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.

My Future Career As An Interactive Designer

avatar Tais de Souza Lessa
Digital Design Student
May 10, 2013

crayons picture

I have been interested in design since I was a child. I still remember when I picked up a bunch of colored crayons and drew lots of images on the white wall of my mom’s home. Even though she grounded me, I’ve never been discouraged to keep drawing and I keep looking for inspiration.

I majored in Advertising and I worked for some agencies in Brazil, always in the art direction field. My last position in Brazil was as Art Director for a “Guerrilla Marketing” company. I had always worked in print media, but when I worked at the Guerrilla Marketing agency I had some interesting tasks, not related to print media — like, designing custom Facebook and Twitter pages, and also doing online campaigns. That was when I realized that I would love to work with interactive media.

Technology has always fascinated me and I realzied that it would be great to join my two passions: design and technology. That’s why I came to VFS: to learn more about Interactive Media — not only the design part, but also the user experience and information architecture side of it. I am really excited about the classes (I am learning a lot) and the prospect of working in the field that I love.

The NASA International Space Apps Challenge Hackathon : Museum of Intergalactic Species

avatar Jane Haezer Saputra
Digital Design Graduate (Dec 2011)
May 9, 2013

Space Apps Challenge Toronto

Ask any VFS Digital Design students or alumni what SLAM means to them. They will tell you it is the most challenging and grueling 2 days (or 12 hours, if you ask graduates of the 20th graduating class and before) of their life. It tests their creativity and problem solving, as well as team player skills, to the max. It is also one of the activities I miss the most after graduating from Digital Design back in Dec 2011. Which is why, when a few of my coworkers decided to compete in NASA‘s International Space Apps Challenge hackathon at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto, I jumped at the opportunity.

We were given 25 challenges to choose from, which all required different skill sets: There were challenges that asked you to plan a cubeSat trajectory; Innovation on how to make Mars livable for human; Aurora localization; and many more. Since our strength lay in interactive media, it made sense for us to choose a challenge where we could showcase our skill. That’s why we chose Adopt a Spacecraft: Voyager 1.

Earth and Voyager 1 Launch Date

The NASA International Space Apps Challenge hackathon started Friday, April 19th at 7pm, with an introduction of the challenges and team building for those who had yet to join one. We officially started with our challenge at 10pm.

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Make it, use it, break it, fix it, trash it, change it…it’s Motion Machine!

avatar Lizzie Hudson
Digital Design Program Manager
May 8, 2013

DD27 Motion Machine competitors

Welcome to the new Digital Design Class, our lovely DD27s, and also welcome to the new class of Entertainment Business Management – the wonderful EBM20s!

The Entertainment Business Management department has now moved in with Digital Design, in what looks to be a great partnership of Producers and Designers.

And today, to seal this new relationship, both the Digital Design students and the Entertainment Business Management students were creating Motion Machines.

Motion Machine EBM20 Competitors

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