What Am I Doing? (Apr 2009)

There’s little to update for this month. It’s what you may say a transition period of things that have happened and of things to come. I’m trying to wrap up the final behind-the-scenes stuff with Portal A before I move into a different stage of this freelance life. But this transition period will be no different from any other time of my life; I will be busy busy busy trying to get through the thousands of next-actions from my 100+ projects list.

Just another plug for my client: if you need some video work done, check them out. They’re also looking for an intern for the summer. No coffee runs; real chance to do actual work.

Quote I Go By Lately

“Don’t Live in a Design Bubble.” —Me, to myself.

Flush.

Portal A Interactive

A little more than four months ago, my designer friend Alan Wells recommended me to his friends Kai and Nate for a freelance gig to build a website for their newly founded viral video production company. He sent me the link to their site at the time, which he had quickly put together showcasing their past video projects. I quickly did more research on these guys to get a sense of the type of work they do. (And by research, I meant watching all of their videos in one sitting.)

One of their larger projects was a video blog called Huge in Asia, where they lived in Vietnam and other Asian countries for a couple months documenting their adventures. (I mentioned this in my monthly review last December.) After watching the fifty-episode vlog series, I knew that these guys possessed the potential for excellent content and success, and despite the upcoming busy holiday season at Peet’s, I decided that I would help these guys out and build a site for their company Portal A Interactive.

Pre-work Work

Being a typical recent-graduate designer, I couldn’t help but start coming up with ideas for the site. (I suppose I was still in school mode, where I was compelled to act on any ideas I thought of without considering ownership and compensation.) At the same time, though, having completed a design project for my relatives a few months back without a contract, I definitely learned my lesson and was determined to do everything I was supposed to as a freelancer this time around to protect myself and the client from unnecessary unhappiness.

I looked up tutorials for drafting freelance design contracts, and like the advice that young designers receive from experienced designers for preparing portfolios, there was an unbelievably overwhelming wealth of types of ways that one could go about this. There was so much conflicting advice that I could seriously curl up under my covers and cry. I asked my freelancer friends for advice and tried to write my own contract, but I was still concerned that I might be missing something that would come back and bite me later on.

Fortunately, I remembered that AIGA’s site has a section for business practices. I found the AIGA Standard Form of Agreement for Design Services that designers can use as a template. I adapted the AIGA agreement and took out one or two clauses that didn’t apply at all and had no way of hurting me or the client. I also put together a project-specific proposal, and quickly tried to get all that legal stuff taken care of so I could stop turning off the part of my brain that is responsible for thinking of ideas for the site.

The Logo

After the administrative stuff was taken care of, the first task in the agenda was creating the logo. I enjoy designing logos not because it’s easy (it’s not). I love that good logos look simple, yet are highly complex. Generally, the more different elements there are in a logo, the weaker the logo becomes. So with this project, I tried to keep the logo as simple as I could, sticking to the criteria of using a “one” letterform design and projecting a light-bulb signage mood that the client had envisioned.

Here's the basic concept of the logo:

Here's the final version, lit up and against a dark background:

Since this logo doesn’t include the name of the company, I developed a secondary logo mainly for the website.

Details of the neon:

While the neon isn’t the same type of lighting as the light-bulb logo, incorporating both into the site creates a mood that could not be achieved by using just one. This results in a mix, a melting pot of ideas, something that is not completely established and boring, and something that is flexible and can change as it grows, which is, in a way, what this company is about.

WordPress

Before I took on this project, I had never touched WordPress. I had heard about it, but I always thought it was a paid service, and I just didn’t want to pay to create a blog that I could do the same thing for free somewhere else. But turns out it was free, and it gives you mad power for customization… in PHP. I was new to PHP, so this was both a challenge and an opportunity to learn.

As I worked on this project, I became more familiar with the WordPress setup as well as with PHP and MySQL, which I was also new to. But I quickly grew to like it. In fact, I liked it so much, I set up the video thumbnail section in the header that is based on MySQL. Furthermore, when I will be done with this project in a few weeks, I’m going back to my own site and convert it to accommodate the use of MySQL, such as my portfolio and experiments pages, which is currently based on PHP and XML.

