Author: Jonathan Baez

Between school, internships, and hobbies, I use a few different applications to ensure I have everything I need somewhere and easy to reach digitally. Today, I’ll be talking about 2 very useful applications that help me stay productive: Notion and Backup & Sync by Google.

 

Notion – This application is hands-down a really great way to organize anything you need. From note taking to calorie counting, this app can do it all. Most people see it as an alternative to the Google suite as it offers everything Google has to offer in one place. I’d say this app works perfectly when combining google drive into the mix but more on that later. I actually began using this app when it came to signing up for internships. I saw a few videos online on how people use this platform to organize everything they do and how it ends up looking really clean and pleasing.

With Notion, you can essentially organize everything to your heart’s content. You can mix and match templates to your liking, add specific elements such as video and document embedding, and beyond. I didn’t go too in-depth with personalizing my own workspaces due to how many things CAN be changed but when I have more time to plan, I’m definitely going to customize this as much as I can.

One of the coolest things about Notion has to be it’s indexing system. Similar to how you would make a folder and then files/folders within it, you can do the same on Notion for super easy organization. Gone are the days where you need to check each sub-folder to find a specific document. Notion lets you view everything in a page upfront and you can dive into whichever sections you decide to make with ease.

Notion also offers team collaboration on specific pages. You can essentially project manage on top of everything else with a group of people who can add or remove content. I haven’t used this feature yet but I plan to on future design endeavors. Notion is all in all a fantastic, beautifully well put organization application that I highly vouch for.

 

The second application I’d highly recommend would be Google’s Backup and Sync which is part of their drive suite. Have you ever been in a situation where you work on a project at home, think you saved it on your flash drive/ google drive, just to go to an important meeting and finding out that it wasn’t saved at all? I’ve been there. Of course, planning ahead would guarantee that these things don’t happen but instead of worrying about file saving and second guessing, you could now use this application.

Backup and Sync is a small but very important tool. You pair it up with your google drive and it allows you to dedicate a folder on your computer to constantly upload / download files that are shared within a specific folder in your account. In a nutshell, I use a desktop at home to do all of my work and when I am out visiting family or away from home, I carry my laptop to continue working. I used to have to carry around a flash drive and ensure that each time I wanted to work on a project, it needed to be plugged in, transferred, ejected, then plugged in to my laptop to continue. With this application, I simply need to create a folder in the dedicated folder for my project and it gets uploaded whenever there is a detected change. Then when I need to work on my laptop, I just need to connect to the internet and all of those files + any updates get downloaded automatically.

The best part is that this works both from computer to laptop and vise versa. I can also log onto my google account and view, add, or delete to the folder from any other computer. It only downloads files on the computers you choose to download the application on so there’s no worry about being in school and constantly have to download your projects over and over (specially on the computers that delete everything after each restart). With this application, I’ve been able to manage projects at home, from school, from my relative’s house all with ease.

Notion and Backup and Sync by Google are fantastic project management applications that I encourage everybody to check out.

Before gathering my official roster of Fall 2020 classes, I had to talk to an advisor to get this specific course approved. The advisor that I spoke to knew me a bit and had asked if I knew any places I’d be applying to. I said not yet but I’d be applying dangerously throughout the summer in order to secure a spot. Fast forward a few months and summer has officially come to a close while I officially haven’t even started my search. The best part? Internship class had already started.

I didn’t think it would be a big deal waiting so long. I procrastinate a lot and had gone through a summer where each day I tried to make better than the last (but the pandemic stood in the way). It felt like a loop every single time I woke up. Part of this loop included telling myself to complete things that I knew had to be done but had always pushed back over and over. Initially I had given myself a challenge after the Spring 2019 semester to completely hand code a site on my own. I thought it wouldn’t be difficult considering I had just gotten out of Web Design 1 and retained a lot of the information to make something pretty. Little did I know how long I’d push the project back due to working retail, school, and just general lack of direction when it came to putting the site together. I got pretty far into making the layout and choosing the design but ended up stagnant when it came to figuring out how to integrate Instagram (which at the time I thought was crucial to have on the site). That one hurdle sent the entire project in the never-ending pile of unfinished work less than 6 months after starting.

