Casa Basa ˜ blending art with technology

Course Description:This course focuses on the completion of a student’s portfolio and enables the student to begin a career search. Students present work for the portfolio, then review and determine the quality of the work and make any enhancements necessary. The student also completes a professional resume and extensive job search.

Download the Word version of your syllabus here

List of lectures and labs

Weeks: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Students should check this section weekly prior to class. Updated lectures, homework, and points are listed below. Feel free to email me at sharon@casabasa.com if you have any questions.

Week 1:

Link to Career Services schedule of important dates: Career Services Calendar (.pdf)

Focus: Resume and cover letter. Overview of the department's expectations. Your career services representative, Cori Miller, will be in class at 3:00 pm to discuss and review graduation requirements.

Lecture: Review of requirements for completing portfolio for graduation. Second class, look at the work to date.

What should be included in your portfolio? What does your site say about you?

Portfolio II requirements: Download checklist (.pdf)

Lab: Collect what you have but weed it down to your best 15 to 25 pieces. List what you know you want to create for anything that is missing. Prepare this to be discussed in the second class.

Homework: Collect all potential portfolio pieces and organize. Create asset list.

Week 2:

Focus: Be prepared. Class exercises in focusing on what you want to achieve.

Lecture: Present calendar and portfolio design plan at beginning of class for critique. Examples of Letterhead and business cards and resumes presented

Review of presentation of css and html. What constitutes a well-crafted page?

http://techpassion.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/css-best-practices/

http://portlandinternetdesign.com/tutorials/css-for-beginners/01/3-tips-for-mean-clean-css-code/

http://meyerweb.com/eric/css/

Lab: Begin work on first area. Finalize portfolio projects and/or design unfinished areas. Those wishing to speak at graduation should submit first drafts of speeches to Career Services.
Homework: Compose calendar plan.

 

Week 3:

First Committee Review:
Student must have their own URL.

All projects must be presented professionally.
Business cards in BW
Resume in BW

Copy should be proofread by Week 3.

Submit a drawing of your physical space at the show, make note of the backdrop behind you and signage.

Homework: Continue work on unfinished portions of portfolio as homework. Bring hard copy of print for spelling/grammar check prior to submission for review.

Interesting sites:

• (from Neil Tan) http://www.fuelyourcreativity.com/alternative-ideas-for-designing-a-web-portfolio/
• (from Sebastian Jaramillo) http://freelancefolder.com/qualities-to-become-a-top-freelancer/
• Lightwindow 2.0
• New from alumni Mark Ammay: http://markammay.com/

Week 4:

Lecture: Review of portfolio to date. Business cards and resume and demo cover letter on stationery. Marketing statements due week 6 is discussed.
Lab: Continue work on portfolio. Finalize work on Business Cards and Stationery.
Homework: Collect all potential portfolio pieces and organize. Begin thinking of your marketing statements. Examples of past WDIM graduates marketing statements. Homework week 4 .pdf

Favorite Past Portfolios:

• Scarlet Muse - Lisa Martinskis
• Allard Creative - Matthew Allard
• MGC Digital Designs - Marcello Cadillo
• Nickd.info - Nicholas Dykzeul
• UnfinishedDream.com - Dana Sheikholeslami

 

Week 5:

Focus: Portfolio review. Please send your url in the next two weeks to an outside person to review. Ask them to critique and tell you what they liked, didn't like, and wanted more or less of. And ask if there were any technical difficulties. Please send a summary of your critique and your planned actions via email. Internship 12-1 10 U.N. room 501. Listed at the AI Jobs Board.

Lecture: Give away mini-portfolios and Business Cards and Resume on Stationery due for critique. In-class demo on making Acrobat PDF’s.
Lab: Resume due to Career Services or me. Creating PDF resume and portfolio representation. Your career services representative, Cori Miller, will be in class at 10:30 a.m.
Homework: Print portfolio should be underway and prepared for a first printing by Week 6 when we have a review of your portfolios by outside designers. Business cards should be ordered now if graduating. Complete marketing statements, due next week. Career Services Powerpoint. Match Talent Sample Marketing Blurbs.

Graduation Clearance Form (.pdf)
Key Dates for Career Services and Graduation (.pdf)

http://www.aicasfjobs.com/

 

Week 6:

Portfolio Text
The final web portfolio text must be proofread and approved by the instructor first. Have the official proofreader approve text and grammar. If you change your text before printing, you must have both your teacher and the proofreader re-approve your text. You will not graduate with typos in your portfolio.