Interactivity

This project has also allowed me to experiment with interactivity that I would not have needed with my own site. The video thumbnail section in the header has a slider that shows more thumbnails when you click on the arrows. It’s a simple function, but there’s a lot of planning involved. It’s even Javascript-disabled-safe in that, if you disable Javascript, the arrows disappear so you won’t have non-functioning arrows which would weaken user experience.

Another interactive feature is the Grayout. When you click on a thumbnail video in the header or a Featured video in the sidebar, the whole page darkens and displays the video on that page. The size also adjusts based on your window size (except for IE) up to certain max/min values. Again, it’s Javascript-disabled-safe; if you disable Javascript, the images act as normal links and bring to a different page so you can still watch the videos.

Finally, launched two weeks ago, a video player that plays more than one video in sync. This was something that Kai and Nate had first suggested, way in the beginning, before we even met and agreed to work together. Currently, the controls are basic, but using the YouTube Chromeless Player API, I set up a player that plays two or more videos at the same time, so that one (or more) video(s) can sync with one another. Here’s an example of what they did with this player. I’ve added volume control that Kai and Nate can determine beforehand to maximize viewer’s audio experience.

What I Learned

There’s a lot more to talk about than what I can cover here (or that you’re willing to read), so let me wrap up by briefly going over the many things that I have learned through this project.

• Contracts. This once nerve-wracking issue has been resolved thanks to AIGA.
• Neon. I never had to draw neon before, but thanks to Bert Monroy, I’m proud to say that I did a pretty good job with the neon I created on the site.
• WordPress. Move over Blogger, I’m with WordPress now.
• MySQL/PHP. My new best friends whom I still have much yet to learn.
• Interactivity. Much love for scripting (and a little bit of hate for troubleshooting).

Flush.

What Am I Doing? (Mar 2009)

Freelance

Things are going well with my freelance project. We’re pretty much wrapping up with the foundation of the site, with a few more adjustments and fixes. Hopefully, in the coming weeks, I’ll be able to present it here with some process work.

GTD

I finally had some time to revamp my GTD system, and it seems to be working better than before. I basically digitized my projects list and actions so that they’re easier to look through (and therefore, less intimidating for me to review and organize). There are still parts of the system that I need to streamline, but things are definitely more efficient already.

Twitter

I recently started using a public Twitter account. My username is ivanwlam, and you’re welcome to follow me if you want. So far, some of the “famous” people I’ve followed include David Allen (the GTD Guy), Ze Frank, swissmiss, Armin and Bryony at Under Consideration, and TED.

Cut&Paste

Me. Me. Me. The fact that I forgot to mention that I went to watch my friend Sam Sellers talentedly compete at the SF stop of the Cut&Paste Competition Tour is unacceptable. Long story short, Sam did a great job and was robbed of his first prize. I love the piece he did for the first round, which was (and will be again) my Facebook profile photo.

Motivation

Something happened in the past week that retriggered and intensified my motivation to advance my career and my life as soon as possible. I can’t go into the details, but I now have a stronger desire to be independent and self-sufficient and to take control of my own life. So hopefully, in the coming months, I will have more exciting things to report.

Really Simple Designer Web Comic

Within the past month, I ended one blog and started another. Really Simple Designer Web Comic was an experiment to create a daily web comic starring Point, Line, and Plane. Every start of the day, I take about half an hour coming up with a concept and quickly draw a comic for the next day on my Wacom tablet. The idea of this project was to become more comfortable with my tablet, and I definitely am now. I ended it after two months because it was taking too much time of my day and the creative juices just weren’t flowing as fluidly as I’d like.

One Per Day

One Per Day is a much simpler project. Every day, I post about the day before, using only one word or phrase as the title of the post, and only one sentence describing the day. This keeps my post lengths short and to the point. It’s sort of a practice for me to pack as much content and meaning into one word and one sentence as I could, instead of dragging on and on about an incident (which I tend to do quite often… like right now).

