Earlier this week I had the opportunity to work at the Eyeo Festival in Minneapolis, MN. Along with a handful of fellow DMA students and faculty, I attended talks by the leading designers, programmers, and innovators about the future of digital culture and met some very exciting people (as well as my former CMU professor Golan Levin). It was without a doubt an elite cast of individuals and I felt privileged to be a part of it all. Till next year.
Looking back, I’ve known eLan for about 5 years now. I first met him in college when he was going to UCSD and roomed with my best friend. Since then we’ve been able to collaborated somewhat as he’s provided great soundtracks for this and that.
I have always been a fan of his music and watched his progression from hip-hop beat maker to whatever futuristic category you’d place his work in today. I went to his very first live performance in nearby Eagle Rock and this month I got witness yet another musical career first as he releases his first official EP “Bleep Bloop Brrrrmmp” on Modeselektor’s Monkeytown label. I got it in the mail, straight from Berlin, this past Saturday.
This is the first of three to come out this year so make sure to get in on it now and keep the flow going. Everyone likes to see good things happen to hard working, down to earth people and, on a more personal note, I look up to anyone who’s successful at doing what they love. Awwwwwwwyeahhhh!
The clothes off my back
April 23-26, 2011
Wanting to gain some valuable experience as well as learn more about user-centric design, I spent the past 6 months interning in the User Experience department at Schematic in Los Angeles. My time as a UX design intern has now come to an end and I just wanted to share a little about the type of work I was lucky enough to participate in.
Upon starting, I was quickly put on a team to help design an iPad app for Betty Crocker. The Betty Crocker Cookbook was already immensely popular for the iPhone and our job was to translate that app for Apple’s new device. The goal was to encourage the exploration and discovery of new recipes, while still being an effective tool in the kitchen. We were able to come up with a simple and elegant app that was not only great at finding recipes but also presenting them in beautiful ways.
Wireframes are the main ways UX Designers communicate their ideas. Below I threw together a quick example of what wireframing for a specific state of the application would look like. It is essentially the blueprint of any interface and is focused on the organization of buttons, information, navigation, etc. It is the first step before creative design can be applied and its emphasis is functionality. Although this isn’t an actual wireframe from the Betty Crocker project, I think it conveys enough for those who aren’t familiar with the field to understand what UX design entails.
Make sure to download the app and to check it out for yourself! Did I mention that it’s completely free?
Piecing It All Together
There comes a point in any long term project where you start getting filled with doubt. You’ve spent countless hours working on an idea that suddenly seems like it won’t pan out. At these points, I have to remind myself that I’ve been here before. That all this frustration will be forgotten. Stop fretting over minute details because the end is near. Bruises, cuts, and a sore back will heal. Soon, no more building and I can finally start focusing on phase two: wiring and software.