I've recently finished my joint degree in Interactive Art & Technology and Communication at Simon Fraser University with the co-op option. I have extensive experience in community management and customer service and have also spent much time in the fields of product management, knowledge management, and media production. With this set of skills I am looking to create an impact on the way people experience a product or service — be it directly in the product or service itself or afterwards in the community surrounding it. I have a strong interest in the mobile and gaming spaces in particular.
Class:
Interdisciplinary Design Studio
Date:
April 2010
Team Size:
5
Tools Used:
XNA Game Studio 3.1, Adobe Photoshop CS4
Objective:
Create an engaging resource management game.
Process:
The first thing we did was think of a target audience we were comfortable creating a game for. From there, we looked at what types of games they may like to play and what twists we could put on those games to make them more engaging. Our final idea was for a more dynamic take on the tower defense genre. Instead of an action-stop-action model, we wanted to create a tower defense game always in the action state. This involved putting in a fully controllable avatar who also acted as an ever changing target for the enemies. I was the programmer on this project while my team members took care of artwork and sound. We collaborated on the design as a team.
Class:
Immersive Environments
Date:
April 2010
Team Size:
6
Tools Used:
Autodesk Maya 2010, Apple Final Cut Pro 6
Objective:
Create an animated short.
Process:
We set upon a more cartoony shading style reminiscent of Valve's Team Fortress 2. The idea was to make a humourous piece centred around a day in a man's utterly mediocre life. The ending, however, was something we wanted to be extraordinary in stark contrast to the rest of the piece. I was the editor on the piece and got to be the final step in putting together the production. Working with animation was interesting as although taking a few seconds of extra footage is second nature in live action film, in animation it can mean another hour or two of rendering. As a result, making cuts and smooth transitions was much more challenging.
Class:
Moving Images
Date:
January 2009
Team Size:
3
Tools Used:
Apple Final Cut Pro 6
Objective:
Create a 5 minute documentary.
Process:
We decided to make this a video that the high school robotics team could use as a recruiting tool to find more members. Taking that angle, we decided to highlight the roles one could play on the team and what it could lead into in the future. We also made sure to introduce the concept of high school robotics so that those unaware of it would be informed of what they were getting themselves into, and the more fun parts of the team so they knew what to look forward to.
Class:
Narrative in New Media
Date:
December 2008
Team Size:
4
Tools Used:
Adobe Flash CS3, Adobe Illustrator CS3, Adobe Photoshop CS3
Objective:
Create an interactive narrative experience.
Process:
After deciding upon our story's format, a superhero themed comic in the style of Choose Your Own Adventure books, we created a storyboard of how we wanted to lay out our narrative. Our artists then drew the panels while our writer created the dialog. My part was putting together the interface. Our decision to go an extra level deeper meant that the ending changes not only on the last choice picked, but previous choices as well.
Class:
Design Thinking
Date:
April 2009
Team Size:
3
Tools Used:
Adobe Illustrator CS3, Adobe Photoshop CS3
Objective:
Create a proposal for a television show about the design of various architectural points of interests around the world with the Egyptian pyramids as an example.
Process:
We split up the research of this project to concentrate on what we were most knowledgeable about. I was to work on the design of the actual TV show. After the tremendous success of the Planet Earth series on the back of High Definition displays and media, I looked at what could be the next big thing. Looking at the focus of CES 2010 and the box office numbers of Avatar, I think I made the correct assumption in predicting 3D TV to be the perfect technology for which our series could be a showcase for. It was also my job to look at distribution methods to maximize revenue and viewership. With a mix of broadcast, physical media, and digital distribution, we provided a solution that was more forward-thinking than most media conglomerates at the time.
Class:
Publication Design and Print Production
Date:
October 2011
Team Size:
1
Tools Used:
Adobe Photoshop CS5, Adobe InDesign CS5
Objective:
Design a print magazine ad for a coffee shop with six list items, a slogan, and company logo to a specific size.
Process:
I got the idea for doing something light-hearted about being able to get coffee from anywhere without the bother of air travel from the name of a coffee shop I'd been to recently. To get to this specific idea I brainstormed using rapid thumbnail sketches. In the creation the image, I laid out a plastic tablecloth over a table and spilled the coffee carefully before putting the cup down above it. After putting some more coffee in the mug to make it look as if it had come from there, I laid out small stickers with the letters so they floated in a legible fashion. After photographing the scene, some cropping and lighting work was done in Photoshop before taking it into InDesign where the text and logo were inserted.
