Where have you been?

Well let me tell you! I wanted to end my Marketing Design posts with an uber cool video I did for a book called LoveTorn. I thought to myself, how awesome would this be? I could show my last hoorah of digital design and then plow right into what I think is super rad: my new job as a Art Department cover designer. Ah how young and naive we were back in November.

I'm such an awesome worker I finished that book trailer way before the book will pub, which should be coming out later this month. So I can't put the video up—all three of you readers would just ruin it for everyone by reposting to your own blogs and social media sites. So let's do a good old fashioned teaser shall we? What better way to say goodbye to marketing?

Whenever I start a new project (digital or print) I always like to pick out a theme of colors that will be great for the project and anything that might surround it in the future. How will these colors look on a screen that has moving images? How will they look printed? And what are the HEX/RGB equivalents— Will I burn someone's eyes out, and if so, would that be a bad thing?

In LoveTorn our heroine is from India and moves to LA for some reason or another that I'm a bit unsure of. But how fun is India? What a great potential color palette to explore:

Click me to enlarge.

Since this project will be moving images (fancy that, a moving picture show!) we get to story board. It'll be hard to believe I'm not a professional illustrator when you see this ever so logical and professional looking story board. 

Click me to enlarge.

This story board combined with our script, provided by one of the very apt and fun Marketing teams, becomes a book trailer. But just how that magic happens is for another post later. Have I hooked you? Didn't think so. But you have to trust me it's cool.

Adobe Muse

Remember when I said I was using this blog to help me explore transitioning from print to digital design? Somehow I missed the fact that the good people at Adobe have made it really, really easy. So thanks Adobe Labs! Muse is pretty much it—guess we're done here. ;)

I can not wait to use my interactive skillz on this! It's pretty much similar to the web functions and updates on InDesign CS5. I'm exploring it with Lynda.com's quick tutorial right now. If you're a member I highly suggest checking it out.

Oh and since Muse is in Beta, it's free. Onward in exploration and inspiration my friends!

I love learning new things.

Lynda and Adobe labs = Happy Sarah.

Sarah the trumpet.

Organization is not my strongest skill set. If I'm ever in another situation where someone asks me what my greatest weakness is, it'll be very obvious that organization is the main challenge. This'll be clear to the questioner since I'll try to explain roughly 12-60 things at once. Ah, I'm already doing it, so let's back up a second.

Last night I was trying to decide on how to gather my online and print ads, (some trade and some consumer) in one place. I mean it's kind of difficult to showcase an ad aimed at people who would be interested in reading Big Nate next to romantic dystopia. But then to further that cluster by putting an ad aimed at a buyer next to one aimed at angsty teen? As a dear friend of mine would say, "lunacy!" Clearly.

So how do I organize all of this? It's kind of the same thing, but not really. If I were a piano I could play all the parts at once and it would make sense to those listening. Sadly, I can only play one note at a time. So here I am honking on a trumpet trying to figure out where to put the horn section within this marching band.

Oh, I'm getting really bad on my metaphors, time for sleep.

Honk!

Meta Times

A co-worker went to Noble desktop's online portfolio seminar last week and found out about behance.net What a world of difference in online portfolios! Originally I had my work on a site that wasn't cutting the mustard. I had real limited design say and it looked really outdated. But this?! This is awesome! I can upload work easily and add my own html preferences. While I still learn web design, I think this will really work well for me. I have to see if I can finagle some Flash. Oh lord if I can add .swf files it's over. So over!

Take a gander, I just began. If it looks oddly familiar just remember when it comes to branding one self, I'm super into matching. Which isn't to say I'm into matching in any self preservation or expression...just to be clear.

http://www.behance.net/sarahnicholekaufman

In other news, I ordered CS5.5 last week! HH is almost complete. I know he's getting antsy, and I don't blame him, I would be itching to work too if I were just sitting around blogging all day. Lord knows my freelance level can increase dramatically. I think I'll improve my at-home work productivity by a ridiculous percent, let's say 78% faster design time. That sounds impressive.

The funny part is since I bought it from an online retailer to save a little, I have to wait for an actual box with CDs in it to come in the mail. That is just too funny. I have enough technology and power to run a very small country but I'm waiting to use it by loading and installing software via CD drive.

