Visualization Station

Visual Resume

2007-08-02T17:20:00.000-05:00

This morning I created an updated resume in Mindomo and when I had finished I was thinking to myself, "Where have I seen this before?" and I went diving back to my dusty, dusty archives.

13 years ago, I had been deeply into Visual Communication, but unguided. I created a non-linear resume to shop around to the agencies. It was pooh-poohed at the time because it didn't make any sense to anyone who wasn't me. Click my photo for the enlargement. I had iconed each section with the appropriate icon, so the eye could determine what each section was represented, and I drew lines connecting the different islands in a meaningful fashion. Education to Art School to Production Art, School to Teaching Jobs etc. Now years later, I've done nearly the same thing, but this time there is the added dimension of time and visual motion.

click the minus sign in the image below to scale it down. or just click the link. Mark Plattner Resume

After a long hiatus of living and working, I find myself drawn back to Visual Communication and pleased that the tools have been created to allow me express my what I had attempted to do so long ago

The Intro

2007-08-02T08:15:00.000-05:00

I've been a Graphic Production Artist for 12 years after I dropped out of Design School due to lack of money. Since then I've become a Graphic Problem Solver, which means I can do pretty much anything to help get the job out the door except for the actual design. I'm sure I could do it, but I lack self confidence. Let's face it, there is no shortage of crappy design out there, and I don't want to add to the noise.

Sooooooo, I decided to throw myself into the deep end of the design pool and teach myself the principles of good design. And I decided to start a new blog instead of cluttering up my personal one with links to design sites and such. So I started Visualization Station. Cue the party noisemaker.

Below is a link dump of the prior posts from my personal site. I also plan to keep running visual maps at Mindomo - Web-based mind mapping software of the interesting links connections to this site: Visualization Station Mind Map, my own personal journey into design, and a different sort of resume. Cue the noisemaker again.

International Icon Tarot

2007-08-01T15:22:00.001-05:00

I had seen this a few years ago but had forgotten about it until I saw a low res repro posted at a used bookstore yesterday. Since I am still thinking about story telling using the International Icons (that odd event story I'm still waiting to tell), and the artistic use and design will really influence how I design and illustrate my own story.

Fantastic work by Needmore Designs

Free Edumacation With Which To Wrinkle Yer Brain

2007-08-01T15:21:00.001-05:00

I was looking around for a mind mapping application for a collaborative project that is trying to get off the ground and I found Mindomo with which people can post public maps they have constructed. Thanks to Lady Gray who took the time to lay out some resources. Just roll over the little globes for pop-up links.

Smarten Up Yer Thinkbox

2007-08-01T15:19:00.000-05:00

Some of the greatest people in history have educated themselves to a large degree using a process known as autodidacticism. This is something that's more easily undertaken these days with the great wealth of online tools available to anyone.

Whether you've gone to college or not, you can learn just about anything these days on your own. Want to learn about the classics? Carpentry and home maintenance? Philosophy or cooking? Chess or computer programming? It's all online, and with a little bit of excitement, you can motivate yourself to learn a subject in a growing number of ways.

Why self-education? Well, besides the obvious reasons of wanting to improve yourself, prepare yourself for success, and just learn as much as you can, self-education offers a few extra benefits: you can learn at your own pace, and in your own way. You can follow your passions, and learn about things that excite you. There's no price for failure, but there's every reward for success.

How do you go about becoming an autodidact? The answer is simple: any way you want. I would suggest you set aside just a little time each day to learn a specific subject, but that really depends on your learning style. Some people learn all in one great rush: they'll stay up late hours for a few days in a row, consuming everything they possibly can about a subject. Others are overwhelmed by an approach like that, and would rather learn a little each day.
More

via - Dumb Little Man

About Time

2007-08-01T15:17:00.001-05:00

Last night while driving to the airport to pick up Alessandra I was thinking about how I visualize time.

My days of the week are pictured in mostly horizontal circle. Saturday is at the top, furthest away from me, Sunday is a swing back down towards the bottom counter clockwise. And the rest of the days of the week are an angled ramp back up. I only see the present day and the day ahead and behind on my wheel. They are spelled out by name and I can zoom in to look at my day.

