Mark Raham Q&A Session At VFS Digital Design

avatar Michael Boyce
VFS Community Cultivator
May 17, 2013

Digital Design's Q&A with Vancouver Canucks' Creative Director Mark Raham

Mark Raham has been very generous with his time when it comes to helping VFS Digital Design students understand the importance of bringing a brand to life, and this time was no exception — especially since it was on a game night during a very tense playoff round with the San Jose Sharks when he showed up to our Main Theater for a Questions and Answers session about his role in developing Layered Experiences as Creative Director for the Vancouver Canucks. We were particularly grateful on this evening for his commitment to mentorship , given that he was previewing the 3rd of his preshow projection mapping presentations that night (normally he does three of them over a regular season of about 3 minutes in length, and this was a short season)  — at an extended 6 minutes!

Mark Raham presents the heart of his Layered Experiences strategy
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The Dichotomy of Design

avatar Ryan Bevans
Digital Design Student
May 16, 2013

 

Design is bitter sweet. It’s being paid to be creative. Sweet. It’s being creative for the sake of money. Bitter. It’s security in your finances at the expense of security in your art. It’s being able to go on a yearly vacation and paying rent in Cosmopolitan cities. It’s relinquishing creative control at the behest of the client. It’s both an ideal and, paradoxically, as real as it gets. Our culture dictates. Refuse the dictation and you will pay via poverty and ostracism. That’s the realism element. The ideal is you can still express yourself, and let’s face it; even a mild form of creativity like client-work is an improvement over the majority of occupations in the world. Designers are allowed to be inspired and likewise to inspire. That’s the ideal. My goal is to learn the tools, become a competent designer — run-of-the-mill, initially — and then, once I have the experience and stability, I plan to slowly sneak my idiosyncratic conceptions with more frequency into each project (with the blessings of the client). The fringe benefit of course is I’ll have obtained the knowledge and experience I need to work on my own little artful side-projects, should my attempts to share my creative vision with the clients be rebuffed. Likely.

 

Hello My Name Is Ricard Adrianza

avatar VFS Digital Design May 15, 2013

Hello My Name Is Ricard Adrianza

The VFS Digital Design Program is pleased to welcome our new 2D Graphics instructor Ricard Adrianza.

Ricard Adrianza was born in Maracaibo, Venezuela. He has a degree in Social Communication with a major in Advertising and Public Relation. For the past seven years he has been running his own design studio, working for brands such as Bodegas Pomar, Redbull, Converse, William Grant & Sons and PepsiCo.

Besides design, Ricard is also a passionate musician. He has worked as an independent music artist composing and creating sound effects for TV, radio and video games. You can hear some of his creations in titles like ER Mania, Killer Whale, and Lt Fly I & II from Teravision Games.

Since completing his education in the VFS Digital Design Program, Ricard has been working as an interactive designer in Vancouver’s game industry and he is eager to share his experience with the students.

Hello My Name Is David Olsson

avatar VFS Digital Design May 14, 2013

Hello My Name Is David Olsson

David Olsson is our new Interface and Coding instructor in the Digital Design program, coming to VFS with more than 18 years of innovating, designing, leading and building software that has mattered across a number of verticals and industries. From being an educator to a serial entrepreneur to working with thought leaders in media, market research and content industries, David has continually worked on the leading edge of what is recently possible and evidently meaningful.

David Olsson is currently a Managing Partner and Principal of Innovation at Ethical UX, a design firm that works with progressive companies that want to build sophisticated and industry defining digital experiences, with a focus on market driven software with a societal impact.

When not teaching and driving the business development and strategy at Ethical UX, David creates industry defining digital culinary experiences such as macrobacon.com, spins new media platters at tinwhiskers.ca, and mashes up new web technologies for $#%ts n giggles; follow him drip feeding some tweets at @sodanovels.

This Is My Story — This Is My Year

avatar Antonio Augusto Braz Dos Santos
Digital Design Student
May 13, 2013

This is my year

Hello, my name is Antonio Braz and I’m from Brazil. This is my story, and this is my year.

I studied Digital Design at PUC-Rio University in Rio de Janeiro. For 4 years, I studied various areas of design, such as graphic design, communication, and typography, the history of art and design, and interactivity. Besides that, I did an apprenticeship in being a Webmaster, which gave me the opportunity to work in a department where I could have real contact with design industry professionals, doing advertisement campaigns and websites.

After I graduated from university, I decided to go to another country to improve my English. My original plan was to study for only six months and then go back to Brazil and return to work, but after three months of study, I surrendered to the charms of the Vancouver Film School and abandoned my English course to begin a new stage in my life.

I am currently in my second term in the Digital Design program, and I’m having the opportunity to develop skills that I myself didn’t know I could have. I feel insecure because of my English skills, but that also makes me more willing to study and learn more and more. After all, it is going to take only one year to completely change my life.

I don’t know what will happen when I graduate from VFS, but I also do not want to think about it now. I just want to focus on studying to improve my skills and, therefore, I believe that I will be prepared to face any situation in the design industry.