May 28, 2010

Today I worked more on the front desk manual. I pulled up the maps for our building in photoshop and labeled the offices that we most frequent. I cleaned up the "hidden" slides from the presentation, and e-mailed a co-worker to get started on the videos that we need. I'm getting a little antsy about that. We have three that need to be located and edited. Yikes. I also read a lot in "Don't make me think" by Steve Krugs - the book that James has asked me to read. I'm on chapter 6 so far. It's been really informative and quite amusing. I would highly recommend it!

May 27, 2010

Today the full-time staff were out at a retreat/meeting ... so the students were the only ones in the office. I updated a few minor detail items on the presentation and then worked with Katy on the Training Manual for the Front Desk. Kinda boring, but that's what we've done!

May 26, 2010

Today was a little slow with the presentation. I cropped a lot of pictures - The First Presidency and some of The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. There are a few quotes that we use in the presentation and I wanted a nice picture of each of the speakers to accent the quotes. I nit-picked a little as far as font and size/ placement and capitalization,etc is concerned. I also created a new slide that will transition between a video clip and a list of tips we are presenting to prospective students.

May 25, 2010

This morning I dealt with some e-mail issues. It's interesting how something so seemingly small, like not being able to e-mail, can really put a damper on what you need to do. I'm still sorting it out, hopefully everything will be back to normal tomorrow.

I spent a large chunk of time trying to figure out why photoshop was creating a pixelated image after using the vanishing point filter...

It make my image look like this:(really mixed up lines at the top)

I ended up just cropping two images together to come up with this:

I didn't solve the problem in photoshop, but I resolved the short-term graphic problem. Whew!

May 24, 2010

Today, again, I have been working on the BeSmart presentation - cleaning, updating info, and re-doing graphics that aren't as strong. I'm also working on scheduling an appointment to take pictures of Cosmo the Cougar for one of the slides.

This photo looks clear - but if you click on it you'll see how pixelated it is:

I added a U.S. News Article to BYU's Most Notable Advantages:

Added Pictures to the Most Notible Advantages for schools:

May 21, 2010

Mission: Revamp the Presentation. removing slides, adding videos, editing slides for content and design.... annnnnd a whole lot more...wow.
It was really interesting to hear the feedback from the different directors in the meeting on Thursday (20th). It was hard sometimes to keep my mouth shut - when they would comment about design or ask for something to be changed (in a way that wasn't visually pleasing,etc). But really? My job is to design what they want in a way that THEY want... not what I want. So. That is what I'm doing (with occasional comment on why I did what I did or why what they want isn't the most beneficial visually). I'm learning.

May 20, 2010

I spent my morning on the 20th here:

This is the LDS Business College.


I spent an hour in traffic on the way up to Salt Lake and from 9:20-2:00 in a meeting reviewing the ins and outs of the BeSmart Presentation. It was a great learning experience to see how those meetings are run, how decisions are made, and what changes need to be made in regard to content and design. I have a lot to learn and I'm really glad that I had the chance to attend ( I may have begged and pleaded with Kirk to go...). It was a great opportunity to see the "client's" view of my work and what they want modified/removed/etc. I'm glad I had the chance to go.

May 19, 2010... Apologies

Wednesday the 19th of May was hectic because it was the day before the Be Smart Committee meeting (aka- my presentation is reviewed with lots of head people for all the CES schools). So - the "blog/journal" got put on the back burner for the past little bit. I did revisions, spent time adjusting videos for each school and saving the presentation to several different thumb drives/computers so that we'd have them just in case something happened. Whew. I stayed late and it was a crazy day.

May 18, 2010

Today we added a TON of slides (not sure how that cuts back on time...etc). Here is a sample of the ones I've added today...

May 17, 2010

Today was just a lot of clean up... Making sure things are all formatted the same way,etc. For example: the BYU Student Activities page - making sure the pictures all have white borders around them, etc. Not much to talk about, but a LOT of cleaning. =)

May 14, 2010

Today I received the editable version of the BYU-I presentation. I edited that a little (though the original designer did a great job - so I didn't have to do much). I also have been organizing pictures into folders,etc for all the schools/programs. That has been tedious, but rewarding.

May13, 2010

Today I have done a lot of random things. We figured out what was wrong with the BYU-I video (why it wasn't playing in the Powerpoint yesterday). It was an mpeg2 file rather than just an mpeg- which will play in the presentation. Now it works- and I have learned a little about formating of documents.

I also played with each school's layout for the opening slide. Here is BYU's orignial opening slide:

This is the next one. I like it MUCH better.

James and I reviewed the presentation with Kirk again today. He wanted to add a title to this slide. It used to have the dark bar along the left, but we changed it to be a horizontal bar along the top. This is one of my favorite slides. not because of the actual design (because really? it's not that special), but because of the animation - when the "Animation (Student Emmys)" comes up the little boy appears and the bull bounces down from the top bar. I just think I did a clever job on it.