Updates** on my lovely Adobe package TK.* 


*haha publishing joke!
** We're currently expecting an on-time arrival of CS5.5 (best to say this in a airline pilot voice)

Exhibit A: Dorkus Maximus

Digital Dad

I finished my eBooks with Indesign and Dreamweaver 5.5 class today. While I was trying to break down what I'd learned and how I can apply it to what I need to do, one very important kernel emerged. I am my father. I've known this for a long time and anyone who has ever met Ken Kaufman already knows this. Old news. Those who do know both of us, have you noticed the physical morphing as well? Me into him I mean, not the other way around. Ever since I started running I look more and more like my father! This is kinda cool since my Dad also looks a lot like George Clooney. But it's giving me gender identity issues. Dang I wish I had a picture of all three of us together, then you'd really be able to see the similarities. This'll have to do:

Me.

Dad.

George.

See what I'm talking about? Creepy.

Anyway. So I'm in this eBook class and the teacher—who was amaze-balls—is explaining embedding videos into EPUB files via Indesign, fixing it in Dreamweaver and adding the poster images by regular old fashioned HTML and CSS. He asks if there are any questions, that got me to thinking about slideshows. If we can add videos with poster images and skins, how come we can't have interactive slideshows? Basically I want to have a multi-state object, or multi-page document (i.e. event kit) on one ebook page. I can do this in interactive documents, but it's a PDF. How can I get it to be an interactive EPUB? His answer was sadly knowing a Java or QUERY developer to do it for me. Rats.

Since my subway ride home from the class, I think I've figured out a short term solution to this. I can't tag a .swf file in Dreamweaver to do it the way I'm currently thinking—I don't know how. I don't know how these developers are getting flash onto Nooks and that new Kindle Fire, but I don't think it's thru CSS and regular HTML mark up....thus the Java Script suggestion I guess. Anyway, I can make a slideshow in Indesign or Flash and output it as a .swf. I can take that Flash file (however it's created) and convert it to a .mov file which can be embedded into EPUB. So it's not an actual "pages inside of pages" construction, but it's a messy workaround. I'll create a separate EPUB of only multi-state object documents in case anyone wants to look at them closer. I don't need 40+ pages within in one "chapter", it's annoying. But I don't want to only have movies of my work, that's not accurate either. We'll see if eBooks can catch up with what we want it to do.

So that brings up my main point. No one has done this yet. Or rather I should say few have done this. Because if people were doing this, it would work. It would at least be possible. Right now there's handfuls of dorky people sitting on subways, traveling around, and muttering to themselves about code. And this is how I've become my father. He doesn't wander around places muttering trying to figure stuff out (just kidding I know he totally does). But he can something, take it apart and make it the way he wants. He's always done this. I'm fairly sure parts of the space shuttle have been in our living room for this purpose.  And while the content might be different between us, I'm proud to have that ability. I'm proud of myself to be able to see something, understand it's construction and rip it apart. Or at least try to make it the way I want. I know I got this from Dad, he showed me how to do this as a kid and now as an adult. For example, he's currently building his own house "off the grid". Is he an electrician? No. Is he an architect? No. Does he even really work? No. Just builds things and learns how to do it as he goes. The main difference might be that when he does it, it's always kinda great. But I'm getting there.

Class info for anyone who's interested, it's hella awesome.

EPUB

Ooo tomorrow's the big day ya'll! I start my first EPUB class tomorrow at 9 AM. Exciting. But here's the silly minor detail, I never learned HTML or CSS. Oops. I was going to try and at least fiddle with it tonight, just for like a few hours so I wouldn't be totally lost. But I've got a crap ton of freelance that's due. Double oops. Yet here I am blogging about it. Ah well shit can wait.

I got a promotion kids!! Hells to the yea. Senior Designer. Holla. I'm super duper excited. I hope it'll let me get in there and do it up right. While I understand the need for print, I want to work as hard as I can to eliminate it. Ok, not entirely but mostly. I mean who cares, am I right? Books, smooks. It's all about the EPUB fools.

Portfolio Examples!

Well this has been a frustrating few days. Let's take that frown, turn it upside down and celebrate with some accomplishments.

My online portfolio / mystery-of-how-to-showcase work examples is coming along. So far I've got my online activities in an order I like. The little one sheets will zoom full screen and the booklets will have turned pages. I'm not even going to try to code flash snippets into this blog (check for updates in six months!) So here's a few screen shots:

First page of Activities!

A few pages later...

I mean seriously look how cute those little characters are! I like them all grouped together. Hooray for picture books!

Moving along, an ongoing puzzle might have been solved yesterday—well we're getting closer to solving the How to Market Sarah's Work Without Looking Like a Super Dork issue.

