Re: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?

2007-12-24 Thread Al Selvin
My path: film/video studies (undergraduate), low-level film/video production jobs ==> master's program in communication arts specializing in telecom policy but including more video and film stuff, as well as programming (Pascal), general interest in shaping new communications technologies ==> tea

Re: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?

2007-12-24 Thread Matthew Nish-Lapidus
This is a great thread! One for the archives for sure. My path to IxD started when I was a kid and we got our first C64 I suppose. I immediately took to programming, and when we got an Appl IIe with Logo on it graphics became my main interest. >From there I got more and more into computers and

Re: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?

2007-12-23 Thread Elizabeth Bacon
P.P.P.S. Oh, yeah, and computers have always been a part of my life. My dad was a Systems Analyst and just naturally adopted them at home. We had an Atari and TI-99 when I was a kid, and Osborne, the first "portable computer" (it went with us to China, and later went with me to Stanford where it pr

Re: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?

2007-12-23 Thread Elizabeth Bacon
It%u2019s so inspiring to read about people's journeys into the arena of design! Thanks to all who've shared. Here's my story... I have always been a designer, but did not know it for many years. I've always drawn, and imagined things that did not exist, and tried to make the world a more user-fri

Re: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?

2007-12-21 Thread Josh Evnin
Might as well pitch in my 2c of history: I think it all began back in the mid-80s when I overheard my parents arguing about whether they should get a computer. I distinctly remember my dad saying: "A computer!? The only computer I'll ever need is [pointing to his head] *right here.*" I sat in th

Re: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?

2007-12-21 Thread Vlad Fratila
Hi! In my first post here... sorry if it's inappropriate...I just wanted to say that your manifesto is useful for one context, that is, the one that life in general creates. It was very inspiring, and I thank you. I'm thinking about Hesse, maybe because I'm reading him, or maybe not just that. Vla

Re: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?

2007-12-21 Thread Todd Roberts
My path is somewhat similar to Nick Q from earlier in the thread. Start out as pre-med Biology major Take a psych class and think it's super interesting Switch to psych major w/ a slight focus on cognition and aging, intending to end up as a geriatric psychiatrist Work in a judgment and decision m

Re: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?

2007-12-20 Thread Jeff Seager
I've been a little reluctant to detail my experience because I feel I'm a bit of a thorn among the roses, but it certainly fits the "winding path" analogy! Here ya go: I studied journalism with a minor in anthropology at Marshall University. My favorite studies were a history of modern Chin

Re: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?

2007-12-20 Thread Lukeisha Carr
I have been looking into the IxD realm for about 3 years now. I chose to major in Psychology due to a natural curiosity of why people do what they do in general. And computers/technology has always kept my attention. One day I searched on the web to find out how I could apply my Psyc degree to my

Re: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?

2007-12-20 Thread Scott McDaniel
On Wed, 19 Dec 2007 12:25:03, David Malouf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > HTML Programmer > UI "Designer" (UI Engineer who did his own > visuals; and badly) > Producer > Technologist > Information Architect > > UI "Designer" (AGAIN) > Interaction Designer > > The journey took about 9 years and it was

Re: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?

2007-12-20 Thread Niklas Wolkert
-88 Thought I'd be an architectht and went for a High School major in constructuion (to my knowledge at the time the best combo of art and 'technology') -91 Discovered Industrial Design (a 'better' combo of art and 'technology') and decided in euphoria to create a better basis for that by c

Re: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?

2007-12-20 Thread Stew Dean
On 18/12/2007, Fred Beecher <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 12/18/07, pauric <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > > I think many of us took the long winding path actually. I was > > wondering if we could hear some stories about those pivotal moments in > > our careers where we changed from being '

Re: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?

2007-12-20 Thread Sebi Tauciuc
I started messing around with Photoshop in high-school, and it then continued through faculty with several graphic design projects. The faculty was Computer Science (translated 'programming and others'). I did ok, but wasn't really excited about what I was learning. My interest in 'designing for t

Re: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?

2007-12-20 Thread Jens Meiert
> HTML Programmer > UI "Designer" (UI Engineer who did his own > visuals; and badly) > Producer > Technologist > Information Architect > > UI "Designer" (AGAIN) > Interaction Designer > > The journey took about 9 years and it wasn't until I joined this > community that I really understood what des

Re: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?

2007-12-19 Thread Steven Pautz
Over the past 10 years, my interests and self-education have been: Programming > Web Programming > Web Design > Usability (2000) > Human Factors/HCI > UI design (2002) > narrowly-defined IxD > IA > broadly-defined IxD/IA/UX (2004/05) Over the same time frame, however, my work (mostly at short-live

Re: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?

