put Watson to work for them. I met one of the guys who works in the design team and he inspired me as to what I can do for actual projects for javascript once I’m done with tutorials. He told me about the use of Unity3D and processingJS to develop 3D “Iron Man” type interfaces. Here’s some of the clips from the movie.
http://youtu.be/mbj3XSvDyw8, http://youtu.be/-KPhqy7ZwHU, and http://youtu.be/wKyQhriOrD0

What was really crazy was that my thesis was based on motion graphic title sequences of film. However, as special effects in the movies has progressed, these same title effects houses have also been asked to produce these types of “interfaces” for the movies. This is one of the artists who created this (http://www.johnkoltai.com/IRON-MAN-2-User-Interface-Design) for this company: http://www.perceptionnyc.com/

Cool TED Talk

https://www.ted.com/talks/james_patten_the_best_computer_interface_maybe_your_hands#t-225672

Google UI Engineer’s blog on UI in film

http://www.pushing-pixels.org/

Controlling Flow in Javascript or Kiss mah grits.

By On June 18, 2014 In coding, Javascript With No Comments Permanent Link to Controlling Flow in Javascript or Kiss mah grits.Permalink

Yes. I’m dating myself there. To be fair, I was very little and my older sister had a weird obsession with the sitcom Alice. I was forced to watch it. So after missing a day due to a day long excursion back to College Station to visit clients…and then the next day being devoted to toddler time. I’m back on the path. I’m done with slaying dragons, but have started a new lesson on workflow. It’s starting to get a little more difficult in that I’m now not getting the awesome hints I was getting before. I’m happy to say I solved this one with only having to look up the component once.

Slaying Dragons…training is pointless

By On June 15, 2014 In coding, edumacational, Javascript, Uncategorized With No Comments Permanent Link to Slaying Dragons…training is pointlessPermalink

So code academy is having me create a little script for a game that involves slaying dragons and what not. This is more really for learning to work with jsFiddle. I intend to keep track of my code projects using this as I go. It makes me feel like I’m really accomplishing something by keeping track. Yay! So here’s the first attempt:

Javascript and abandoning all hope full speed ahead…

By On June 14, 2014 In coding, Javascript With No Comments Permanent Link to Javascript and abandoning all hope full speed ahead…Permalink

Time Flies. I left my very first blog post on here to just remind me what a dork I can be and that really for a blog to be a blog, one must actually write and contribute to it. An update to the first post dated in 2011, I am now married with a little girl and we’ve moved to Austin where we pretty much are going to stay. I’m freelancing under my own company, and it’s worked well but now the spawn is getting older and takes less naps. She attends “school” 3 days a week but we’ve decided to put her in full time starting this coming July so I can focus on getting a full time job somewhere. However, I’m really wanting to try something different and coding in Javascript, Angular.js, possibly Swift will be the key to achieving this endeavor. I learned AutoCAD by forcing myself to write down the manual. Yes, you read that right, I wrote the book in a spiral notebook. It forced me to read every word as I HATE reading boring things. But it worked for me and I now have really awesome penmanship. So the purpose of this blog literally is to write down everything I learn each day and to document my progress, frustrations and maybe some little cartoons for fun.

What I’ve already been up to is going through the javascript tutorials on code academy. I’m about 41% through and working on a small game tutorial. So far, the tutorials are jogging my memory quite a bit. I’m not a stranger to coding, but as a designer unfortunately, you don’t get to practice this skill everyday. For some reason, people think designers are all encompassing unicorns who know everything. Jack of all trades, master of none. So this is my opportunity to master something by just doing it every day. Even if it’s only 30 min.

After I’m through with the basics on javascript, I plan on moving on to one of the frameworks. Angular.js in particular. There are so many places to learn this though I’m getting a little paralyzed. While Code Academy is free for the most part, I was considering paying for the tutorials online. Mr. Unsed Genius tells me I’m better off just reading the tech docs and suffering through a project. yay! Mr. Genius is a developer btw and giving me advice on what’s best to learn.

