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.

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? (Oct 2008)

Web Languages

As I had posted in the past few entries, I’m teaching myself the relatively basic web programming languages by working on my site, mostly the portfolio section. I’ve conducted a couple experiments to get a better understanding and grip of these languages. Learning Cookies, Ajax, and PHP has been very exciting and has stirred up project ideas.

Every day I wish I would have enough energy after work to work a little bit on my site or an experiment. I could see myself doing this as a career, although I haven’t been with the big kids yet, so troubleshooting one line in the haystack of hundreds that others have written might make me think otherwise. Still, it’s exciting when things work the way you want it to, and that might make it all worth it.

Economy and Job

So the economy’s not doing so well. Just when you think you’re at the bottom, you’re wrong. This isn’t really affecting me as directly as other Americans, since I don’t intend to buy a house or borrow large sums of money in the near future.

But when others suffer, we might, too. I’m talking specifically about companies’ ability (or inability) to keep their finances in the black, which may require them to lay off some employees, employees who might now compete with me in the job market, or employees whose positions that I desire but seize to exist because they’re laid off.

So that makes me reconsider the length of my employment at Peet’s. But then again, if I worry too much, which I probably already have, I won’t get anywhere.

Flush.

What Am I Doing? (Sept 2008)

Peet’s

It is discovered and decided that I will be working at Peet’s for only four more months, through the holiday season. Hopefully, this gives me a sense of having a deadline again and I can get more things done.

Olympics

I don’t know if I had made it clear a couple of posts ago that I love the Olympics, but I do. Not only did I enjoy racing home from work to watch Olympic history being made, but I was also impressed with the level of detail with which the Beijing team executed the events and their appearance in the world.

The opening and closing ceremonies were the best ever in my opinion, but not only that, it makes me want to take part in performances like those for a living, mainly in the planning and conceptual stage. This goes beyond “graphic design,” but I never said I am interested in graphic design alone. It’s times like this that lift my spirits and believe the best of days is always ahead of us.

Beta Portfolio

I’ve been working on the portfolio section for the past few weeks, and now I’m working on the coding before I pump out the images and make the link available, although you can still access it by manually entering the URI based on the site’s navigation. Constructive feedback is always appreciated.

Future

With a four-month timeframe in place, I now have a sense of what I’m doing in the near future. After that though, I don’t know. I’ve been revisiting the idea of a road trip a lot, and it seems like there’s no better time than the present (or asap, e.g. four months from now). I would have some money saved up, and either get on a train or drive myself across the country, maybe with a friend or two.

I might have a revelation in the four-month period and know for sure which path I want to go on after Peet’s. It might not be far from what I had been planning all along; it could be a regular graphic design job right here in the Bay Area, or it might be somewhere in the East Coast. Or, I could be in Asia, or Africa, or Europe, following some hint of an opportunity that is remotely related to design and more related to the environment or humanitarian work.

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.)

What Am I Doing? (Apr 2008)

Peet’s

A month flies by so fast sometimes, especially when you’re working almost every day. Working at Peet’s has been “learningful.” Not only did I learn about coffee and tea in general, I also experienced firsthand the corporate branding trickling all the way down to the sales floor, both in visual design and business management.

Other than the freelance route, I believe that organizational hierarchy and communication are essential to success and growth in any job out there. I am fortunate to work with a group of knowledgeable and experienced people who aren’t afraid to teach others and newbies like me their tricks and provide really useful advice. It’s not as if they were competitive and afraid that I would take their jobs somehow, especially when almost all of us have the same positions. And as “upper management” has shown us, my coworkers and I are a team; we all work together, and we are only as strong as our weakest link and all that good stuff.

I don’t think I’m revealing any company insider secrets here, but I really like the fact that Peet’s places great emphasis on two main things: quality service and quality products. Customers and fresh coffee pretty much sit next to each other at the top of Peet’s list of importance, as they should be. While it’s not possible to guarantee 100% quality on everything all the time, I still do my best everyday to make sure those two goals are achieved, and I feel proud to associate myself with an organization whose ideals are such.

Peet’s and Design Business

That sense of pride is partly due to my background in design (I say “background” like I’ve had decades of experience, haha). The way I see it, from the perspective of a baby designer with little or no “professional” design business experience, the design business is about the client and what you produce for that client. Design is about listening to what the audience and client want, but at the same time, it’s also about what you make to meet their needs and wants.

In the month that I’ve been at Peet’s, I’ve begun to develop relationships with the regulars. Every regular has his/her own unique personality and quirks, and I had to readjust to address each of them differently. Some are real cool, and some are… not so much. I feel that (and I know that) I’m going to encounter clients like that when I do design full-time. Some clients are gonna micromanage, just like some of the Peet’s customers who watch everything you do in preparing their coffee. And some are more carefree and trust you and your knowledge about coffee/design so that they get the best darn product that your skills could produce for them.

Design

Since my last monthly update, I had worked on my home page some more, continuing with the transparency concept. I know that in a real project, I really shouldn’t work on the home page until the end (nor should I take this long to build a web site). But I feel that since this is a beta site, it’s the most seen page, so the design should reflect my concept for the site so that new visitors can immediately get a sense of what’s happening and will come back if they like what they see.

So in short, I’m not going to do much else until this home page is done, as much as it pains me to not have enough time to do anything else in the mean time. But the good news is that I think I’m almost done with the design. The remaining issues are 1) how to place the slideshow “screen” on a faux-transparency while sticking to that grid I had, and 2) a more interesting background, possibly changing based on the time of day.

I believe I will resolve these in the new few weeks, and hopefully, it’ll be sooner than later.

Design Opportunities

Two weeks ago, I saw on HOW’s design blog a fellowship opportunity at Chronicle Books. It seems like a really cool gig and I really want to do this, but seeing how the deadline is at the end of this month, I don’t think I have the time to put together a solid portfolio and application. It’s a six-month fellowship from July to December, and it pays $15,000 total, which converts to a $30,000/yr salary, which is not too bad. Unlike that teamwork mentality that I was talking about earlier, I was being a little competitive here by withholding informing people about this, especially to my graduating design friends who may be interested in this. But seeing how I probably won’t apply, I figure I should share the wealth and hopefully a Davis graduates gets in.

A few days ago, a good good design friend forwarded me about an immediate job opening within her company, and other than the 2–3 years professional experience and QuarkXPress requirement, my commitment at Peet’s is preventing me from doing anything else any time soon. And that made me think about what I will be doing in the next few months.

Flush.

Expertise on Coffees, Teas, and Typefaces

A week ago, I took my first “Tea class,” where I learned about the basics of teas and the types of teas that Peet’s offers. I drink tea more often than coffee, so it’s no surprise that I couldn’t taste the difference between different types of coffees on my first shift other than “This taste like coffee, and bitter.” With tea, there’s a wider range in flavor for me, and I could better distinguish one type of teas from another.

In the Tea class, I realized that I am opposite from my manager (the teacher) and a fellow “student” (from some other Peet’s) in that they have a better sense in distinguishing coffees than teas, whereas I’m better at teas than coffees.

Then it occurred to me. This ability to tell the difference among a class of similar items happens everywhere with everyone, e.g. designers with typefaces. A lot of my design friends know that I enjoy looking at type and blurting out the typefaces they’re set in, without even them asking me in the first place. That might annoy them, but I feel a sense of pride for being able to identify typefaces; it gives me a sense of expertise and validity in the design field, just as my manager at Peet’s would feel for being able to tell the difference between decaf coffee beans and regular coffee beans by smell alone.

It’s this type of expertise that excites each of us, giving us motivation to continue to pursue our interests, and become even more knowledgeable. Then we share that knowledge with the rest of the world, in sort of a large-scale collaborative learning pool. It’s an open-source community, and through it, everyone can learn not only about coffees, teas, and typefaces, but also about everything else, allowing us to become experts in everything if we choose to.

Flush.

What Am I Doing? (Mar 08)

A slight, temporary change of direction this past month. I had been working on my web site still, though at a slower rate than before. I took on a small, short freelance project recoding a website that is easier to manage and a lot more standards-compliant. But mainly, my time has been split into two parts: one for my website, and one for a part-time job.

Long story short, and in a way that I’ve been describing to my friends and such, I am now working part-time at Peet’s Coffee and Tea as a barista while I’m finishing my portfolio and web site.

I’m still training at Peet’s, so I don’t really considered myself a barista, yet. Nonetheless, this move was a result of a readjustment of priorities, the most urgent of which is financially based.

The Strategy

But I didn’t take this job just because it’s available. I’ve thought about this for a long time and have developed a flexible strategy that will work to my advantage in my career as a designer. By working here, I will be able to, first and foremost, have a front-row look at a retail environment and corporate branding strategies, which will give me some background in retail customer experience.

I’m sure a lot of established designers today had part-time retail jobs in high school and college or in the early years of their career, and that experience most likely gave them a slight edge at understanding how it all works.

Because sometimes, I feel that a lot of designers produce things based on what they think looks cool and lack sufficient research in what the client and customers need and want, or that they receive the research from the marketing department and base their designs on words on paper and not direct, personal experience.

For example, I had only worked at Peet’s for a couple shifts, but I’ve already noticed the amount of branding that the company implements onto the sales floor, ranging from the packaging to the interior design to the employee dress code. The company also has a few service-based qualities that are consistently reasserted, especially in the training material.

Room for Improvement

At the same time, I constantly think about the certain methods and ways of saying something that can be improved to increase productivity as well as customer satisfaction and enthusiasm. Occasionally, I tried to picture how and why Peet’s design team chooses a particular approach in their branding and promotion strategies and thought about little things from a retail employee point of view that they could change or add to make both the employees and customers happier.

There are also other reasons for working at Peet’s that will help me in my career in design, but I won’t list them here. But all in all, I am enjoying the experience and will take as many lessons as I could from this and apply them to my future design jobs.

Sayings of the Moment

• “Just do it.” (no affiliation with any athletic company)
• “You fail if you don’t try.” –“Get Up,” Superch!ck (from my high school days)
• “Having guts always works out for me.” –Stefan Sagmeister

Flush.