One other thing I kept pushing back was revising my resume. Ever since Spring 2019, I have been a part of the Moving Pixels video club in City Tech. I was lucky enough to work as a cinematographer for a documentary called “The SoHo Memory Project” which, after finalizing in Winter 2019, had won numerous awards since. I honestly didn’t know how far this documentary would take me and the group but it’s done wonders. Even with this, the main thing I have heard from the members and professors would be “this is great for your resume”. I had never won awards to this extent for any project I’ve ever worked on and had no clue how to add it to the resume. I knew I had to update my resume at some point but never figured out when that point would come.

By now, I needed to start signing up for internships ASAP but needed to fully revise and complete both my portfolio and resume. Who knows how long it would really take to get from nothing to an internship. This is where I needed to force myself to get serious.

The first order in business was getting a portfolio up that would be fast, easy, and most importantly good looking. I talked to a few of my friends and they mentioned using Adobe Portfolio as their platform. I was skeptical as to how good it would really be in helping me get what I wanted. But in the end, I managed to get my portfolio to look clean and unique (least I think so). It took roughly 2 weeks to go from nothing to something as I had spent a week research and developing under different preset themes. The other week was spent finalizing the design, tabs, and getting general feedback from my friends and portfolio professor (this was a 2 birds, one stone situation). All in all, I’m really digging how easy it was to get what I needed. Here’s how it came out:

You can view the functioning website at jonathanbaezart.com

Lastly, I needed to update my resume. I essentially took 2 weeks to do this after the website as I had to run it by multiple professors. I adjusted the formatting, erased some parts, and added in the awards plus some updated information. It didn’t look too different to what it was before but it definitely was more oriented towards my specialties.

I finally reached a point where both the portfolio and resume were revised and finished. It was basically the third week of October at this point and I was playing with fire as I had yet to begin my search. If I had planned to do this during the summer like what I should have done in the first place, I’d probably have an internship by now. This is where things begin to pick up speed.

During times like these, webinars are all the craze. I’d say it’s a perfect thing to focus on as you get to become more familiar with subjects or people that you’ve always held an interest for. It becomes much easier to reserve a spot and to ask questions as well. With this, I attended a webinar hosted by FITC (Future. Innovation. Technology. Creativity.) where the guests were two popular visual artists that I’ve been following for years: BEEPLE and GMUNK.

This webinar was pretty off the chain. As soon as the host, Hoss Gifford, mentions the sponsor, Media Temple, he then tells the audience about time when he absolutely hated the company. He mentions that he didn’t like the idea of it at all up until he spoke to the owner at a bar one night. It’s an interesting way to open up the conference but it definitely set in stone the mood we’d be expecting.

Questions that were asked towards the guest speakers proved to be the primary takeaway of the event; discussing topics that I never thought I’d hear two artists I admire even mention. Going from how BEEPLE manages to put time aside each day for his everyday series, where GMUNK found and stuck to his artist handle, to what the two artists thought about cryptoart auction sites (such as Nifty Gateway) and their stance on drugs. Through these questions, I learned many really insightful ideas that artists should try to understand and apply as soon as possible. One question that brought about a really great answer was how do they come up with ideas to create their art. GMUNK mentions another artist that I look up to (Ash Thorp) and his advice when it comes to cleansing your social media palette.  Ash tells GMUNK to unfollow every single person and then only follow the people that inspire you to create more. Following 1k+ people and constantly looking at things that don’t really matter to you keeps you from changing your lifestyle. This stuck with me because I tent to use social media to post and keep up with people but within the same account, follow a ton of musicians or artists that I typically don’t view or interact with on said platforms. There were many other great answers but to keep it brief, this one moved me the most.

Being that the artists are digital artists, the host had asked what software are they currently using or plan to use in the future. BEEPLE talks about how he uses a few photoshop plugins from Topaz Labs to get his desired finishes on his pieces. GMUNK talks more in-depth about his use with a software I recently heard about called EmberGen (which I really, really want to get into someday) and how he plans on dedicating 5 years to learning Houdini (a fantastic simulation + 3d rendering software) to get better control over what he was able to make in EmberGen.

The event overall was pretty solid. There was a bit of banter between all of the speakers (mainly talking over each other) but I could assume it’s due to things being strictly online making it difficult to immediately grasp social cues.  Aside from that, I thoroughly enjoyed being able to hear these two artists talk about their real experiences and not something that is “meant” to encourage smaller artists. It definitely felt more raw compared to other talks where it’s positive outcomes only. There was a follow up email that just mentioned how the event is available to view online if interested but that was all.