Schedule of Work (subject to change)

The never ending beautiful view

I started posting notes on Facebook before I travel to guide my explorations. I find that my friends have a better sense of my interests than any tour book. I also always seem to discover I know more people where I’m going than I thought. It’s a great archive I can share with my friends in the future and helps all my friends know what has already been recommended to me. The other benefit is that usually when I return from somewhere, people say something like “I lived in Portland for 3 years, why didn’t you tell me you were going?”

This land is your land, this land is my land.

The Coast Starlight ride from Seattle to Portland was absolutely beautiful. I felt like i was in a 1940′s American adventure. I booked my trip the night before and took off with what only fit in my purse.

I was given a Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous Tour of Chris Johnson. He and I are dear friends from my Indy Star days. We met at the epic Powell Bookstore and walked throughout the Northwest neighborhood. We had lunch at The New Old Lompoc, a great backyard-like pub. Late into our walk throughout the city we headed back downtown for amazing cocktails at The Portland City Grille that boasted the most unbelievable view of the city and mountains. I highly recommend any mojito including the blood orange beverage.

The view from Portland City Grill

My highschool turnabout dance date (fun fact) Justin came to pick us up and we enjoyed an evening on the patio at the Rontoms lounge. My roommate, Sravi, from San Francisco just moved to Portland. We gave him and some new friends a healthy hipster dosage he had been missing. The evening carried onto a late Cajun Creole dinner at Le Bistro Montage. Delicious faire that’s always open late. Here I was with zero plan, living completely free, from whim to whim with so many parts of my life coming together at once. All of us had a nightcap at a great little dive, The Bonfire Lounge.

Chris, my tourguide

Sravi, my dungeonmate

Justin, my blast from the past (and true gentleman!)

Early morning, I did the most cliche thing possible and ate granola in Portland. We visited the Waffle Window for a fruit, yogurt, granola breakfast.

Fruit, Yogurt and Granola from the Waffle Window

Chris took me around some vintage shops on Hawthorne where we bought sweet water guns and a mood ring for me to know when I feel purpley. We meant to meet Chris’ friends at Prost! a German Pub, to watch the World Cup match against Spain on the up and coming Mississippi Avenue. It was overly crowded so we strolled down the road for a cooler spot to hide from the hot hot heat.

The trip wound down with the best tacos of my entire life from ?Por Que No? that are also incredibly inexpensive. Absolutely amazing.

Carnitas and Tinga tacos

Weapons of choice

I wrapped up my trip downtown, got some Voodoo Doughnuts for the road and jumped on the Cascade for a snooze and ride back to Portland.

Oreos, Fruity Pebbles and a Voodoo Doll

Not bad for just one day. I can’t wait to visit again.

I'm a little proud of my $1 mood ring.

No, I’ve been learning to do those familiar things, better, by doing them in many different (new) ways. Backwards, upside down, at rapid speed, in slow motion, under water or while riding a goose.

I’ve never had to crank out CSS before, but hey–consider it done! I think I’ll be able to tie a neat little bow on the top of this internship. It’s too bad I want to keep that ribbon untied. I still love driving through mountains.

It began in a whirlwind and about seven weeks later I found some time to pause and reflect. All I can do is be grateful for this experience, this work, this home, this city and these families. There is a particular point that sticks out in my mind. During our first week, when John and I met for dinner and share a common thought:

This feels right.

I drive this beautiful drive every day.

It was kind of that simple. During that first week, We strolled down Castro street in Mountain View, as if it were the most natural thing to do in the world. Not even a week earlier we were racing and panting to submit final video projects. We were squeezing Capstone presentations into our jam packed calendars. Our mentors were leaving us. The next week? Twirling spaghetti and sipping local California wine overlooking mountains. All that being said, I’ve certainly learned and grown an unbelievable amount already. So what stayed the same?

This still feels right.

But how could I be doing anything else? Remember how long I was New York bound? Then I was gunning my hardest to be in Seoul, or Singapore or travel back to London or even leap over to India. I thought, I might just be chained to Indiana forever. All that being said, how could I have been anywhere else, physically and otherwise, than where I am now?

I think, also, I couldn’t dream up a better design team. Their skills, experiences, backgrounds, senses of humor and working styles all differ and beautifully compliment each other. They’re a small team of patient, helpful, feedbackful, engaged mentors.