The idea for One Per Day originated from a revisit to Ze Frank’s The Show, which indirectly kept a record of Ze’s personal life and experiences behind the scenes during its running. I have tried to keep a record of my life ever since I could write and had self-awareness. I used to write by hand with special notebooks and special pencils, and then switched to LiveJournals for a while, then to design blogs with monthly reviews (like this one).

But all these posts were taking too much time of my life to sustain, as I write really long posts, usually about now-apparently trivial things, and I wouldn’t want to return to them if I wanted to recall events of my life at the time.

One Per Day reaches a compromise between wanting to document every experience of my life and cutting down the number of words that I would have to read later on. One year from now, the individual events that happen every day will mean very little to me. In the end, a day is just a day, even on special occasions. What’s more important is the overall mood.

I just started blogging on One Per Day on WordPress (my new friend, perhaps my fortune cookie best friend?), and I haven’t gotten to redesigning it. But the presentation is going to be more streamlined and intuitive. Subscribe to the feed, and stay tuned.

Quotes I Go By Lately

“A day is a day. Every event, however trivial, will, by definition, influence and change the rest of my life.”

“Keep it simple (and easy), stupid.”

Flush.

What Am I Doing? (Feb 2009)

What am I doing? Not blogging here, obviously. Not a single blog since my last update. As I’m writing this, I am in the middle of a semi-deadline to get my client’s site up and ready to go because they’re going to a convention in a few days and passing out business cards that I designed, and leading them to the site that I also designed. (I just realized how I don’t like saying that I designed these things because it really was more of a collaboration, and I just happened to be the one who knows how to use the tools the most.)

It’s been almost three months since I’ve learned about this project and met these awesome people that are my client. And mostly it’s been an exciting and a great learning experience for me. I sort of wish I will always have clients like these in the future. And every day, I become more comfortable and have a better idea with what I want to do, at least for the next few years. I enjoy waking up every day, looking forward to do something that I love.

Post-Peet’s

Since my last monthly update, I had left my job at Peet’s. It was probably a good time to have done so, both in the short term and long term. Because soon after my last shift, I put this freelance project into full gear and started working on it almost every day, putting in more hours than at Peet’s. As I had said before, some things took longer than I expected. Had I kept working both “jobs,” I’d still be sketching the layout for the site or, perhaps more likely, I would have been fired by my client!

I probably went through a week or two of old job withdrawal. I liked my job at Peet’s; I really enjoyed working with the people and seeing the regulars. It was a real bittersweet moment to have left that job. Only a few days ago did I notice how I don’t really remember how it feels to steam milk or pull shots. Ever since I left Peet’s, I had devoted my life into this freelance project; I literally couldn’t imagine working at the bar. I still love the people, no doubt, and I wish I could see them more often (if I could get over the awkwardness of going back to my old workplace).

The Future (Always Thinking About the Future)

As I’ve learned to enjoy my new “job,” my mind became more free to think about the possibilities of where I could go. It’s probably okay to say it here since my family doesn’t read this, but I’ve been thinking about moving south. And by “south,” the range spans from the South Bay, near the San Jose area, to SoCal, around L.A. and San Diego. I want to do it mainly for independence, and also for the weather. But what’s as important, if not more, is my career. If there’s a job that’s fit for me all the way in the East Coast, I wouldn’t mind giving that a try. My family’s probably not so keen of that idea, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world for them.

A “Historic Moment”

I’ve been so engulfed by this project that I haven’t really had the time to digest the fact that we’ve just witnessed what so many people apparently without a thesaurus have described as a “historic moment” in the country. It still hasn’t fully hit me yet, just as it hadn’t hit me eight years ago with the previous administration change. There are moments, though, where I realize that this man is our president.
Right now though, it seems that none of that matters. It must be a sobering feeling for him and everyone that the world and its problems don’t stop for this “historic moment.” (Maybe for a day, but that day has passed.) It’s time to get to work, employed or unemployed.

