An Open Letter to Technology
Dear technology,
I think that I don’t love you so much right now or more accurately for a while now. You see it’s my job to make things work and quite honestly a lot of you just don’t play that well together. You don’t. Admit it. People expect web-type things to work consistently on everything that they use. And they don’t care what it takes behind the scenes to actually make it happen. They want their web-type thing to work on a Mac, a PC, a tablet (not the Babylonian kind), a cell phone or smart phone, a notebook (not the paper kind), or whatever else that you create and send to the market that has the ability to access the Internet(s). I’m tired of all of the work-arounds and quirks.
Wishing for that Analog Feeling on a Graphics Tablet
First let me just say that I absolutely love using my graphics tablet for work and play. Using the digital pen instead of a mouse is absolutely ideal for the type of work that I do and because of my background in art it’s a "natural" fit. I have it mapped so that there is a one-to-one relationship between where I point the pen on the graphics tablet and where my cursor is on the screen. It is superior to the frustrating scrubbing that is so common with using a mouse.
The Laboratory for Public Scholarship and Democracy
The Laboratory for Public Scholarship and Democracy is a program of Penn State’s Office of Undergraduate Education that facilitates public scholarship through its support and administration of the Intercollege Minor in Civic and Community Engagement, the Public Scholarship Associates, Public Scholarship Course Development Grants, Public Scholarship Seminars, and other initiatives, publications, and programs.
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Identity and Access Management
The Identity and Access Management (IAM) initiative formed to address the need for a cohesive and comprehensive identity and access management strategy for Penn State. This group, comprised of 30 individuals who span many administrative areas at the University, has an understanding of digital identities, knowledge of business processes in their respective areas, and an eagerness to collaborate in finding a solution that will provide a strategic direction for Penn State and IT. I was approached to provide the group with a custom slide deck for presentations and a motion graphics video that is based on the key elements of identity and access management. Continue Reading →
The Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos
The Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos (IGC) is dedicated to fostering the highest quality education and research in cosmology, general relativity, gravitational wave astronomy, particle astrophysics, quantum gravity and string theory, focusing on the highest energy phenomena and fundamental issues in the Science of the Cosmos. The Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos wanted to update their Web pages both visually and technically, so that its centers could have common templates and be easy to update by staff members with knowledge of HTML.
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WebMail
Penn State’s WebMail is a web-based e-mail client that provides Penn State faculty, staff, and students with anytime, anywhere access to their Penn State email via a web browser. I worked with Academic Services and Emerging Technologies (ASET) in the development of the look-and-feel of their interface graphics, layout, and design of the mail program’s home page.
My Role
- Concept
- Visual Design
University Bulletin
The University Bulletin, which is comprised of the Bluebook and the Whitebook, is the official bulletin of The Pennsylvania State University. The Bluebook is the Undergraduate Degree Programs Bulletin and the Whitebook is the Graduate Degree Programs Bulletin. Penn State is no longer printing paper copies of the University Bulletin and this Web site serves as the up-to-date resource for course information and degree programs. The front-end uses XHTML templates and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and the back-end is Adobe ColdFusion. My role concentrated solely on the front-end and a fellow team member entirely created the back-end functionality.
My Role
- Visual Design
- XHTML Templates
- Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
- Static Content Organization
Cynthia Nixon Art
Cynthia Nixon is a contemporary American artist whose mixed-media work combines figurative painting, gold leaf and embroidery. She was looking for an easy-to-use Web site that focused on her work and allowed individuals to explore her mixed media work and find out more about her. Cynthia and I worked together to develop the information architecture of the site, navigational elements that helps a user locate themselves within the site, and it’s trim layout. The site is developed with straight forward XHTML and CSS.
My Role
- Visual Design
- XHTML Templates
- Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
- Static Content Organization
- Image Optimization
Penn State Portal
The Penn State Portal is a personalized view of University and internet resources. Similar to My Netscape or My Yahoo!, the Penn State Portal lets you collect all of your favorite content in one place. You decide what you want to see and how you want to see it by editing the customizable web page channels and channel content. I was asked to develop headers and color schemes for users to personalize their experience. Two concepts were created to support a Penn State theme and one that fit with the personalized experience of community and information. The honeycomb theme was developed to mirror the community aspect and the efficient use of space that the honeycomb design achieves.
The headers shown here are just a few examples of many that users can choose from in the options panel.
My Role
- Concepts
- Visual Design
- Graphic Resources
MechANEX
The MechANEX project was a grant funded project to design and implement simulation software for an engineering lab at Penn State. The goal was to create a series of simulations to teach students about certain concepts such as friction and tolerance, so that they could experiment digitally to learn the concepts and then apply them in a physical lab. I worked with faculty, programmers, and instructional designers to take schematics and translate them into graphics for the software.
My Role
- Visual Design
- Interface Graphics