It’s been a long time since I’ve posted, and I have good reasons. As my last post said, I recently went to Las Vegas with Intothedarkroom to attend the WPPI convention, but I also went there as a company trip to see and explore Las Vegas as well as hanging out with the company.

One of the highlights of the trip was attending a Cirque du Soleil show at the MGM Hotel with my employer’s family, and it turned out to be an inspirational show and time I couldn’t forget.

At the MGM Theatre, they were having the Cirque du Soleil show called KÀ. Here’s an excerpt of what it is from their site:

KÀ, the unprecedented, gravity-defying production by Cirque du Soleil takes adventure to an all new level. KÀ is a heroic journey of love and conflict, set within a dynamic theatrical landscape, as an entire empire appears on KÀ’s colossal stage and a captivating display of acrobatics envelops the audience.

On Saturday, I watched the show along with my employer’s family. Before the show we went to get some cheap tickets, and it ended up costing $80 for one ticket (which I still have to owe…I’ll get that soon….). We had lunch at California’s Pizza Kitchen which happened to be my first time eating there, and it was really good.

To get back on topic, I waited in line to get into the show, and some of the attendants there were dressed up and acting in unique characters trying to get the audience involved and on their toes. I found it quite amusing, and then I met up with the family and proceeded into the theatre.

The first thing I noticed was the iron steampunk-like architecture that was near the walls of the theatre. In addition, there was a cloud of smoke in the center of a stage with an occasional flame bursting into the air. From there, I was saying to myself that this isn’t going to be some regular Nutcracker play that I saw during grade school.

During the whole show, the stage shifted and transformed into different landscapes and the acrobatics and martial arts of the actors were phenomenal. The tempo of the music, and the lighting of the scene all played along with the mood of the current situation of the play. It was an amazing show that inspired me to want to like plays as a whole and to also look beyond regular movies and tv shows for entertainment.

If you’re in Las Vegas, or any places that premieres Cirque du Soleil’s shows, I highly recommend spending some money to see it. It’s a show you won’t forget for a long time, and a show that’s worth the money. Below is a trailer of it, and thanks for visiting my blog. I’ll make some frequent updates once I get back into schedule. Daylight Savings Time is still hitting me, even though it doesn’t affect Arizona.

Once again, I’m missing another one of my Monday’s inspirational post. Time really flies a lot when you’re doing work or browsing around yourself. For this inspirational post, I want to share some sites that I really enjoy looking at for inspiring art and graphics.

They’re not blogs, and they’re definitely not just a gallery of pictures. These sites are actual communities or a group of artists put together that strive to push forward the limits of art and graphics and show the art community their talent.

depthcore

Depthcore is probably my favorite art group that release large packs (they call them “Chapters“) of artworks that are usually themed to a subject. All sorts of digital media are included such as graphics, digital drawings, 3D modeling, photography, and even music. This group contains some pretty big designers like Justin Maller, Pete Harrison, Nik Ainley and Jeff Huang.

I enjoy their music and all of the artworks posted in these chapters. With over 30+ chapters, if this is your first time visiting depthcore, then make sure you have some spare time to browse through them. Depthcore has grown a lot since its first establishment in 2002.

Visit Depthcore – http://depthcore.com

The Raster Group

The Raster Group was created in 2001 and is more targeted to digital art and drawings however you will see some other types of art in there chapters as well. Similar to depthcore, Raster is comprised of a group of artists showing their best work.

slashTHREE

slashTHREE is much like the others however containing a different collective of artists and designers. They feature graphics, artwork, music, photography, and even motion videos. One noticeable feature is their forum. Other artists and designers are able to talk to each other and network and even submit artwork to their art packs.

Behance Network

Behance Network is a community that holds a lot of portfolios of designers and artists. They contain many different types of artists, from graphics, and all the way to interior design. If you’re a designer, you should check the portfolios here and even apply for one as they also have a job board that you can check out and even employers themselves will seek for potential workers here.

deviantART

Deviantart is probably the most popular art community that’s out there. Being a very public place, any type of art is posted here. However, some of the quality of the work may not be as great as the other design community listed. (That’s purely based on the fact that deviantart has more quantity of works than the other communities)

deviantART is also a great center for resources and tutorials. Many artists contribute and share their works and resources so others can use them and make great work from them. You can also join communities and groups so you can be around other artists and designers that have similar interests as you.

One of my favorite feature of deviantART is the ability to favorite works and follow artists. With this feature you can always be updated when your favorite artists post a new piece of work or also view your gallery of favorites for inspiration.

Design Flavr

DesignFlavr is not really a community nor a group, but another inspirational design gallery site. I added this in here because it is also another great source of inspiration and showcases art of many different fields. Digital, Web, CG, Flash, Illustrations, and more. You can submit your own, and be featured here as well.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed my post about design communities. These art groups and communities always showcases great work since the submissions to the packs and chapters are selectively chosen and filtered to show the best ones. Thanks for subscribing and following my inspiration posts. If you have other communities in mind, leave a comment and share a link. I’ll see you again next Monday.

I apologize for being late a day, as most beginning bloggers, it’s quite a task to get everything updated. However, I’m not going to skip over my weekly inspiration. I shortened the title a bit to just MM (Mundane Monday) so it’ll be less prominent in the title. The content is what you’re looking for.

For this week, I want to share 5 blogs that I usually visit everyday for tips, inspiration, resources, and sometimes I even get sidetracked to even more leads for inspiration and more.

1. Abduzeedo – http://abduzeedo.com

Abduzeedo is really awesome for its variety and broadness (although still maintaining to its niche of graphic design, inspiration, and tutorials). It has numerous links, articles, tutorials, and interviews where you can just get lost the whole day just browsing this site and going through the links. One of my favorite parts of the site is the “Daily Inspiration” posts that comes up…daily. Basically people start sending their links and they hand select a few to show up as their daily inspiration. Participating in this can get your name out as well as seeing other works out there that may inspire you to make something. The tutorials here are well written and the resources you can find here are very useful for commercial or personal use depending on their license.

In addition, they recently redesigned the blog, and it’s looking very smooth.

2. The Strange Attractor – http://thestrangeattractor.net

A simple blog that shares some inspirational pieces from artists around the world. Very nice if you’re looking for different types of art, design, and different forms of media. I’m not so exposed regular to these genre of art, however, this site fills in those gaps for me. It’s one of those sites where you can’t really stop on page one.

3. Buamai – http://buamai.com

Similar to The Strange Attractor, Buamai features more of a thumbnail gallery and a random one at that. It’s not really just art, but other pictures as well. Nevertheless, art and inspirational pictures that you can spark ideas from.

4. DesignIsKinky – http://designiskinky.com

Don’t be so fooled by its name. It’s nothing sexual at all. An Australian site, but it shows different designs and media arts from different places. Not always my taste, but it’s best to expose oneself to different types of art rather than just graphic design.

5. TUTS+ Network – http://tutsplus.com

Probably one of my favorite sites to go to. Tutorials, resources, interviews, all in one place. The best part of this network is the multiple branches of it. Photoshop, Vector, After Effects, CG, and Programming. Lots of tutorials, resources, and inspiration can be found here. The staff that’s running this network have done a lot to contribute and create a community that many designers follows.

Conclusion

Those are my hot spots blogs and sites that I visit regularly for some ideas or whenever I’m bored. If you have a favorite place to visit, post yours, and I’ll mention it in another roundup in the future to thank you.

And yes, I purposely put the date on this blog for February 22nd. It’s my way to sneakily put this in. Thanks for visiting.

For this week’s inspiration, I decided to share something different than a video. Galleries have been making a big impact on the internet displaying lists of artworks, logos, business cards, and more. Just like a museum, these galleries contain lots of works that are inspiring and give lots of examples of different type of styles that you can reference from.

Design galleries are very popular these days.  Perhaps way too popular.  It seems like every so often you will see sites similar to these that pop out of nowhere, and they would either be the same category, or something different.  Regardless of it being trendy, overused, and abused, I have to admit that these design galleries make it so much easier to gain inspiration, references, and you can also learn from them and enhance your skills in design.

Here are two galleries, that I personally use for inspiration and ideas.

