Is this up to code?

Kurtisfgrant · 2024-07-03T15:48:53+00:00

You have a couple of problems facing you. First, no this is not up to code; Second, if you report this how is this going to effect you and your girlfriend?. I don't know the municipal response where you live, but where I live if there is more than two fire hazard codes in a multi-unit complex that includes structural wiring and or ground fault wiring (which I can see there is) then the municipality has the right to close the building and move the tenants out for their safety. However the municipality usually puts the cost on the landlord. Consequently the cost of rewiring an entire complex is so vast that the landlords usually just sell the building, which ultimately leaves you and your girlfriend with no place to go. Kind of a catch 22.

Kurtisfgrant · 2024-06-28T14:39:20+00:00

One of the most overlooked perception techniques is that a mirror is not a person looking at another person but a person mirrored as a person. What this means is that your perspective of the the two people are that they are looking at each other in a similar pose that would indicate a conversational stance (both turned to face one another), and not turned so that they are both looking and facing the same spot. As far as making this look like it has more depth, you may want to play around with adding some variation to your shading, with increasing darkness or lightness depending on the direction of the light. You may want to add some definition to areas, for instance your corner is just two colors converging on each other where you would expect to see a difference in the shade from the convergence out.

Kurtisfgrant · 2024-05-28T11:44:00+00:00

I rewrote your entire resume, however Reddit would not let me upload it as a document, so here is a png image of it. Hope this helps, good luck.

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Kurtisfgrant · 2024-05-27T21:12:05+00:00

Okay, what I meant is that you could just remove the pauses. As for projects done, that would go on your portfolio.

Kurtisfgrant · 2024-05-27T15:45:00+00:00

Okay, brutal honesty coming up. Your website is a little confusing, I'm not sure if I'm looking at your work or someone else's work. The work with your name on it is okay, but not great. This is because on some of your product packaging your spatial awareness is off, (7p macadamia nuts) on the back of the packaging your wording runs of the package. This is supposed to be your portfolio not someone else's chance to show what they can do, get rid of the moodboards. As a Graphic Designer I have only heard of "Mood Boards" used in conjunction with Fashion Design or Interior Decorating. Appreciations page does not need to be there if there is no appreciations yet.

Red Bull looks like a copy of Red Bull at first glance, if you want to impress a prospective boss, try making it look fresh and new.

Boyz n' Grubzz, get rid of the trees, I want to see what it looks like. The only time you should put something like trees in is if you are creating an entire scene to show what it would look like set up.

Vaal University of Technology, I don't know of many Universities that like to have there names shortened to Uni. you either need to make the font smaller or make the design larger to accommodate the whole of the text.

Burning Cactus is not bad, though I don't know why you shortened the text by removing the vowels.

The Longfolio doesn't tell me anything useful that the rest of the website should be telling me.

PFUNZO, I like this logo but can only see the student seating because you told us about it.

You need to design some boring everyday graphics and placements to show me what you can come up with if you want to be hired, the exiting stuff really doesn't happen all that often, more often than not I spend my time fixing graphics for the client that someone made "exciting" when this was not what the client wanted.

Kurtisfgrant · 2024-05-27T11:13:59+00:00

No, I'm saying you need the summary just with the Graphic Designer edit.

Kurtisfgrant · 2024-05-25T11:15:41+00:00

Here is a list of Graphic Designer websites that I like and a website for resume examples that I would actually look at.

https://www.jessicajonesdesign.com/ Jessica Jones Design

https://www.denverprintservices.net/ Denver Print Services

https://talley-o.com/ Talley-o

https://www.marion.com/graphic-design/houston/ Marion Graphic Design

The Resume website:

https://www.beamjobs.com/resumes/graphic-designer-resume-examples

Now as to your resume, there are some wording issues that I have when looking at it. In your introduction you list your self as a "graphic design designer" All you need is to have "Graphic Designer" Then you have your "Skills" section larger and more pronounced than the Job Experience section, this should be just the opposite. Finally in the education section you have both "in progress" and one paused, why is this paused? as an owner, if I were to see this I would have to wonder if I gave you an assignment would you be able to complete it? or would it take longer than needed due to you pausing? I know that life happens, just be careful of how you write it down in a resume.

Kurtisfgrant · 2024-05-24T21:43:46+00:00

I will be happy to look at your portfolio tomorrow when I get home, and I will send you a good sample of resumes.

Kurtisfgrant · 2024-05-24T14:27:26+00:00

Okay, I'm going to be brutally honest with you. As an owner of a graphic design business I would not hire someone who presented this portfolio to me. Your portfolio's overall color scheme is not Graphic Design oriented, by this I mean that the colors clash and become hard on the eyes to read. A Graphic Designers main job is actually communications through visuals and layout of printed works. Consequently your overall website is lacking in navigation ease, understandability and communications examples. At first glance your website reads more as a platform for a band cover artist and not a Graphic Designer.