Flush.

What Am I Doing? (Jan 2009)

Happy new year, all. The holiday season is behind us, and as much as I had enjoyed it, I’m glad to be at the start of the new year with a few optimistic things to look forward to.

Freelance Client

The project with the freelance client is still in progress and is still very exciting. One thing I learned from being a freelancer is that it’s almost an art to have to know how much time tasks actually need to get done. I haven’t done enough freelancing at this point to provide a more accurate estimate of time required to do a project, and it’s easy to imagine an overall picture of the steps in my head, but it’s something else to actually do them. That’s why I feel bad sometimes (or often) because my current client needs the project completed ASAP, but it’s taking longer than I expect to churn out results. But one of the things that are motivating me to continue is my vision of how it’s going to look and function when it’s up and running.

Last Week of Peet’s

Next week will be my last week at Peet’s. It’s almost a bittersweet departure. Half of me knows I’m going to miss it, and the other half is glad to be moving on. The past few weeks, I feel that I’ve dramatically improved at the bar, and all I wanted to do my whole shift is to make drinks for customers. It’s like I’ve finally gotten used to how things work there and I’m just working like a well-oiled machine. But, I don’t want to get too comfortable to the point where the quality of my service and product goes down and I get stuck, which is why I needed to leave.

This job has not been all for nothing, though, and I never thought it was. This has been an excellent environment to learn about teamwork, customer service, multi-role relationships, and immediate problem solving. I would not learn anything like this or to this extent in an office environment. Of course, the office environment has another set of valuable skills that one would learn. So when you think about it, in a way, I’m glad that I took this chance to work in a fast-pace, high-volume, not always predictable retail environment before I presumably move to a more “corporate” or business-oriented world for the rest of my career.

Outlook

2009 seems like a great chance for improvement, in all fronts, no matter what the news says. As usual, I always see the future as a positive time to spend the rest of our lives.

Quote of the Moment

“The world is not waiting for you.”

Flush.

Punished with the Persistent Pusuit of Perfection

I thought of this last night while falling asleep after an all-nighter from my freelance gig: My life is pretty much a punishment of the persistent pursuit of perfection. I’m not necessarily unhappy with that, but there are times when I wish I weren’t being punished. Haha.

(I only mentioned this for the alliteration.)

Flush.

What Am I Doing? (Dec 2008)

I’ve done enough anniversary/milestone posts for the time being, so I’m not going to dwell on the anniversary of the “What Am I Doing?” series. Besides, I have something interesting/productive to talk about this month.

Freelance Gig

Mid-last month, a college friend of mine contacted me about a freelance gig that I might be interested in. His friends from high school have created a startup, doing viral videos for clients, and they need a designer doing the site and create a logo and all that jazz.

I don’t know how much liberty I have with talking about this gig, since it’s still in progress, so I’m going to be conservative in the details. But what I would like to say is that I am excited for this project, and I am excited to see this company grow and succeed. I see real potential with the guys who created this company, and it’ll be interesting to see where it will stand six months or one year from now.

Last night, I spent two or three hours watching all the videos that these guys have created for their old project, Huge In Asia. You might have heard of it, and I think I have, too, back when I was still in college two years ago. To be honest, back then, I probably thought it was really cheesy and silly. But it’s so cheesy and silly, that it’s also entertaining and good! These guys seem free to let their creativity lead their journey, something I wish I have a lot more often.

Luckily, I am now a teeny part of their next project, and I am not going to screw up, not that that happens often anyway. I just have to balance this with my job at Peet’s. So whenever I’m not making lattes, I’m working on this project. Sorry to those who tried to contact me and I haven’t responded. It’s going to be pretty crazy for the next few weeks, especially when you add on the holiday season madness.

Last Month at Peet’s

Speaking of Peet’s, I will be leaving this job sometime next month, after the holiday rush. It really hasn’t hit me yet. But no matter how I feel, I think this needs to happen. The time for change has come.