Creattica

One of my favorite galleries that I always visit for inspiration for things like logos, business cards, and Photoshop work would have to be Creattica.  Creattica contains all different type of graphics from logos to even flash work.  The gallery also features a section where anyone can upload their work to the site and get featured once it has been cleared by the administrators.  You can also sign up and rank other people’s work.

As a result, this gallery site can turn into a place to get critiques and help from others.

Inspirationti.me

Inspirationti.me is a very unique site.  One of the first things that really got me to remember this site was the domain name.  By having a .me instead of .com, it’s very easy to remember since it spells out “Inspiration Time“.  This gallery site is geared more towards web design.  The examples they show at the site helps me a lot to pick the sites that I like to use for inspiration since it saves me time without having to click on every link to see the site.

With the gallery being nicely categorized such as icons, huge typography, and even colors, it’s easy for anyone to search through the site to find the inspiration you need.

Design galleries are great to have in your arsenal.  There are many out there that cover a variety of categories: Web Design, Icons, Fonts, and Illustrations.  In the near future, I will be releasing one as well.  I’m not exactly sure what it’ll be about, but I’ll be making the addition when the time comes.

I hope you enjoy this week’s Mundane Monday, and that you will collect all these inspirational resources into one archive to have one powerful library of references.

If you have any galleries that you like to share, feel free to comment and share the link.

So what’s the one thing you’re good in? Graphic Design? Asset Modeling? HTML/CSS? Scripting in a certain program? What do they all have in common? They are too specific. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that. Certainly, you can find a really good job in that field if you looked really hard, however, you’re at a disadvantage already. How can you get the advantage?

It’s time to become a hybrid.

What’s a Hybrid?

Now, I’m not talking about those new cars these days. A hybrid by definition (courtesy of Google) is a mixture of different parts into one whole thing. We’re not talking about just physical parts here, we’re talking about skills. So if you’re strong or knowledgeable in many different aspects, then you’re a hybrid. But you have to be careful thinking whether you’re a strong hybrid or a weak one.

You may be asking yourself…”What’s the difference?”

Let’s say, you’re strong in graphic design, and then randomly you’re strong in writing documents. Now, honestly, there isn’t much wrong with having those skills, but it’s definitely weak in the sense, you can’t apply the full potential of your graphic design skills to writing (although that can be debated). While on the other hand, if you were strong in graphic design, and then strong in web design, the two skills integrate with each other as you can use your principles in design to apply it to templates, and graphics that you would see on websites.

I believe that there is a correlation of skills that must be learned and taught efficiently to become a good hybrid. Designers would need to learn how to design websites, and code them. Modelers would have to learn how to model and texture everything instead of just being generalized in one field. Web developers should learn how to design and use photoshop to make templates for their own projects.

We want to make a person not just great in their one field of interest, but also good in the other fields related.

Why be a Hybrid?

Now, the most popular argument against hybrids and jack-of-all trades is this:

You’re just a jack of all trades. You know a lot, but you’re not an expert in any one of your skills.

True. I’m not going to argue. It’s obvious that a hybrid isn’t good in one skill when put into comparison of an expert in that field. However, that’s not what I’m telling you to be. I’m a strong believer that you must have ONE field that you are strongly happy to be in and know a lot about. However, what I am talking about is expanding that knowledge to related fields. For instance, if you’re a really good Programmer in C++, or some obscure language. Why be the best in that language, if you can also pick up other languages easily? Most programming languages contain or follow the same logic, keywords, and syntax. It’s almost stupid to just specialize yourself in one language. Here’s my argument to the above statement:

It is true that jack of all trades aren’t skilled in one whole field. However, that’s not the point. I want specialists to become hybrids. This doesn’t weaken their main skill. It strengthens it.

Why be a specialist? You’re only limiting yourself. A human brain has a capacity of probably 1-10 TB. Yeah, Google does wonders when trying to find information about the brain. However, that’s not helping my case, more just something intriguing to think about. If your brain is a computer like that, and we all know that brains are more complex in terms of the algorithms it uses to make your body function, there is no reason why you can not use that extra space to learn something new, or at least something related in your field so that it’s really not all that new (more like just adding an extra plugin to Photoshop).