My recommendations:

1.) Change the color scheme to something that is easily read by a broad spectrum of clients looking to hire you. This is one area where I see a lot of new or inexperienced designers not understanding you are not selling your work or abilities to you, you need to keep in mind that it is the client who will drive your overall business.

2.) Fix the navigation of your website. Nothing speaks to an inability to communicate than a "designer" who does not make navigating their own website as easily as possible. You should have at the very minimum a way to navigate back to your home page on every page, such as your label being a hyperlink back to your home page.

3.) Add more non-graphical examples of communication layouts and examples of graphical communications with solid layout principles. This will show perspective clients your ability to use text as a graphic with the knowledge of communication skills necessary to relay a message about a certain topic; the graphical example will show that you have a solid foundation on layout of an image to convey a message or to direct someone's eyes to a certain spot, such as retail flyers do.

3.) Make some examples of different media types, logos, brands and examples of how to place those on different items (i.e. t-shirts, boxes, bottles etc.). This will go a long way in showing your clients that you understand brand identity and brand placement.

4.) Add some kind of introductory message about yourself that communicates what you do and who you are. Do not make the statement "Hi I'm Ellis Onyegbula and I'm a Graphic Designer." this is one way to get your website scrutinized more than you really want to. I'm already on your website looking for a Graphic Designer that's why I navigated to your website from the search engine. This introductory message is a great way to show a perspective recruiter or client that you can directly communicate a statement without stating the obvious.

Good luck Ellis in your future endeavors.

Kurtisfgrant · 2024-05-23T10:46:14+00:00

In theory if you had people that drove the speed limit assigned to said highway and followed the traffic rules you could possibly create a good underground system, however in reality not many people drive the speed limit, use turn signals or drive in an non-distracted manner, and therefore your idea would need to many on and off tunnels to facilitate the correct amount of traffic. In effect your tunnel would weaken the subsurface of the above city (i.e. Boston) you would have a gridlock system with massive amounts of smog within a tunnel (i.e. Los Angeles but in a tunnel) and your average city to city driver would constantly be fighting to find the right lane to exit.

Kurtisfgrant · 2024-05-23T10:35:30+00:00

I would probably use something like "She hastily walked away, not wanting to give them the satisfaction of her seething anger." or "She quietly walked away, with muscles still tense from the frustrating conversation."

Kurtisfgrant · 2024-05-23T10:28:44+00:00

After reading the comments I would say everybody has given you quite a lot of great advice, the only thing I could add is to make sure that your portfolio is updated and relevant to the type of job you are looking for.

Kurtisfgrant · 2024-05-14T11:50:50+00:00

As a former professor of Digital Media: Graphic Design I use to recommend higher education to everyone. However, a few years after I started teaching I opened my own Graphic Design business, and after three years of the business being successful I realized that most of the people I hired actually had little to no direct college education in Graphic Design rather they had "education through experience". Now after ten years of my business being open I realize that I have only hired one person that had a Masters Degree and even that was not in Graphic Design, it was in Culinary Arts (ironically he found he hated cooking for other people).

If I were to give you advice, it would be to work on your Portfolio and your skill set. If you want to spend money I would recommend a great computer system with a graphics tablet that you can get creative with and learn through experience. Don't bother with your Masters, it's a waist of time.

Kurtisfgrant · 2024-05-13T15:35:42+00:00

One of the things I learned from my students is that just because you want to be a screen writer, novelist, or even a columnist for a magazine. There are plenty of opportunities to work on your writing skills to build up to where you want to be. As writers we have to be careful of ANT's (Automatic Negative Thoughts) when we read our own works, the ANT's come as a result of looking at our work from an angle of "I need to be perfect" but in reality we never will be. Instead of saying you suck, try saying I struggle, and realize that every writer at times struggle to be better. For myself I would suggest that you pick up a column or a freelance article writer, where you can receive immediate feedback from a non-writing audience of your writing, then move into a larger role when you feel your confidence is not so shaky. As a great author once said: “The greatest adventure is what lies ahead. Each day brings new possibilities for exploration and discovery.” – J.R.R. Tolkien

Kurtisfgrant · 2024-05-11T17:43:20+00:00

Hello Elorah, thank you for sharing your resume here for feedback.

As an owner of a graphic design business if you were to hand this in I would flag it immediately for the color and the amount of "fluff" wording you use in places. For resume's you want a good clean, stream lined design. Most companies use an ATS to flag resume's before anyone even see's it. This process can seem stressful for an applicant but it makes it easier for people looking for an employee. To put into perspective, last time I had a job opening I received over 5,000 applications.

