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UI Design

Hi all,

I have been very busy with projects. I work part time as a UI Designer at Workin.com. We own a bunch of job search sites across the country. I am very proud of one of my redesigns. We have a product called “First 2 Know.” It’s a great product for job seekers. You’ll get instant email notifications as jobs are posted, your resume gets priority over others when you apply for a job and when employers search for potential employees, you get resume read receipts, and text messages. The old design had a bunch of extra wording, content, and was really difficult to navigate. My fellow team members helped me with providing feedback throughout the design process and I was able to develop it into the final design.

First 2 Know, a great product for job seekers!

My new design can be seen live at the link below and is found on the left: http://santacruzjobs.com/fjs_info.shtml

I really enjoy doing User Interface Design and Web Design.

Do you have a website that needs to be redesigned? Please contact me at charlotte.a.chapman@gmail.com and we can discuss your needs.

 

Charlotte Chapman | Your Communication Design Specialist

I have over three and a half years of professional experience working for a variety of businesses. I have been able to solve my clients’ communication design needs in order to meet and exceed their goals.

What do I make?

I work on a variety of projects, including:

• Websites
• Signage
• Printed material, such as newsletters, brochures, booklets
• Identity packages (logos/ visual branding)
• Character design
• Animations
• SEO
• and more!

How to Get Started: It’s very simple!

When first contacting me, please let me know what your needs are in order to reach your business’ goals. From there, I will discuss with you project options that match your company’s budget and goals. Once we figure out a game plan, I will implement it, giving you updates along the way.

Benefits to Hiring Me

When hiring me for a project, you will get someone who is 100% dedicated to your business. The work I provide my clients is always top quality. Plus, you will get someone who is easy to work with and open to communication. You will never be “in the dark” on your project.

Client Testimonials

“Charlotte is a trustworthy, creative and team-oriented technology specialist. She is a joy to work with, very responsible, action-oriented and most of all, someone who is loyal and passionate about supporting our organization. Her superior attention to detail and her conservative approach to creating budgets for our projects have benefitted our organization tremendously. Her creative talents are also superb. We are extremely blessed to have Charlotte in our team–she is a perfect mix of technical ability, heart and creative prowess.” -Nina Rosete, Vice President of Imagine College, March 17th, 2010

“I truly enjoyed working with Charlotte. Her upbeat personality, always made the task at hand more pleasant to accomplish. She was always a true professional and focused on completing the task. She is a great person to have on your team.” -Rose Giannetto, Store Designer, West Marine

“Charlotte was a creative and effective graphic designer for School of ITCD at California State University Monterey Bay. She created posters, logos, flyers and websites following the university’s strict policy yet infused her wonderful creativeness. She is well liked and dedicated in our School. I would recommend her highly.” - Eric Tao, Chair of the School of Information Technology and Communication Design, 2008

For more information, contact me here or call (831) 359-5645. To see samples of projects that I have worked on, check out my website at http://charchapman.com

Google Calling has over 1 million calls on first day

This morning, I logged onto my computer, ready to do some web development work. I opened my Gmail inbox, and noticed a pop up window for “Google Calling.” I closed the window at the time, due to work obligations.

Later on today, I tried out Google Calling, and it was great! It’s very easy to use and set up. All calls in the US are free and international calls are at a low rate. There are many different options for Google Calling. The one that I noticed right away is that you can use your Google Calling number to make calls/ text messages from your cell phone and land line (if you have one).

I called my mom using Google Calling and she said that my voice was clearer using it then my iPhone (sorry AT&T!).

Apparently, Google Calling has been used over 1 million times today! Here is an article with more information: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20014827-264.html

I highly suggest that you try out Google Calling! I’m going to use it tomorrow for a conference call I have to make with a client.

What do you think of Google Calling? Do you plan on using it to replace your current phone number?

To my clients: Thank you!

I wanted to take the time today to thank my clients for supporting my design business, Charlotte Chapman Art and Design. I have been successful because of you. Thank you.

I started my business in January of 2008. At the time, I was working freelance side projects, since I was working other jobs. Since March of 2010, I have devoted all of my time for my business. My clients have been great with providing various communication design projects for me to work on. I get joy out of my career by fulfilling their needs and making them happy.

My list of current clients:

Imagine College

West Marine

McKay Watches

GroupMind Express

Hana Group

Espinoza Graphics

Marcelle

Again, thank you for your continued support. I look forward to working on more projects with you in present and the future.

Guest Star on AMC’s Mad Men… Casting Call Contest Photo Shoot Part II

Hi again,

Mad Men © AMC.