2007-12-19 Thread David Malouf
HTML Programmer > UI "Designer" (UI Engineer who did his own visuals; and badly) > Producer > Technologist > Information Architect > UI "Designer" (AGAIN) > Interaction Designer The journey took about 9 years and it wasn't until I joined this community that I really understood what design even was

Re: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?

2007-12-19 Thread Ari Feldman
i have absolutely no background in design but i am extremely proficient at creating old-school pixel-based artwork and animation - a skill i developed back in the late 80s and early 90s during stints doing artwork for shareware and low-end retail game development as well as for my own custom interf

Re: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?

2007-12-19 Thread Eric Gauvin
For the designer part, it goes way back to a childhood interest in drawing. Later came an interest in the graphic design field via a fascination with the non-photo blue pencil, which I thought was really neat and opened up all kinds of magical possibilities of precision. Then came Quark (even bette

Re: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?

2007-12-19 Thread Benjamin Ho
Awesome thread! How I came to be here seems like a long and winding road. But when I look at it in hindsight, it's actually more straight than I thought. I came from an art background at a very young age. Others considered me "gifted" I just thought kids were suppose to have such artistic abil

Re: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?

2007-12-18 Thread Michael Micheletti
My first inkling was eleven or twelve years ago when I created a Visual Basic UI to the phone queues of a technical support call center. It was a huge project - we thought it would be a simple integration exercise and it turned into more of an invention (a year late, untested phone switch interface

Re: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?

2007-12-18 Thread Esteban Barahona
It was basically from 2 parallel paths: one from my interest in art and another from my interest in computing. Those paths met some day after thinking that art in itself was not what I really wanted and after investigating about Human-Computer Interfaces... I searched and come up with Tog's "we ha

Re: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?

2007-12-18 Thread Darren
Oh, this is a good one! I actually intended to go to school in graphic design and ended up with a social anthropology degree instead. Near the end of college I had already regretted that earlier decision and quickly enrolled in art school after getting my degree for web/multimedia design. Meanwhil

Re: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?

2007-12-18 Thread Jim Leftwich
My interest in becoming an information and interaction designer started very early. My first icon set that I created (probably like most of my early drawings - when I was supposed to be doing something else) was when I was in the first grade in 1967: http://www.anigami.com/jimwich/jimwich_archive

Re: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?

2007-12-18 Thread Jack Moffett
It was during my junior year of college, in the graphic design program at WVU, that my professor took a group of us to a "multimedia" design conference held at Marshall University. Jim Ludtke presented the work he had done with The Residents on their Freak Show CD-ROM. There was a lot of di

Re: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?

2007-12-18 Thread Jon Bell
Hi everyone, I'm brand new to the list. What a great question for introducing myself! I was in art school in the late 90's, but frustrated with the lack of web training. I sent my resume out, mostly in jest, and got leads from Microsoft and RealNetworks. I picked RealNetworks, known far and wid

Re: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?

2007-12-18 Thread Nick Quagliara
biology major > switch to environmental science major > switch to psychology major > graduate with b.a. in psych > behavioral tech in supervised group living program for mentally ill adults > switch to therapeutic recreation tech for mentally ill adults > client vomits on my head > quit job > reent

Re: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?

2007-12-18 Thread Scott Cobban
I come from a graphic design background and am trying to pickup more and more programming bits of knowledge. I don't yet hold any title with "Interaction" in it. I'm still a very broadly titled "Web Designer" at my work, but I love it. By process of elimination (being the sole web designer) and

Re: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?

2007-12-18 Thread Bryan Minihan
CTED] On Behalf Of pauric Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2007 3:36 PM To: IXDA list Subject: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer? I think many of us took the long winding path actually. I was wondering if we could hear some stories about those pivotal moments in our

Re: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?

2007-12-18 Thread Robert Hoekman, Jr.
> I was wondering if we could hear some stories about those pivotal moments > in > our careers where we changed from being 'X' in to Interaction > Designers Great thread! For me, it happened twice. The first time, I was a fledgling web code monkey tasked with a redesign for an employer's sit

Re: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?

2007-12-18 Thread Fred Beecher
On 12/18/07, pauric <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > I think many of us took the long winding path actually. I was > wondering if we could hear some stories about those pivotal moments in > our careers where we changed from being 'X' in to Interaction > Designers Fun thread.. I remember that

Re: [IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?

2007-12-18 Thread Mark Schraad
I have always had an interest in computers... since I was a child. One of my early freelance clients was the publisher of an HCI abstract series in the late 80's early 90's. I thought hmm, 'mixing graphics and computers... cool'. While those projects were few and far between in the midwest, when

[IxDA Discuss] When/Where/How did you decide to be a designer?

2007-12-18 Thread pauric
Brian Hoffman wrote in another thread: "While many of you have followed a very straight career path into interaction design, I'm probably not alone here in having come into this field along a more winding path." I think many of us took the long winding path actually. I was wondering if we could h