Flush.

What Have I Done? (Anniversary Review 2008)

Today marks the first anniversary of Flush. A year ago, I “soft opened” this blog, and believe it or not, I still haven’t “grand opened” it, although I’m not sure if I really need to anyway.

Flash Review

The past year has been a bumpy ride. I finished my last undergrad class, got sucked into the world of Sim City 3000 and Sims 2 as I prepped for my job search, started my beta site, got a job at Peet’s, went to see Sagmeister speak, skipped out on Alumni Day (I’m sorry!), worked on a freelance project for my aunt’s business, bought a new printer, watched the impressive production of the Beijing Olympics, resumed working on my portfolio and site, and rekindled my passion for web developing.

My attitude on design has changed, and that has helped me narrow down the types of careers that I would like to pursue. And every day, I’m getting closer to that job and that career. Working on my site almost every day excites me and motivates me because 1) I’ve grown to enjoy coding and designing, and 2) I can’t wait to share with the world what I’ve done.

Prediction for the Next Twelve Months

I don’t know.

Nobody does, and I’ve been wrong enough times about where I would be right now to not make any more general predictions. But I will always have hope, I will always have my expectations, and I will always believe in the future.

A year from now, I may or may not be a designer, and I may or may not enjoy coding still/anymore, and I may completely change my mind about this site and start a brand new one, or career. And that’s perfectly okay, as long as I am okay with it and it’s for the better. I may not reach my current desired destination, but that may or may not be as important as the journey to get there. I mean, I totally wish I were rich already and not have to work but become a philanthropist and help starving children in Africa or save the rain forest in South America, but it would probably mean more to me if I actually pay my dues, work my way up, meet interesting people, and learn about the issues to get there.

Flush.

What Am I Doing? (Jul 2008)

Little Freelance Gig

For the past month, I’ve been helping my aunt with a light box menu redesign for her Mediterranean fast food shop at the Great Mall food court down in Milpitas. She needed new photos of the dishes and a more attractive design to improve her business. I’m supposedly done with all the designing, and now it’s out of my hands and off to wherever she sends them to have the designs specially printed. When it’s all done, I will post an entry about the entire process.

There have been many challenges with this little freelance gig. I’m not gonna elaborate on the details, nor will I reveal the numerous updates on my private Twitter page, but I’ve learned plenty about being a freelancer as well as a graphic designer in general. There were technical lessons like setting up my first makeshift photo studio at the back of the store (with my trusty light tent!), and then there were client-designer relationship lessons, including overcoming a slight language barrier, understanding a difference in communication medium preference (phone vs. email), and enduring a hearty dose of scope creep.

I guess I will elaborate more in the official post, but two important things I learned from this job: 1) don’t promise you can do things faster than you can actually do them, and 2) get a contract before starting any work, even if it’s a job with your family or friends.

New Printer

Another thing that happened recently is that I finally received my new printer. It’s an Epson Photo R1900. It prints up to 13” in width and 44” in length, has individual color cartridges, and prints on CD/DVD’s! Those were the three main selling points for me. I’d been wanting to get a nice printer to print my portfolio pieces since the beginning of this year. I took about half a month to research decent wide-format individual-cartridge inkjet printers, including the price, reviews, ink costs, functions, etc., and then I hesitated a whole month before finally deciding that it would be a worthwhile investment in my still budding career.

My next purchases now will include backup ink cartridges and Epson photo paper.

The Beta Site

I have not given up on the beta site. I’ve just been busy with everything else. I realize that my last update was April/May, but the site will be built.

In the mean time, take some time off your work and find a way to watch season 1 of Mad Men on AMC. It’s about the advertising agency culture of the 1960s in New York. Lots of cultural references, lots of smoking everywhere, lots of drinking, lots of political incorrectness (compared to now), and lots of good writing. Check out the show’s site and watch the first episode.

Flush.

What Am I Doing? (Jun 2008)

You realize time really flies when you see the weather gets nicer by the day and you start writing “6”’s in dates.