Likewise my yearly calendar is a larger circle that runs counterclockwise with December and January up at the top of a 20% grade, then it's back down the dial to reach Summer. Of course the seasons are color coded with January and February being dark, dark gray and Summer the rest of the year being vibrant.

I've tried to describe how the whole thing is lit, and I believe I tried to model it years ago in 3D, but I just can't get it across.

Here, read about Flower Clock Gardens instead.

Youuuuuu....Arrrre....Therrrrrrreeeeee!

2007-08-01T15:16:00.001-05:00

I am driving Southwest on Highway 44 at 8:15 pm. At Grand Ave., the Compton Hill Water Tower is to my left and the afternoon rain has slicked the highway; cars and trucks are throwing up puffs of mist.

The clouds have opened up and the sun is fat and red on the horizon. The rays burst across the highway from the right and all the cars are enveloped in pink-orange halos, throwing up pink smoke from cartoon cars.

I've never seen this before. Was I always in the wrong place at the wrong time or is my vision heightened by long hours at the office and a desire to nail down the world around me, and lock it into my brain? How much of my 40 years have I skated by looking at my inner eye, not using my outer one? Really, this is what I'm thinking.

The the cars pass back into the shadow, and I think about how I can't wait to tell Alessandra, when I get home. She's out of town, but we have Skype! We will look at each other on the the computer half a country away. "These are the days of Miracle and Wonder, this is the long distance call," indeed.

Half a mile ahead I see cars and trucks break the wall of light and turn into fast moving cotton candy. I love cotton candy, and I smile.

Hindsight tells me this is more rare than a Green Flash. If you live on a west coast, you can probably catch one daily. But this one...all the forces have to be in alignment. Time, Space, Weather and Season. Bullseye!

I pull off the highway at my exit and I look at the sky with its boiling clouds. Every color is represented in darkened hues. Why does the combination of Pink and Green or Orange and Purple look like crap everywhere else but the sky?

I wish, not for the first time, that I had the camera with me, so I can show you what I saw.

But, until I wise up and carry it with me, I have to use the words to paint the picture and bring you to me instead. Tonight: Youuuuuu....Arrrre....Therrrrrrreeeeee!

Story Revision

2007-08-01T15:12:00.001-05:00

Edit: If you didn't get the story, don't be surprised. I need to give it some coherence rather than just explode it. I'll post the rework, shortly.

After running my story past an illustrator, he suggested I add another feature to my key in order to add clarity. So I did. And I also added one more arrow somewhere.

It's not supposed to be a puzzle with the secret known only to me, everything you need to understand the story (without words), or breaking into a left to right story flow (in case there are right->left or up->down readers who encounter this) should be there.

You can click the picture or this link

I Speak Picture

2007-08-01T15:12:00.000-05:00

I got a blowout on the highway yesterday, and while wandering around a Borders as my tire was being replaced I found a book entitled Amazon.com: Pictograms, Icons and Signs by Rayan Abdullah,Roger Hubner. The final chapter was an essay by Jochen Gros discussing his creation of a working
grammar for a pictogram language of his devising.

At his site:
icon-language.com you can download an Open Type font that converts your text to pictures as you type it.

This is a complete sentence. What did I say? (The answer is in the comments.)

You should check it out. What also amuses me, is that many of the words he has pictogrammed involve sex, bodies in states of undress and seduction. I mean if I were going to create a language, those would be the first things I would define too.

A cool weird thing

2007-08-01T15:11:00.000-05:00

happened Sunday Night. Over the past few weeks I've been growing my visual thinking perception, and I've been doing some layman's research by getting into articles from Visible Language, the journal of the Institute of Design from Illinois Institute of Technology, (I have a Proquest access to thousands of pdf journals, but that's another story). As a result, when the incident occurred I visualized it pretty much like this. Let me know if I'm able to get the point across. The first person to tell me what occurred Sunday night wins a prize.

The idea here is that the story should be understandable for illiterate (but not unintelligent), people of all nationalities. And I decided to use the generic AIGA Symbols for aesthetic purposes as I learn to draw, so the piece looks kind of primitive. Sorry about that.

Anyway, you'll need Adobe Acrobat or other pdf reader to view it. You are encouraged to zoom. Click the picture to begin download.

Things that go BANG! The Art of Firecracker Labels!

2007-08-01T15:10:00.001-05:00

via TotalFark via i-mockery