COOPER HEWITT MUSEUM

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November 14th, 2016 was my first time visiting the Cooper Hewitt Museum, located on 91st and 5th, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. I visited the museum with my internship class. The layout of the museum is beautifully designed and very simple to navigate through.

Upon arriving and meeting with my professor, she introduced me to “The Pen.” It allows the user to have an interactive experience by saving any piece of artwork throughout the galleries. You can later access your saved pieces at home using a special code on their site. The Pen is also used on the interaction tables, as well as in the Immersion Room and the Process Lab.

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Luckily that day that my class visited was not crowded, so I was able to take my time in viewing the exhibits. There were quite a number of innovative designs, but I narrowed down my best three selections based on an emotional impact that resonated with me.

BY THE PEOPLE : DESIGNING A BETTER AMERICA – “An exhibition of 60 collaborative designs from throughout the United States and across borders. By the People  challenges the country’s persistent social and economic inequality. It delivers a powerful message of optimism for achieving a more just and equitable society for all Americans through design. The exhibition will be divided into six themes: act, save, share, live, learn and make.” 

I chose two pieces from this exhibit.

A) James Victore – His posters were so influential and bold. The choice of a doodle-type font and simple illustrations strangely works together, yet his messages along each piece is so powerful and carries such weight, that I couldn’t help being drawn to them.

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James Victore

B) Future Cycles – ORBIT
“What if we could build and maintain our own energy efficient transportation?”

This was a creative, innovative piece that I think was the star of all the exhibits, due to its grand display. There’s a video that accompanies this piece.

“…a fully enclosed vehicle which weighs just 250 lbs., goes 30 mph, has a 25-mile range, and fully recharges in 6 hours. It uses less than a penny per mile in energy cost and might be the perfect commuter vehicle. However, if you want one, you may have to build it yourself.”

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MODELS & PROTOTYPES GALLERY –

Models are 3D representations of ideas that:

-Demonstrate the design process
-Test concepts and resolve problems
-Enhance presentations
-Display complex technical skills

These staircases were so intricately designed, I could have probably stood there looking at these for a good half an hour  (if other visitors weren’t there taking photos.) They were simply stunning yet complicated. Each one was extremely detailed with its own mix of style and graceful curves.

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WEBINARS

CREATIVELIVE
DEBBIE MILLMAN – “A BRAND CALLED YOU.”

Over the course of years, Debbie Millman has taught at the School of Visual Arts and has become quite obsessed with asking young adults the question – “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Some have answered : a fireman, a baseball player, or even wanting to be famous.
Until a couple years ago, she asked the same question to a young woman whose reply blew her away. The young woman replied that she wanted to be “Everything.”

This response was a shock to Millman, considering that when she was a college student the thought of becoming “Everything” seemed so foreign.

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When Debbie Millman graduated college, she felt unqualified to do anything. She thought she wasn’t pretty enough, skilled enough or even smart enough. After graduating she just wanted to make a living and the thought of actually doing something she loved never entered her mind. She chose the safe and secure path. Throughout the years to follow, she encountered a lot of rejection and failure, which was very disappointing. After learning from her mistakes and through her experience, she started teaching.

Students need to know early on that talent is not everything. Being able to explain the approach and knowing what you are talking about is very important. When going on interviews and you don’t know something, perhaps a software or skill -ADMIT IT!
People will want to teach you if you admit to not knowing something. However, don’t be desperate for the job and lie.

Confidence is based on repetition of doing things in order to feel comfortable. This leads to  courage, where you will then take that leap and the confidence will follow naturally. Being scared is not an excuse. There are two categories of people:

GENERATORS  vs  DRAINS

Generators will bring energy, enthusiasm, inspiration, curiosity, they will do more and always strive to be better.

Drains are people that complain, who address their faults, who think they’re not good enough.

Employers want to hire others that they like, based on personality and attitude.
It takes time to get the things that you want. It takes practice and the right attitude.
Ability is not enough.

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APPS REVIEW

PRISMA – Prisma transforms your photos with the use of art filters and photo effects. It is very simple to navigate, with the user uploading a photo and choosing from a variety of filter options to transform each photo into a work of art. Prisma can be quite addictive, and each “artwork” can then be further used in so many different ways or incorporated within a design.

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Here is an image I took of the Brooklyn Bridge with my Iphone 6. I uploaded it to Prisma and first selected the Mosaic effect and then secondly Curly Hair. The comparison between these two effects are drastically different and can be integrated into a comic book or other form of animation or design.

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Below is my original image of the Ed Koch Bridge, again taken with my Iphone 6, and what it looks like when the effect is being created. Once again, I selected the Mosiac option and was blown away with the result. You can also view three other selections I played around with : Curly Hair, Illegal Beauty and Heisenberg.

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POCKET- Have you ever come across an article, video or any content while browsing the web, and thought I’ll come back to that and read it later? And then you never do…or worse, forget what it was and lost your chance. Well that’s where Pocket comes in. It saves all your web content all in one place. Save it on your desktop and then read it later on your phone on-the-go.

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I came across the Pocket extension from Google Chrome a few months back, and it has been my second brain ever since. In the screenshot below, is an interesting article on Creative Market I wanted to read, but didn’t have time at the moment, so I saved it to Pocket and was able to access it at a more convenient time. Toward the upper right corner of the image, there’s a little arrow icon, which I hovered over and the words ‘Save to Pocket”appeared.

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After clicking the arrow icon, this box pops up, which tells you that the page was saved, and also gives you the choice to add tags, or name your article.

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In this image below, I typed in ‘logo design.’

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Here we have screenshots of the mobile app, and my list of articles that I have saved in the past. There you can see the first article is the one I saved on my desktop. There are even more customization tools, to have a light or dark background. Or even formatting the fonts, as shown in the images below.

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JAMES LEVIN

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“If you’re not moving forward, you are either standing still or worse, moving backwards…”

James Levin was a professional photographer who has always been a creative thinker. In 2007, he underwent eye surgery that changed the outcome of his career. The following year, the US experienced a financial crisis. Levin took that year to re-evaluate his profession and what he wanted to do in life. He directed his focus towards talent and helping others. He became a career coach and assists job seekers in building the confidence and skills needed to move forward in the evolving world.

James has always kept his head in a good place, and throughout his many years in the field, he has gained practical knowledge and experience. His advice on succeeding and landing a good job boils down to having a good resume and cover letter.

The resume should include keywords from the actual job post, which makes your application more likely to be viewed. In addition to the resume, the cover letter is just as equally important. It should include personality and creativity. When the nerve-racking moment of the actual interview arrives, it is imperative that you have prepared yourself. Research is key in finding out about the company’s history and clients.

His guidance to help us move forward was extremely helpful. I was grateful that he took the time to visit my Internship class to share with us such useful tips. Tip that stood out –

“I don’t know, but I’ll find out.”