This past month, I’ve moved forward with my career planning by continuing my ambitiously comprehensive website, mainly in the type experiments section. I’ve also started looking into getting a wide-format, individual inkjet cartridge printer so I can have large and nice prints for my print portfolio.

Finally, I have a tiny photo shoot gig for my aunt’s business. If all goes well, I will post the completed pieces.

Even as the country continues to go downhill economically, there is still that ray of hope in my personal life emerging in the past few weeks, believing that things will get better; I just need to be patient, continue to work hard, and persevere.

Flush.

Alumni Day 2009

Hi, my name is Ivan Lam, class of 2007. I live in the Bay Area right now and I am working part-time at Peet’s Coffee and Tea while doing freelance design work for clients that are recommended from friends.

Hi, my name is Ivan Lam, class of 2007. I’m a production artist at Peet’s Coffee and Tea’s headquarters in Emeryville, and I am part of a team that is responsible for all of Peet’s branding, including the packaging, signage, printed materials, interior plans, etc.

Hi, my name is Ivan Lam, class of 2007. I’m currently the junior designer at a small design firm in San Francisco. I’ve been working there for about six months now, after leaving my barista job at Peet’s, which is another story. But we mostly do print work, and occasionally, when necessary, we do some web, and I get to do the basic programming and I work with freelance programmers who do more of the complicated backend portion. I really like this job because everyone is really nice and the work environment is really welcoming and relaxed yet productive. There are a lot of smart people there whom I can learn a lot from and I really like going to work every day because I get to challenge myself and do really good work.

Hi, my name is Ivan Lam, class of 2007. I’m a full-time freelance designer, running my one-man freelance design business from my apartment in San Francisco. For the past year or so, I had become more into web programming and had gotten really familiar with a lot of different programming languages that make the web work, so I pretty much do full-time freelance work for clients who not only need special high-security logins or complex server database visitor access, but also are into social issues as opposed to always trying to sell stuff. There are environmentalist groups as well as social awareness organizations that come to me asking to design and produce creative interactive websites that go with their campaigns. I usually have at least two large projects and one or two small ones at any one time, so that pretty much keeps me busy. At first, I wasn’t finding any clients, but eventually things started picking up, and I’m doing a little better and I don’t have to do that whole “starving artist” thing anymore.

Hi, my name is Ivan Lam, class of 2007. I’m sort of in a special situation right now because I just started this little design business with two other people I met last year and we specialize in helping environmental groups with their visual branding and that sort of thing. I am the main designer of the “trio,” and one of the other two partners is the business/finances person who takes care of the money and all that, and the other partner is the environmentalist “guru” who helps us be more familiar with the issues and stuff like that. A few people here know I really like saving the planet and driving a Prius and doing all that green stuff, so this is my little experiment to change the world for the better and what not. We’re sort of still setting up shop in the East Bay right now and getting our website ready to promote our business. So it’s all very exciting and I’ll probably get a better update at next year’s Alumni Day.

Hi, my name is Ivan Lam, class of 2007. Right now, I’m working for a non-profit organization that pushes for social change in countries like Sudan and Myanmar. I’m still a designer at heart, but I do about 50% design stuff and 50% everything else. I get to travel around the world and get a first-hand look at the conditions that the people are in and do research for my organization. I use design as a tool to get the message out, so instead of using design to sell stuff that we don’t really need, I’m trying to make a change in the world and make other people’s lives just a little bit better. I think I got this job because in my first year after graduation, I had a difficult time with finding a design job, and I took that time to really evaluate and figure out what I really want to do with my life. I still love design, but I also want a job that can make the world a better place, and I want to do that through design. So I looked around and found this job, and I’m really happy with where I am right now.

Hello future. (Inspired by a commercial I saw last night. Check out the “Nursery” one. It’s a slightly different edit than the one I saw on TV, but the concept’s still the same.)

Flush.

(The “Hello future.^®” slogan is trademarked by Lincoln Financial Group and is by no means owned by me.)