So here's what I came up with. The Card section opens blank with a "play" button appearing. I like this nod to the obvious especially in this seemingly portfolio for children. It is not edgy or an example of breaking design trends—it can't be, that would be absurd. So how do we acknowledge this without apologies and still seem cool? How can I show that I understand this could quickly turn into a circus without doing so? But I also shouldn't ignore that this is in the same market for those who would love to visit a circus. Does that make sense? Perhaps not...it's a work in progress.

Basically, trying to find a way to tastefully add animation to a page full of illustrated characters has proved difficult. Those one sheets you see above are animated, true. But to enlarge for the viewer is a much different feel then something "exciting". Most websites I see are so over animated it's annoying. Lord help the sucker who is still creating animated giffs (self shout out.)

I think we can enjoy a little tongue and cheek while showcasing clean work, in a variety of forms for a wide range of clients.

A Short Rant & Some Color Swatches

PORTFOLIO UPDATE! I'm almost done with Interactive Documents on Lynda—tortoise and the hare much? Our IT guy actually called my boss to tell him that I'm the best Lynda student. That'd be flattering if it wasn't so very sad. But it does get me thiiiiis much close to building this thing-a-jigger(s).

Of course I haven't been able to transfer my files over to Herbert yet. Who'd think they'd make H.H leave his Nimbus 2000* behind for this Quidditch match? I know that the Firebolt** offers faster processing and transferring, but iBooks didn't come with a Firebolts Steve! Lord (Voldemort). It's ok because I'm "borrowing" my work Ethernet cable tonight—this shit is driving me nuts! But onto fun stuff...

HEX-a-mania y'all!

This first swatch is straight up stolen from http://www.colourlovers.com/ Ask me if I care. I don't! It's too lovely to not use. I think ded4b9 looks like paper and that would be awesome to incorporate my bookish feeling for my portfolio. I work in publishing—why fight it?

Brookyawn

Which brings us to our second adventure, this time in monochromatic-ania! I call this one newsprint. Gee, really thinking outside the box on that title Sarah. But it might be nice to off set the dazzling display of children's publishing with a basic LBP. (Little Black Palette)

Newsprint

Finally we really have to use our imaginations with Golden Opportunity (he!) but something about sunshine and bees just gets my goats a-going.

Golden Opportunity

Friends joke about my hyper design of shapes on shapes or patterns on patterns, but I love 'em. I'll probably cause seizures with anything other then a simple color palette. I'm into the monochromatic, clean design but I can't help it if it just feels boring. Anyway, this is just round 1 in a never ending color explosion of ideas.

...Monochromatic orange you say? Interesting. Bring on the epileptic fits!

* Firewire
**I keep forgetting to call it "Thuderbolt", and keep defaulting to "Firebolt" I feel this Harry Potter reference works.

Digital Portfolios and Me.

A freelancer we use at work has her entire portfolio loaded on her iPad. Lord was I jealous when I first heard of it. First I was jealous of her iPad. Then I was jealous of her cunning use of it for actual professional development. I like the idea of always having a dynamic portfolio with me. If I were to meet with a client and needed show (the limited) multi-media design work I've accomplished so far, surely having it saved on a tablet device is much more interesting then just reviewing my own (current lack of a) website. But how do I accomplish this? Besides the obvious problem of not being able to afford an iPad, how do I make something more interesting then just a quick flip through a PDF?

Enter the awesomeness of InDesign's interactive PDF and SWF capibilities. I've starting taking Interactive Documents on Lynda.com and have found it daunting and addictive. I love it all! Buttons, actions, lite Flash, and borrowed Action Script files can potentially take my teaching guide examples into new heights of interesting showmanship. I think the most helpful way of organizing all my pieces will be to utilizing multi-state objects. Pages within a documents with a built in slide show? Yes please! Now to actually build the thing...and get it to live somewhere.

As to what I'm going to put all this on for one on one interviews remains semi-unclear. I think I'd be best to have it as a micro-site, then also as a downloadable PDF for anyone who wants it. Hell I don't care if you have examples of my work, download it all! Reference me to your friends, spread the word on my interactive document awesomeness. Now does it live on its own, here...Tumblr? Well, it's not a perfectly thought out plan, but it's a nice start of a cool idea. Hopefully I can use this to watch it grow.

Oh, and if I have to purchase a Nook Color ($270 y'all!) because it has Flash capabilities and might just be handy to whip out for a quick demonstration, well so be it. Worst comes to worst I can get library books on my poor man's iPad (aka digital portfolio) now.

How awesome is all that?