As many of you know, Banana Republic and AMC are currently hosting a contest for picking a guest star on the television series Mad Men. From the  top 10 male and top 10 female most popular entries, a winner will be picked to guest star on the show. Entries are graded on the following: “Does the photo reflect the “Mad Men” style – 60%; originality 40%. Mr. Weiner’s decisions are final and binding on all judging matters.”

My client contacted me about having a photo shoot for the Mad Men Casting Call contest. I accepted and we went out to take pictures.

I am a graphic designer by nature. I satisfy my client’s visual communication needs by creating posters, brochures, websites, logos, icons and pretty much anything else in the realm of the creative world. I’m a jack-of-all-trades: you need it done— ta da! My background for both my work and education is graphic design.

I never took any courses in college in photography (gasp!). Yes, you heard me right. BUT, I did take a year in High School studying Nature Photography, taught by David Casterson (who recently retired from teaching). In this class, I learned all about outdoor photography: from how to use lighting, the best times of day to take an image, how to compose an image… I learned grid theory, the rule of thirds, and using crash points in creating interesting photographs. Plus, I learned how to use Photoshop in this class (including layers). I attribute this class to planting the seed in my mind for eventually pursuing graphic design in college. Over the years, I have continued to take photos in my free time, using those skills I learned over six years ago. I’ve been assigned countless times in my carrer to take photos for various events, such as Capstone Festivals, District Manager week at West Marine, West Marine University… the list goes on.

When you’re shooting in an outdoor, coastal location, you have to deal with the weather constantly changing. You cannot rely on the weather to be the same as it was the previous day. Cloud cover can easily burn away into full fledged sunlight (which in general, is terrible for outdoor photography).

We had picked a location several days prior and went out to the site for the shoot. The weather was perfect: cloudy and overcast. There was very little wind, which helped as well.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

We first started out by taking pictures by the door of the location. The lighting was very nice in this location. However, there was a garbage can chained in one corner that I had to make sure to get out of the shots. Also, there was some signage on the left of the door, which is distracting for the photo. My client had relaxed into this pose, which made the pose and the lighting correct for the “Mad Men style.” We continued taking photos. I would talk to the client, to try and get her to relax and be natural in her poses. When you’re not used to being a model, it can be difficult to act “normal” in front of the camera. Trust me, I know from experience.

What ended up happening quite a bit is that the angle that the light was coming from ended up making my client look cast in shadow. Even after adjusting the ISO (the amount of light allowed through the lens and into the camera), sometimes the lighting was not what I was looking for. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but for the “Mad Men style,” we needed the lighting to be similar to in the show itself. Some of my favorite photos were ones where the setting was correct, but the lighting would not work for the images. I’d normally just adjust images with Photoshop. We did not want to disqualify my client from the contest so I did not Photoshop any of these images.

Angela Chapman's photo entry for the Mad Men Casting Call contest.

About halfway through the photo shoot, I saw the shot I wanted forming. Everything went slow motion as I snapped the picture. As a photographer, you just know when you captured the perfect moment on film (or my case, a memory card). I knew that this shot would be the one, but we still took more photos. You can see this photo on the left of this paragraph.

After the photo shoot, my client and I both went through the photos on our computers to pick the best possible entries for the Mad Men Casting Call Contest. We were looking for an image that reflected the style of the show, but was original as well. My client and I both picked the “perfect shot.” We discussed it a bit, and decided to go with that image as the entry.

Please vote for my client’s entry here: http://madmencastingcall.amctv.com/browse/detail/Q9PN5Z

You can vote once per day, every day, until September 17th. With your help, we can make my client’s dream come true and be a guest star on AMC’s Mad Men.

What do you think of the photos I shared from the photo shoot? Do you think that the client’s entry photo reflects the “Mad Men style?”

Mad Men Casting Call Contest Client Photo shoot

Mad Men © AMC.

Greetings!

Yesterday, I completed a photo shoot for a client of mine. She wanted to enter the Mad Men Casting Call contest (her entry can be found here: http://madmencastingcall.amctv.com/browse/detail/Q9PN5Z. Please vote for her!). My client and I took over 200 photos yesterday. Since Mad Men is a very visually based show (after all, it’s about people who work in advertising, which is visual communication), I applied my graphic design skills and lighting skills in most of the images. I did not Photoshop any of these images. I used my camera on it’s manual settings and adjusted the ISO to control the amount of light that went into the camera.

This is the image that my client picked to enter for the contest:

Angela Chapman's photo entry for the Mad Men Casting Call contest.

