Spring ’18 Final
Hi, everyone!
Congratulations on a good semester! For the 3/4 of you who are graduating this week – wow! good luck! For the few of you returning in the fall, good luck to you too!
As you know, we had 3 visitors at our final, and in longer crits than we usually do, we managed to look at 3 of your websites. I’m sorry we didn’t get to look at more than 3, but all of you that I spoke to seemed to feel that the feedback applied to your site just as well, so I think it was a good day for everyone. Thanks for bringing all the food in! That definitely made it a bit more fun.
Guests
- Alex Vasquez – digisavvy.com • @alexjvasquez (twitter)
- Dr. J – @JRodriguez_PhD (twitter)
- Sean DuFrene – seandufrene.com • @seandufrene (IG)
Sites Critiqued
- Julie Pavlacka – Photography – veusik.com
- Amro Emghaoech – Animation – amroemgh.wordpress.com
- Lindsey Guest – UX Design – guestlm05.wixsite.com/lguest
Parting Thoughts
It was great meeting all of you, and honestly, I think you all did strong work this semester. The big question that’s been with all semester is
What is the purpose of your website?
Next semester I want to put more focus on answering that question from Day 1.
Have you ever seen this old IBM commercial?
Of course, you are all artists far too good to make spinning logos or flaming logos! And the older guy was talking about business solutions, not art portfolios. But inherent in his point is still a message for us. Yes, aestheticized sites are always good. Yes, we’ve all suffered through ugly, hard-to-navigate sites and hated it. But what really matters is accomplishing a specific goal. For us, that goal is to present our work and make connections. Connections to:
- Art Galleries
- Animation Studios
- Design Studios
- Advertising Agencies
- HR Directors
- Creative Directors
- Curators
- Collectors
- Photography Clients
- Design Clients
and so on.
I think that joke about the Village Idiot being a Great Marksman that I told too many times is really important for us. When you paint your target (make your website) first, and then shoot your arrow (try to show in a gallery, get hired, etc) it’s really easy for your Arrow & Target to wind up in different places.
When you “shoot first” (choose your communication goals) and then paint your target (build your website) your target will always flow directly to your Arrow/Communication goals. It’s something to keep thinking about and adjusting for many years ahead!
Keep in Touch
If you’d like to keep in touch, IRL, or URL, I’m not hard to find! Of course, there’s Slack! Your account there will stay on. I won’t be deleting anyone. However, I think that now that the semester is over, it will be pretty quiet there. So here are some other ways to stay in contact. A couple of IRL options for those of you returning to campus, and some URL options for everyone.
- IRL: USU / Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf – M/W 1-2p
- IRL: SOA / Gallery Courtyard – Most M/W during weeks 4-13 3:30 – 4:45p
- URL: My Website
- URL: IG / metro_glenn
- URL: FB / facebook.com/art490
- URL: LinkedIn / linkedin.com/in/zucman
- URL: LinkedIn / Group: CSULB SOA Professional Practices
And, of course, don’t forget that you’ve got lots of contact info for each other on the class page:
Congratulations, Graduates! Congratulations, Everyone! Good luck on the road ahead! Have a great summer! Get some rest. Earn a few dollars. Have some fun.