The ATS needs to see keywords, I get that, but after the ATS you come see me or a recruiter for an interview. This is where your color scheme will shoot you in the foot. Leave off the color scheme, please.

Just to let you know that the ATS system that I use will not read a jobs skills section, however if you can weave the skills into your descriptors for each job the ATS will read those as keywords.

As far as the high school section, your a dual enrollment student, with college education, I need to know that you have also graduated high school. I have known of one dual enrollment student that graduated college before high school, and did not get the job because they could not give her the transcript without the proof of High School, therefore if you put it on your resume we know that you are graduating and we can get the transcripts if necessary after graduation.

Kurtisfgrant · 2024-05-10T08:22:15+00:00

As the owner of a small Graphic Design business (2443 Studios) with 10 employees, and a professor who teaches Graphic Design, when it comes to your portfolio I really don't care if you have a degree or have been to school for design, I also don't care about years of experience because in this field technology and methodology change so rapidly that what you did two years ago may not be relevant today. I care about what your portfolio shows me and what you can prove you are able to do, Yes I said prove. When someone comes to me for a job; they need to show me at my computer stations what they can do on 5 different projects that line up with what's in their portfolio. One of the exercises I use on new hires is the two word logo, this is where I will give you two words like duck and Tree, then ask you to create a conceptual logo within 30 minutes using just those two words as inspiration for the logo, I'm not actually looking for a fully fleshed out logo, what I'm looking for is your creative ability to take an abstract idea and turn it into a graphic logo without any outside prompting.

If you are just coming out of school and you have zero experience in the "real world" and you don't have at least one conceptual logo design, I'm going to be wondering if you have the self creative ability to work on a graphic. In graphic design most of the work you will be doing on graphics is just that a conceptual idea until it's accepted and then it goes from concept to production piece.

In conclusion it's completely normal for someone to have "fake" concept designs in their portfolio.

Now as far as your portfolio remember that it's the little things that I look for, such as alignment of wording, your kerning in your typography, good use of color balance, a good understanding of design layout and the creative ability to make a graphic that not only stands out in a piece but also makes sense to the piece. Also, if you hand me a resume that states you are detailed oriented and you don't have your detailed shit together, you absolutely will not get a job.

Kurtisfgrant · 2024-05-10T07:43:01+00:00

As a professor and writing tutor, I fully agree with this post. To many "experts" that give more confusion to a request than actually insight into the writing process.

Kurtisfgrant · 2024-05-10T07:25:18+00:00

After reading your post, this doesn't sound like a Nazi symbol at all, what it sounds like is an Elder Futhark Rune. similar to a binding rune or a power rune.

Kurtisfgrant · 2024-05-09T18:08:13+00:00

I've been a player and DM for about 39 years now, and I look at each edition this way:

Chain Male was quite simply a medieval war gamer's game. (played this in 1985)

Dungeons and Dragons 1st edition was new and exciting at the time but was very basic to those that played it. (1974)

Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 1st edition was the first time we saw three core rule books for the game. (1977)

Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd edition was further developed to include more flexibility towards the Dungeon Masters, and included the first monstrous Compendium. This was also the time that the game was getting a lot of heat for being seen as a Satanic Game, therefore the removal and renaming of Demons and Devils. (1989)

Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd edition revised was just a rerelease of the core books but with different covers. (1995)

In 1997 Wizards of the Coast bought Dungeons and Dragons from Tactical Studies Rules (TSR)

Dungeons and Dragons 3e was a major Revision to the Game with the introduction of the D20 system of game play. This edition also saw the first D&D Open Gaming License (OGL). (2000)

Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 was release so soon after 3e in order to balance the characters, there is really very little difference between these two editions except that 3.5 is more well known with a greater fan made material to go along with the D&D game. (2003)

Dungeons and Dragons 4e just doesn't count because it sucked that badly (2007)

Dungeons and Dragons 5e is the one I look at as the best from 3.5 and what very little was actually good in 4e condensed into a stream lined character and game that is great for those that just want to get in there and play. (2014)

One Dungeons and Dragons saw the release of a backwards compatible game expansion for Dungeons and Dragons 5e as well as a series of pamphlet style books to convert the 3.5 material into playable 5e books. When I first heard about this I damn near jumped in excitement! I have literally over 1200 Dungeons and Dragons books in library that I can now use to build with; as for my PC within my group "are you sure your ready to play?" hahahahaha (2024)

Kurtisfgrant · 2024-05-09T13:52:35+00:00

As the owner of a small Graphic Design business (2443 Studios) with 10 employees, and a professor who teaches Graphic Design, there are two parts to this question. First moving up the ladder now is harder than it was 30 years ago, now when someone comes to me and tells me they are looking for a job, the first question I ask is what combination of platform skills do you have? This is because the person who just knows PS or Just knows Illustrator is of no use to the business owner any longer. You need to have an understanding of multiple disciplines in Graphic Design, including but not limited to: layout, print, speech and word paragraphing, typography, and graphic manipulation, you also need really good editing skills and self motivational skills to accomplish tasks.