Please vote for my client, Angela Chapman, here: http://madmencastingcall.amctv.com/browse/detail/Q9PN5Z

This image captured the Mad Men look and feel the best. Angela’s pose was confident and sexy. Most of the characters on that show have those traits, so we wanted that reflected in her photo. She is relaxed in the pose. The setting for the background fits perfectly for New York’s country clubs. The lighting also matches with the similar contrast in the lighting and the shadows.

Do you think we captured the “look and feel” of Mad Men? What do you think of the image from a photography perspective?

Adobe Photoshop has competition: DA’s Muro is Launched!

Hi!

I am a member of DeviantArt and I just finished trying out Muro. What is this thing called Muro? It is a web application for artists to create artwork. The program is set up similar to Photoshop and works just the same with layers, different paint brushes, filter effects… It’s amazing. This is the first free web based art tool that I have used that has come close to the power of Adobe’s Photoshop.

What is great about Muro is that it was built using HTML5! Yes, using the latest and greatest in web development. I have a feeling that this program uses the canvas tag, which is for real-time content creation. Also, Muro is a cloud computing application, which means that you do not have to install software on your computer in order to create content.

I played around with Muro for under five minutes and I am very impressed with it. Here’s the pic that I doodled:

Test image using DeviantArt's Muro.

More info can be found here on Muro: http://news.deviantart.com/article/125373/

What do you think of Muro? Do you think that this application is the first major step towards cloud computing?

HTML5/CSS3 vs. Flash: Animation

Hi everyone,

One of the top discussions on the web right now is HTML5/ CSS3 vs. Flash. I’ve heard everything from “Flash is going away!!!” to “HTML5/ CSS3 can’t compete with Flash!” Today, I will be throwing in my two cents on the matter.

I use Flash somewhat regularly for projects that I work on with clients. What I like about Flash is that it is very powerful for doing animations. Most animations can be done with a combination of the timeline and ActionScript. Everything is contained in the SWF file once you are done, making it a nice little package for posting on the web.

However, these are the things that I feel are large issues with Flash: It is not accessible. This means that people with challenges or disabilities will not have access to the content. There are no built in functions to help screen readers with reading text. You can’t access the source code of the SWF file once it is on the web… Secondly, you have to have codecs. This is not too big of an issue, but if your whole website is made out of Flash, then it definitely is. You may lose out on some customers because they do not have the newest Flash codec.

I’ve been playing around with HTML5 and CSS3. I converted my portfolio website using the two (except the movie files… those are still SWFs until the video tags are implemented across all browsers). What I like about HTML5 and CSS3 is that it is fully accessible to all people. This is huge! The back end of the webpages has been reorganized with specific tags for accessibility, such as the <header> tag, the <section> tag, the <article> tag, etc. This is an added bonus for us web designers and developers because it makes organizing our files and reading them much easier. I also like how much cleaner the pages look using HTML5 and CSS3 animations. Here’s a sample of an animation by Bruce Lawson and Remy Sharp:  http://introducinghtml5.com/examples/ch05/animate2.html.

The downside with HTML5/ CSS3 is that it is not fully implemented in all of the web browsers. Once again, Internet Explorer is behind the rest and has not implemented it yet. I also am not sure if making similar animations in HTML5/CSS3 to Flash (like motion tweens and shape tweens), will be easier or harder to do. I am thinking that it will take a lot more back end coding in order to get the animations to do the same thing. I could be wrong, but I do not know yet.

For right now, I think that both HTML5/CSS3 and Flash will be used on the web. I think that Flash will be around for at least a few more years. Who knows? Maybe Adobe will revamp Flash to make it more accessible or add new features? If Adobe does revamp Flash, it will add more competition to the web and drive more innovation.

I am going to continue my quest of learning even more about HTML5/CSS3 and post my findings here.

What are your thoughts on the issue?

Started making web comic’s website in HTML 5 and CSS 3

Hi all,

Well, I finally found some free time in between projects for clients and I got back to working on the web comic. This time, I am focusing on the design element of the website and the logo.

For the back end of the project, I decided to use HTML 5 and CSS 3. For the section for the comic pages themselves, I am using the canvas tag. However, when I preview the page in Safari, it does not show up. I checked a list of HTML 5/ CSS 3 compatibility issues and the canvas tag is implemented in most of the major browsers, except IE 8. I will be able to figure out what’s causing it to not work right.

In the meantime, what do you think of the design of the website so far? I plan on adding the current comic page below the navigation. There will be a section (or an “aside” tag) on the left side of the comic with the social networking information (Facebook, Twitter, etc). I will also be adding buttons and an archive link for previous pages of the comic.

Screen cap of Far Flight website, my upcoming web comic. Coming soon to far-flight.com!