The Advantages

So what’s this big advantage you get with being a hybrid? Your job search is more broad, and much easier. How? Let’s say, you’re a graphic designer. Obviously you want to get some jobs dealing with graphic design. Newsflash….You just limited yourself half the job market. From the trends I see, most people aren’t looking for just graphic designers. They want web designers, people that can maintenance websites, people that can manipulate photos, people that can code simple website, or create storyboards.

For me, my intention was a graphic design job. And where did I end up? I’m doing web design. Web design doesn’t just encompass graphic design and coding. You’d be surprised by the amount of stuff that entails in my job that I had to learn from my work, and by myself. Let’s list some examples. Remember, I’m just a graphic designer (technically not, I graduated from college with a BA in Game Design, so this is a prime example of how hybrids are)

Main Skill that I worked on
Photoshop (I don’t really call myself a graphic designer, but really the main skill I know is Photoshop)

Other skills I had to learn and be good in
Web Design
Print Design
XHTML/CSS
Illustrator
Flash Animation
Flash Website Programming
Javascript/Jquery
Wordpress
MovableType
Joomla
MySQL (How to make databases and import/export queries)
PHP (Basic coding)
Hosting Information/FTP (How to deal with it and get into people’s FTP)
and more on the way

You can definitely see a lot of skills that integrate and relate with one another, and overall they all build up a good library of information and turns you into a powerful tool that companies can use.

Honestly, from an employer’s point of view, if I can hire a person for $15 an hour, who would I chose? A person that knows how to do just Photoshop, or someone that knows how to do Photoshop, word processing, simple web programming, and a little of flash? As an employer, I’m going to get that hybrid, not only because he/she fulfills the spot that I need which is a Photoshop user, but I can abuse his/her other skills as well, and still only have to pay $15 an hour.

It’s a dirty trick by employers, but in today’s economy, they have to play smart with their money to grow their business. Plus, it’s not like you should feel abused. You should feel happy that you got the job, and you’re doing things you like to do. Not to mention, in the long run you’ll get raises and bonuses because of your hard work and skill set.

As the saying goes, your hard work pays off in the long run.

The Disadvantages

To all advantages, there are disadvantages. So what are disadvantages from being a hybrid? The obvious choice would be the whole good in all, great in none. For many college students and perhaps other people, that’s something you don’t want to get yourself into. You don’t want to go through college and through your life and say “Well, I’m pretty okay in a lot of things, but I’m not sure what I really want to do”. One day during your schooling or perhaps very late after your graduation, you need to sit down yourself and say, “Okay, I’m going for this, and going to strengthen that skill more than any”.

Trust me, I’ve been there.

My Experience

Based on my past, I wanted to do something dealing with programming even though I started graphics by making forum signatures back in my sophomore year in high school. I went to Collins College to pursue a degree in Game Design, most specifically programming games. However, I lost interest in it and felt like I wasn’t strong with it. I took visits with Career Services, and they analyzed my skill set and what I was really strong with. And overall, it lead to something dealing with design, and somehow it got to the point where I was aiming for doing interfaces for games. As I went through school more (this was about a term or so before graduation), I finally got some freelance jobs doing graphic design, and suddenly I fell in love doing it. And, I decided to go more broader than just interface design and just get into graphic design or really anything dealing with Photoshop (that’s pretty broad, right?).

And eventually, Career Services landed me a job with IntotheDarkroom based on my design skills. I really had no clue it was a web development firm. Of course I did my research of the company before I got there. During the interview, it went smooth, they asked about my skills, what I know, and such. A week later, I got a call for the job. And during my stay with this job, I learned a great amount from all my co-workers and have a fun time doing it. In addition, having a job that I love to do, gave me the incentive to even go home after work and learn even more in the field.

Conclusion

Whether you want to take the chance to become a hybrid or stick to what you’re doing, you do have to realize that it’s a fighting market out there. A lot of times in terms of designers and that industry, a designer is expected to know more than just Photoshop and Illustrator. Therefore to give yourself a better advantage in the job selection, you should expand your skills. I don’t want you to forget your main skill so you can concentrate on other things. Remember, keep it related and that’ll make your main skill so much stronger.

Got any comments, rebuttal, disagreements, or experience you would like to add? Feel free to comment below.

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