But interning at RockMelt is about a lot more than design–which I like. I really love the engineering team, too. They are a a productive, pleasant, enjoyable collaborative team. I’m mostly frustrated that I was taught I’d have to pick fights with them. False! We make things; they make things work!

I commute every day by car, listen to podcasts and cruise through 360 degrees of mountains. I’m getting very spoiled and will hopefully do a better job of enjoying Bloomington’s natural spaces.

Arjun, Elli and Sravi, my roommates, cuddling up and coloring at Dolores Park.

Otherwise I’m spending the rest of my time breathing in every little bit of San Francisco–which is a whole other blog post. Almost every week I discover I know someone else who lives here. It’s just treat after treat. I even met up with three former Indianapolis Star colleagues. It’s always such a pleasure to see my friends from News make the leap. Go team, go! Tonight, I drove up to Twin Peaks. What a piece of magic.

The next step will be one step forward.

“RockMelt was co-founded by Eric Vishria and Tim Howes, both former executives at Opsware, a company that Marc Andreessen co-founded and then sold to Hewlett-Packard in 2007″ according to a New York Times article published last August.

I couldn’t possibly be more excited for this internship. It is everything I was looking for and more. I have a unique opportunity to work at a startup on a fantastic project, with very smart people. Plus, I get to hang in the Bay Area with my brother all summer.

Let the good times roll.

Above is a photo of my workflow for a magazine I am coordinating and redesigning.
Keep one folders for each individual project and remember to save multiple versions!

ART
Store photos, screen shots, linked graphics and other images.

INFO
Store documents of text/copy, research, guidelines, styleguides and possibly a copy of your freelance contracts.

LAYOUT
Use This folder for working documents like Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator and Indesign.

FINAL (PDF, JPG, SWF, ETC)
Documents that can be submit or shared. This is handy for reviewing multiple versions.

Other Structures
Developing a Sensible Folder Structure
Folder Structure and Project Organization Best Practices
Project folder structure for a web designer

Much of the comments before my response celebrated these devices; though “LdF” eloquently reminds readers that content is king. My response reads

@LdF I agree, Content is king. I think everyone will agree with that.
@Adam Levy I’m struggling with the idea that E-readers are the only possible option. If we think from user’s perspective, how many people are running out to buy, yet another, device to carry around with them? And that’s not even considering the monetary cost of buying an e-reader device. Which brings me to my point about the digital divide.

Sure, there are the people who can afford to buy an e-reader, those people likely have smart phones. I’d be curious to know how many people who take a phone, charger, laptop, camera (maybe), wallet and their lunch to work also want to lug an e-reader around with them.

Then, what is the news solution for people who cannot afford an e-reader? Sure, news is online, it’s free. I think that’s excellent. It works for me. I think we, journalists, designers, need to have some conversation about readers without mobile devices, without internet connections at home (or at least fast ones). Yes, we are designing for the future, but people with low-incomes will exist in the future, too.

I am not arguing that we need to fire up more printing presses for those without internet connections. Because those people, likely, are not buying the newspaper too (because of cost, not interest). So, let’s remember to also design for the future of news on the other side of the digital divide. If we don’t, I predict we’ll see an educated Bourgeoisie and a proletariat without access to news.

Coming back to my point: I have a smart phone, it costs a lot of money, it let’s me read the news without having to buy anything more.

Just playing devil’s advocate…

I do plan to return to the media, journalism community during my career, sometime. I will practice my skills as an HCI professional in other fields, first. I just hope, by that time, news information is not a luxury item that is only available to those with access to high technology. Let us not create a society where only the elite have the opportunity to be educated about their economic, political, social, local and cultural news.

Read about the GISA Elections

Andy Clyme / NYT

With that I’ll share a NYT piece @nickd shared about H&FJ. The shift from print to web for many design elements has been exciting: color, light, legibility, image size, interactivity (of course) and of course type. I went to a conference two years ago where Font Bureau broke down the pixel problem bit by bit.  What a treat. Here’s what the NYT has to say:

Imagine that you are a super-successful movie director, who’s been given hundreds of millions of dollars and lots of whiz-bang technology to make a cinematic epic. Sounds good? Not once you are told that people will have to watch it on fuzzy old black and white television sets.

Something similar happens to the text that appears on your computer screen whenever you log on to a Web site.

Imagine that you are a super-successful movie director, who’s been given hundreds of millions of dollars and lots of whiz-bang technology to make a cinematic epic. Sounds good? Not once you are told that people will have to watch it on fuzzy old black and white television sets.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/11/arts/11iht-design11.html