Parker Is Parked Designs

The Graphic and Web Design Vernissage is coming up real soon! This event will be going from 5 to 7 PM on April 10th. It will take place in the Agora of John Abbott College. You can get in by the side of Casgrain with the parking lots and drop-off area. I will have a booth there to showcase the printed work that I have done over my three year program. The table will include an 8.5 x 11 inch magazine portfolio that has a comment section in case someone can’t talk to me, business cards, various projects, and a big box of Timbits! Sure it is a bit redundant to have that the event since there already are snacks, but its nice.

These past three years have been really great for me. I came into this program a bit scared since I never did too many art classes over my high school years. My improvement as a designer have been very noticeable over the years, from a simple type poster to the Spiral Knights Stamps for my second to last semester. Those were done with bits of Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator. Those tools have aided my heavily and I enjoy using them to express myself, but I have also been working with other programs. Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects have been working great for improving my video editing skills. Even Dimensions is proving itself to be a great way to quickly make my own mockups for my work. I look very forward to having my own mockups instead of using other people’s for my website.

Before this blog post, I never really questioned where I imagined myself in 5 – 10 years in the future. I honestly do not know where I’ll end up with how things are going with the economy and all that. There’s only really what I really do good at as a means of having a hint what to do in the future.

Classes and Future Job Prospects

Out of all the classes I do the best at, I’d have to say a mix between Video Editing, Photography, Illustration, Photoshop, and Animation. Video editing comes first because I seem to learn how to edit videos quickly. That goes hand in hand with Animation because I also went above and beyond in that with my final project for that (link). Then there’s the issue of AI becoming more prevalent in recent years. These algorithms are very threatening to my career, as both a graphic designer and web designer. Graphic is affected by AI generated art whether it is DALL-E or Illustrator’s new text to vector “feature”. Web is affected by ChatGPT too, easily making text that pleases the SEO lords. Those two especially worry me going down the line, since they’re not being used as tools and more like cheap replacements for designers and artists.

Dream Job

I think that my dream job will most likely be small commissions of a more personal feel. This can be seen in my best work because they happen whenever I’m hyper fixated. These fixations can be applied to the Spiral Knights Stamps, and the Star Trek Poster (link) I made. What I want to do to improve my work for the dream job is learn how to use my Wacom table more effectively. Perhaps get Clip Studio Paint or some other art program and compare between that and Photoshop brushes. In general, whichever job I get in the future, I want it to at least use my college diploma to know that this was worth it.

Hello there once again! This may seem repetitive with the subject, but I’m re-stating my short-term goals. These goals have changed a bit since the last time I wrote about them. I’m still planning on moving near Ottawa once college is done with. There, I want to take a year off since I’ve been in the education system for most of my life at this point.

In-Ottawa Plans

Take one or two small freelance jobs, some for clients and maybe my friends. During this, I want to learn the lay of the land, especially Ottawa. My goals with the capital are to find where its restaurants are, gain some clients, and find a Popeye’s chicken. A pre-requisite for those goals would be to get comfortable with buses and learn how to drive. I can’t call myself a responsible adult if I never learn how to drive!

College Stage Goals

Before all of that, I need to get through the rest of this semester. There’s still the notion of creating a proper one-page CV to ensure everything is digestible for the reader. A stage needs to be worked to get something under my belt. I’ve been thinking about going for either Creative Studio by Vee Vee or B Factory. I do have my equal concerns for both, such as whether they’ll look good as stage host for my CV. My idea of a dream job is to lean towards B Factory because I like the idea of their beeswax packaging. To be able to help create a new look for their packaging seems very fun and interesting. Due to that, I am willing to do work in French to further my work. Whichever I choose in the future, my goal in either is to create well designed work that is expected of me as a last semester GWD student.