Some leftovers are best served cold…

By On December 31, 2010 In the meaning of life With Comments Off on Some leftovers are best served cold… Permanent Link to Some leftovers are best served cold…Permalink

*kicks the tires* tap, tap…is this thing on? Hi there. I am a burned out designer…for now. I’m starting this blog/portfolio/fail wall in order to get my creative mojo back together. I’ve been a designer for pretty much my whole life. No…not the “I was declared brilliant at 3 and sold my art for eleventy billion dollars”. I mean I’ve been attempting to create something meaningful since I can remember. Granted meaningful at 8 meant I could get Garfield to look like Garfield. My mom, encouraged me to take typing. So the whole “I want to be a professional designer” was pretty much a solo endeavor. I now pride myself on the fact that I can motivate myself enough to accomplish pretty much whatever I want. Unfortunately,  the past few years have been more forcing myself to be creative on other people’s terms. The word freelance is so not about being free for me right now. It’s actually quite the opposite.  I have a full time job, but I freelance on the side to help fix up my old but mine condo.  For the past 5 years this has been my life. Work full time, try to find paid meaningful freelance work outside of work. Mind you, getting paid is always good. When you get paid that is. And many small business clients don’t always have the right idea. No this will NOT be about bashing clients. I used to be able to get myself interested in my clients projects, and to be fair sometimes I was genuinely interested as I like to help people and if I can do something I’m proud of in the process it’s a win-win.

So as with all life, mine changed. Personally. I met the love of my life and we’re getting married on March 26. Don’t get scared. It’s not a wedding blog. That’s a whole other blog and all things wedding and bridal will remain there. But with this major life change, also came the desire to change how I approached design. I’ve been seeing it for so long as a means to an end, that I’ve lost that creative spark in me that made it fun. In the process it’s affected my work creatively. I’ve apparently lost that lovin’ feeling when it comes to design for a living. I don’t exactly have total autonomous control over my work…creative death-by-committee is quite common and may have had some contribution to the downfall of my creative brain. Freelance became the same way…constant reiterating the importance of a clean logo and why it needs to look good first in black.  The constant educating is not why I became a designer. Nor was it my intention to the lone source of all that is design. I normally nave no other designers for real constructive criticsm…(note to all …”my wife dislikes blue” is NOT constructive criticism. I know I’m whining here but really it’s not them I should blame for this downfall, but me. I chose to go down this route of constant schleping out design work without truly feeling good about it. My only goal was to make my clients happy. And they were/are. I neglected my need to grow creatively at the expense of trying to improve my home and material possessions (were not talking major one’s either…but replacing the bathtub and carpet in my home was a serious need and I couldn’t pay for it on my salary)

So here I am now about to get married and now looking for the career-love of my life. I started really truly seeing what’s out there, not just locally as locally there’s not a huge challenge design wise. I truly think I can be creative anywhere as long as i have the interwebs for learning. I discovered that I have let myself down technically simply by busying myself with other people’s stuff. If I truly want to be competitive and learn what the greats know, I need to pull myself together and into a new realm of thought. Designing for myself first. Learning for myself first, and saying no to things that don’t inspire me. This is the purpose of my blog. So much of my portfolio that I love are things that got changed altered or even obliterated by committee or the tasteless. My unused genius in my opinion. Also my own fault for not putting my ambitions and desires last, for being intimidated by those who really aren’t some much as more talented as they are loud and obnoxious. I have found inspiration from others who simply just started to do what they liked. Yes they all seem to suck at first as that’s the process of learning. This will be my process of suckage until I can feel more confident. Why not share it with the world? People love underdogs and plight of overcoming personal insecurities. That’s what made us love Charlie Brown so much.  Even Woodstock was more confident than that kid and he lived in a tree.

so here i am….about to share my process with the world. my unused genius.