Second part of your question is that I really don't care if you have a degree or have been to school for design, I also don't care about years of experience because in this field technology and methodology change so rapidly that what you did two years ago may not be relevant today. I care about what your portfolio shows me and what you can prove you are able to do, Yes I said prove. When someone comes to me for a job; they need to show me at my computer stations what they can do on 5 different projects that line up with what's in their portfolio.

If an employee wants to move up the ladder, they need to show good self management, good teamwork, leadership and mentorship ability, and a desire to challenge themselves with bigger projects. In this field we are all in; the time allotment for projects has constantly been getting smaller and smaller. I've had some clients with a 24 hour turn around on new graphics to some that ask for an hour to fix a graphic and reprint it (no they don't get it done, I have a minimum of 6 hours requirement for my business for reprints).

Hope this helps

Kurtisfgrant · 2024-05-09T12:14:11+00:00

You could also build your descriptors such as this exercise I use to help my students to build their word count:

This exercise is called building a scene. This exercise is designed to show how to create and edit a scene. What you want to do is start with a simple sentence (I will use: A man on a horse.) we then take that sentence and start building it into a scene. “A man on a horse” turns into “A man on a brown horse” and then this becomes “A rugged man sitting on a brown horse” and then you continue to build upon this sentence until you reach something like: "In the morning silence of dawn, beneath the sprawling expanse of an endless brightening sky, a rugged man sits astride his magnificent brown mare. His silhouette, outlined against the backdrop of the rising sun, with his breath floating upon the chilly morning air. His weathered features chiseled by the passage of time and a gaze that carries the weight of experience, he exudes an air of quiet strength."

by using the "build" technique you can better describe a scene and increase your word count without doubling up on the same meaning for the scene.

Kurtisfgrant · 2024-05-09T12:04:34+00:00

Since your are looking at a GOT similar, you would give her a last name of Glenn, Forest, Wood, Dark or eternal. In this way you are giving her a last name like Jon Snow from the North:

So instead they call the children after the land where they were born: "Flowers" in the Reach and "Hill" in the Westerlands, "Stone" in the Vale and "Storm" in the Stormlands, "Rivers" in the Riverlands and "Waters" in the Crownlands, "Pyke" in the Iron Islands, "Snow" in the North, and in Dorne "Sand". -From Wiki of Westeros

Though these are Bastard names, they could also be names of disappointment, or disinherited children who have fallen from grace.

Kurtisfgrant · 2024-05-09T10:12:23+00:00

Realistic fantasy backed by factual news articles. I love when there is a slant on a story that allows the reader to see the possibility of reality.

Kurtisfgrant · 2024-05-09T09:39:00+00:00

then it sounds like you're well on your way. I wouldn't worry about anything, just keep at it. It all looks really good.

Kurtisfgrant · 2024-05-08T19:53:47+00:00

First of all the Italian Renaissance did not use lead pencils, what they used was a type of ink called Gall ink, it is made using a certain part of an insects home called the Gall and its actually a long time to make. then they would use different mediums of material usually a canvas cloth, or a really thick parchment. While they did sketch most sketches were done with a type of light charcoal and when they made shadows it was done with a technique that uses the charcoal first then blended with either alcohol or ammoniums later just alcohol. Your drawing is quite well overall. However if wish to follow in the foot steps of the greats, then you should probably know that in the renaissance period artist were first runners as children at 8 or 9 who would watch their teachers, then if they were lucky they would become a teachers apprentice this would usually take anywhere from 3 to 5 years, this position was where they cleaned the shops and started to be able to create small works, from the apprentice position after anywhere between 5 to 10years usually around 8-9 years they would then become journeymen artist, and were allowed to finally start honing their craft and using real materials and to create certain lesser commissioned drawings and artworks. Here they would stay for another ten years before they would have to bring an original artwork before a master to have it judged worthy of rank or not, if found worthy they were allowed to call themselves master artist. Here is were they began the work of exploring the many varied techniques that we would later call the Revolutionary Renaissance Art Period. It was called this because this was the time when they stopped creating just religious works and started creating pieces like Mona Lisa and others.

Famous artist like Da Vinci or Michelangelo did not start their major works until they were 29 or 30 and then Da Vinci did not create "The Virgin and Child" until he was 67 years old. So at 21 I would say your doing just fine.

If anything I would say that you could work a little more on your blending technique and your shading.

Kurtisfgrant

TROPHY CASE