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peytonerickson · 1 year

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Grad Show Reflection

Wow. Crazy to think we’re done grad show. Being on the Graphic Design team was a crazy, busy experience. I fell quite a bit behind my process blog with this class, but here’s all the process we did for all our responsibilities.

So the logo was the first thing on the to do list. We discussed, after seeing everyone's mood boards, about having all the students make a letter for the logo. The class loved the idea and we got right on it. We had all the students pick a letter out of a mug and design it in any way they liked.

After we got all the letters back, we realized that some people created them in different mediums (Jaiden drew hers, Alyssa made a sticker, and Katie was much more digital). So, after seeing these few letters, we felt inspired to make all the letters into different mediums showcasing the “variety” of our program and the different classes we take. Some issues we came across when making the logo were the random bright white spots (the outline of the sticker and the K’s ripped paper background) and felt that they stood out too much against the other letters. Another issue we encountered was the flow of the letters and how they should work together. Luckily (not sure how it happened) but the letter R and I perfectly had that movement that we needed, so once we saw that I feel like the rest just came to us. Took a while to take all the letters and make a nice, cohesive logo out of them but I’m really happy with how the final logo turned out.

Next up was posters. So with the posters, we also had to figure out what colours we wanted to use, the context on the posters, and of course the layout. This took much longer than it should’ve in my opinion. There was a lot of back and forth when it came to ideas, and when I thought we were close to finished more new ideas came to. