It has been quite some time since I’ve updated. I hate to admit but I sort of put off thesis last week to focus on my portfolio. But, at least I was being productive.

The portfolio review was tremendously helpful. For improvements, here is some of the feedback I received:

• See how far I can push projects. Where else could I take them? The CD covers for example, I should consider doing an entire brand for them (show poster, interior spreads for the cd cover, ticket designs, etc.)
• With my A Game of Thrones book, all of my reviewers were upset that I didn’t bring the book with me. Chris, from St. Rose, said that a project like that really shows my attention to detail to both the craftsmanship and typesetting so it makes a lot of sense to bring something like that to an interview.
• Include more process for a project, but as a process book. Some said bringing a binder is ok, but the more organized you can be the better off. Should’ve brought the one from Type & Image.

And the good:

• One of the things I felt I did good with was talking about myself. Every time I was asked to talk about myself as a person, I stayed away from mentioning anything about Graphic Design. I brought up that I am a competitive swimmer, my interest in music, my obsession with Batman; anything to get a conversation going. And it worked. I’m proud of myself for that because all throughout high school and even college, I was an insanely shy kid. If my 15 year old self could see me now, he would not believe how much more outspoken I am now. Have to give myself a pat on my back for that.
• Everyone appreciated that I spoke about the process for each project. And that I was able to do it clearly. Felt good to get comments like that. I noticed even the small things like maintaing eye contact throughout explaining, trying to not speak with my hands as much. It’s great because there was never an awkward silence

I went into this review having no idea what to expect. Then I realized I knew exactly what to say about my work. I found it much easier than I thought it would be. Definitely a great experience that was needed. And worth it.

On to Thesis updates

I wish I used more h tags throughout the year

Ok enough. So, I had put a stop on my work with the poster because of the portfolio review (as mentioned above). Today was really the first day I have jumped back into it. I had Rob check out my project and he gave excellent feedback for my print: acetate. Why not use acetate to incorporate layers into this project? That way each sheet of acetate can have it’s own set of categories on it’s own. So at first I was thinking of a book (basically going back to my original idea). But why not have a clamshell box? The book comes with limitations. I would be already setting up the experience for users. With a clamshell box (or some other vessel), users can arrange and stack these any way they want so that they can choose what to compare/contrast. With a book, they’re forced on a set order for that.

In addition, I’ve been changing some of the color for the graph overall. I’ve also been thinking about how I’m going to handle so many colors at once. Rather than have a separate color for each category, as seen here (although this is the new color scheme):

I will be changing like thicknesses within each category. So for example, the length of each song. Instead of having different shades of red for BPMs, the lines will increase with each range. So, in order to do that, I’ve been using the filters as I mentioned in my last post. This how that looks:

As you can see, in that bottom right corner, my attributes are listed there. Clicking on each one (then clicking filter) will hide all of the other edges (connections) and only show the ones I have selected. This is based off of the label I have given each connection, making it easier to filter through this. This allows me to view one set of data at a time with this graph. So I add the color here:

I select whatever connections I want and can change the edge thickness and color. As of now, I have done only the BPMs so it looks like this:

I think that I’m being a little too drastic with the differences in thickness. Right now they increase by increments of 20. But if I make that increment any smaller, then the difference between each one is not as noticeable. Maybe it’s the color that is a little overwhelming. Who knows. Need to explore it more. But here are some color choices so far:

 Again, needs more exploration. So, I’ll be updating the colors in Gephi. I also need to keep testing sizes for printing. If these can be separate acetate sheets, then I can go bigger than what I anticipated for the book. Perhaps buying a roll of acetate may be beneficial.