This next screenshot is of another amusing slide. Each line comes in on a click... and then the last one comes in (it says, "Your Girlfriend" ) and the picture appears. This one was not my idea... thought I developed the layout.

May 12, 2010

Today I emailed the admissions representatives over each of the schools to review their movies and presentations. It has been a good experience to see how different people interact and follow through. I have encountered people who are asked to do something who follow through right away. I have also met people who are exactly the opposite and I have to ask again and again and again, and finally just do it myself because they don't follow through. I hope I am a follow through kind of person.

The rest of the day was spent interviewing people for positions in the office. Not much design was done, though I received the video from Jonathon (BYU-I- who follows through impecably well) and I am trying to figure out how to get it to play in the powerpoint, because it played on the computer, but wouldn't play once inserted into the presentation. I guess that will be troubleshooting for tomorrow.

May 11, 2010

I dub today: REAL WORLD LESSON DAY

It's not often in a classroom setting that you see errors like we did today... It was good to have a little lesson in things not working out the way they "should".

This morning Kirk asked James and I to come into his office. He talked about revamping and cutting a lot of the presentation so that it was shorter and more effective. James and I got started on the task and added slides, deleted some, etc.

I created a new document, copied all the slides we wanted into it and saved it to my desktop. We rearranged some things and I then saved it to a flash drive that I have been using in the office. I used that to transfer the presentation to Kirk's laptop. We opened it and it had errors ALL over the slides (in place of pictures, templates, EVERYWHERE). James and I talked about researching through Google what it could possibly be. I came upon a NYU website detailing how to insert pictures into Powerpoint. It also listed the "no-no's" :

• Certain file types that would not work
• Do not drag images from your computer directly into presentation
• Do not drag images directly into the presentation from the internet
• Do not copy and paste images into your presentation

Then in BIG BOLD letters it said:

Failure to use the Correct Method will result in images not showing up or incorrect formatting of images on any computer other than the computer on which the presentation was made.

We decided that I would probably have to go through and figure out what pictures were the problem ones and replace them "the correct way" ( insert sad face here).

On a whim, I decided to try it on one of our back computers. When we opened the file I got pictures like:

On a whim I asked if it could be the flash drive. James doubted that it could be, but offered his back up flash drive to see if it may save us from having to do a LOT of back tracking.

Guess what??

It turned out to be the flash drive. WHEW!!!

May 10, 2010

Today was a lot of clean up and reordering of the presentation- to be sure that each school is discussing their topics in the same order. Here are a few pictures of the clean up:

I added the new medallions to the presentation:

Cropped this student out for a new LDSBC slide:

I cut out the BeSmart website again - the former one had a glich on the page, that we hadn't noticed. I'm not sure I like the angle of the website on this page, it just seems odd. I'll probably re-do it again tomorrow.

May 7, 2010

Here is an update on the flier I created for the associate director... just for fun:A few famous fathers and sons (from top L): Barney and Bam Bam Rubble, My Three Sons crew, Jetsons, Cleavers, Bradys, Indiana Jones, Darth and Luke, Mr. Incredible and Dash, Mannings, Earnhardts, Ripkins, Andy and Opie Griffith, Clif and Theo Huxtible

May 7, 2010

Here is a picture from yesterday's editing:

I cropped the Temple and added it to the Institute opening slide.

You may recognize this from yesteday - I posted a different version. James and I discussed that having a full light and feathered background didn't flow with the rest of the presentation. I shrunk the background, and took the feathering off.

I also went through and downloaded all the CES school medallions. The ones I had before were odd and not the best resolution, so I am in the process of updating those on the slides:

May 6, 2010

Today I dabbled in a few things. Cropped out the Salt Lake Temple for the Institute potion of the presentation, I also did a little cropping and animation for the LDSBC portion. Travis Blackwelder asked that I create a flier for his ward's Fathers and Son's Campout coming up. We had fun coming up with different famous father and son pictures. I put them together as a border for the flier.

May 5, 2010

The presentation is coming along. We have been trying to decide between several "opening slides" for each school.

Below are a few we have been working on:

The pictures lined up will scroll across to the left.

I cropped this picture of a chapel for institute:

May 4, 2010

Still working on the BeSmart Presentation for the firesides. Here are a few samples of what has been going on lately.

May 3, 2010

This week I have been working on the BeSmart Fireside presentation for Kirk. Each school has it's own section within the presentation. I have cleaned up each school and designed the beginning and ending slides of the presentation.

A portion of LDSBC's presentation

The Opening Slide for the whole presentation.

Women's Conference 2010

I took off Thursday and Friday of this week to attend the 2010 BYU Women's Conference. What a wonderful opportunity and blessing that was! It was uplifting, inspiring and rejuvenating.


I'm grateful to have a supportive husband who encouraged me to attend, even if it meant taking 2 days off of work. Thanks, C!