Lab: A process book and/or media kit usually will include the following items: Overview, Research, Target Audience, Competitors, Design Sketches, Usability and Technology, Flow chart, Prototype, and Final. A media kit might be used to package your resume, sample of work (screenshots of interface, coding, mind-mapping, sketches, assets, etc. can be included), business card, marketing statement and to emphasize your skills and what makes you unique. It's an abridged form of who you are.

Homework: Collect all potential portfolio pieces and organize. Research on industry specific companies to include contact names, address, web site information and synopsis of company's goal, objectives and target industry is due next week for discussion. This is will provide you information to conduct an informational interview with the company of your choice. This project will be due week 9.

Interesting sites and valuable information:

• What to include in your design contracts

http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/title-tag

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/03/googles-seo-report-card.html

http://www.hobo-web.co.uk/seo-blog/anchor-text-length/

informational interviews | Informational Interviewing (.pdf)by Olivia Crosby

Proofreading schedule for this quarter: Summer 2011 schedule of portfolio proofreading.

 

Week 7:

Focus: Industry portfolio review. Industry professionals, academic director and csa will review your work.

Industry portfolio critiques:

Dana Sheikholeslami, http://unfinisheddream.com/, AI alum currently working at Western Digital especially with user interface and usability, will be in at 1:00 to answer questions, share information and review your portfolios.

Then at 2:00, Career Service's Cori Miller will be escorting Jonathan Niemuth from Vonchurch, will be conducting critiques. http://www.vonchurch.com/ A great opportunity to speak to someone with tremendous experience.

 

Lecture: Print Portfolio Complete and printed in B/W. Show a mock up of your web portfolio. Show business card and resume.

You will be notified if you are "on track" to graduate or if you will need more time to complete the portfolio in an additional quarter.

Lab: Clean up and improve any areas designated by critique.

Homework: keep working, buy or make case. Completed linked .pdf due next week. Appointment from content approval must be made by week 9 AFTER I have proofed it myself. Get it to me asap.

Proofreading schedule:

Monday  1-5pm, Todd Robinson, 1170 605 (todrobinson@aii.edu)

 

Tuesday  12-1pm, John Stover, 1170 706 (jstoveriii@aii.edu)

 1-3pm, Annie Fisher, 10UN 515 (anfisher@aii.edu or 415-276-4023)

 

Wednesday       10am-12pm, Bo Breda, 10UN 301 (bbreda@aii.edu)

                       12-1pm, Alice Templeton, 10UN 507 (btempleton@aii.edu)

 

Thursday     12-1pm, Kathleen Jones, Library, 2nd Floor 10UN (kjones@aii.edu)

                  12-1pm, John Stover, 1170 706 (jstoveriii@aii.edu)

 

Friday   12-1pm, Kathleen Jones, Library, 2nd Floor 10UN (kjones@aii.edu)

 

Week 8:

Focus: Linked print portfolio (the .pdf online version) is due.

Lecture: Individual Portfolio advisement, print emphasis. Special guest reviewer, Lauren Merka. Lauren is a graduate of the AI Web Design and Interactive Media program. Here is how she describes herself:

"Attended Trinity University from 2001-2005, graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, minors in Art and Business. I did not want a job doing anything computer science related (ie programming). I worked for Circuit City selling computers for a year, attempted to sell mortgages right before the housing market collapsed....HATED IT!!! Realized all the job listings I was attracted to required a portfolio of some sort, thus began my time with the Art Institute!

I was originally very interested in the design aspect of the WDIM major until I was introduced to Flash and ActionScript 3.0. I soon realized that I wanted to spend more time adding interaction and functionality programmatically instead of making the design better.

I got my current job while attending a portfolio show a quarter before my graduation time. Had an impromptu interview with a couple of guys from eBaum's World and they hired me to be a web developer! I absolutely adore my job, even 1 1/2 years later. I program on a daily basis in PHP, Javascript, ActionScript 3.0, MySQL, HTML/CSS. My company recently launched a new website called Celebremix and I was responsible for about 95% of it. (Database designs, Object Oriented PHP classes design for developing the entire CMS using elements of Zend Framework, Javascript support for interactivity, slicing PSDs, CSS, developing the HTML5 meme generating tool, anything except design! Although I do usually tell our product manager if I think something is ugly or isn't lined up correctly or is a terrible color choice!). The site went from concept to completion in 3 months. It was so much fun to get to build it from scratch! ....I think that's about it!"

Lab: What kind of questions are you asking in your informational interviews?

Homework: Complete leave behind piece, due week 10. All work - everything - is due week 10.

Week 9:

 

Focus: Graduates: Required career services media is uploaded to AI portfolio site. Email 20 professionals of upcoming portfolio show. Loan exit meeting. Web site should be technically completed. Print/Media kit or process book should be completed. .pdf version of process book is linked within site. All work is due.

Lecture: Informational Interviews are due in written version. Please include who you contacted, why you chose them, and the questions you asked.

Lab: Ongoing critiques. Final sign off of content due today.

Homework: Complete all print portfolio pieces and assemble into high-quality .pdf format (graduates). Class presentations of your final portfolio next week.

Grades to date: as of Sept. 12 link to grades

Week 10:

Focus: No hassle for the tassel for the graduates. Web sites are submitted for critique. Please send your link of your final portfolio to your instructor, director, and one outside industry professional for review.

Lecture:

Third Committee Review:
Web portfolio complete and uploaded. Business card and resume finalized. Bring Print document in color.

1. Client Objectives
2. Marketing Plan
3. Implementation Plan
4. Target Audience
5. Persona
6. Process Page
7. Flowchart
8. Wireframe
9. Competitive Analysis
10. Resume
11. Business Card
12. Services Page

Lab: Work on public portfolio shows presentation. Space design will be examined and discussed. All exit interviews and signature sheets should be completed by this time.
Homework: Prepare presentation signage

Week 11:

Focus: Portfolio show. Hotel Whitcomb. Set up at 1, show from 4-8 p.m.

Lecture: Final presentations

Lab: Presentations of portfolios. Public Portfolio Presentation for Associate degrees, SHOW TIME!

Grading is based on meeting all competencies, portfolio requirements, creativity, professionalism, and individual and class participation. You must maintain a minimum of a C to pass this course. Less will result in your having to repeat the course.

You must attend all reviews by faculty and outside guest. You must turn in your projects on time. (See calendar week one.) A printed and PDF resume and portfolio packages must be given to Career Services for their assistance in getting you a job. You must present yourself and your completed portfolio in a professional manor at a public portfolio review. You will loose a grade for each element missed.

For your booth:

• 8.5" x 11" mounted sign with your name, degree and logo for your space. This must match your stationery and business cards.
• At least 20 professional resumes that have been approved by your instructor and at least 20 business cards with logo
• Business card holder for your cards

For your career advisor and your job search:

• Prior to graduation, you must meet with your career advisor and have a planning session to assist you in your job search.
• An electronic PDF and Word version of your resume for emailing to potential employers.
• 3 DVDs of digital portfolio and cover art files
• An active website
• Practice interviews, scheduled with Career Advisor at your request.

For the Registrar: Graduation Clearance Form

From Cori: Portfolio Checklist

TIMELINE

1. Arrive at Hotel Whitcomb at 1:00pm.You will set up your space and can leave once you are done.  Career services will be there the whole time to watch your stuff.  1231 Market St, by Starbucks.
2. Parking Suggestions: Behind Hotel Whitcomb (8th cross Market there are two parking lots on right @ $9) or park across street at Trinity Plaza.
3. Come back to the Hotel at 3:00pm sharp for a meeting and to get organized. 
4. 4:00-8:00pm the doors open and the fun begins!!

 

PORTFOLIO SHOW CHECKLIST

1. You will be sharing a 6 ft table with one of your classmates.  You get 3 ft of space to work with.
2. Please bring an extension cord.
3. Portfolio, don’t forget it. (Prepare for the worst in case internet is not working, have your work saved as screen shots or etc…)
4. 25-30 copies of your resume.
5. Tons of business cards.
6. Your giveaway.
7. Signage with your Name and Major (at least 11 x 17 in size). The best way to hang material and etc…on the wall behind you is tape.

 

WHAT TO WEAR

1. Dress to impress, business casual. We typically have 125-150 Employers in attendance.
2. Button down shirt.
3. Nice slacks, ironed!
4. Nice shoes.

4.    Ladies don’t forget to wear comfy shoes, you will be on your feet for 4 hours straight. You might consider bringing another pair of shoes.

5.    Ladies business casual, you do not have to wear a dress.

6.    EVERYONE, no JEANS.

 

One last note:

TO PROTECT PORTFOLIOS

·         No FOOD!!!

·         No outside food or drink (that includes alcohol) will be allowed in the Ballroom or the Mezzanine and all refreshments from the Networking area must stay on the Mezzanine.

If you need to drink Starbucks, do it before the show. Only water will be allowed behind the tables.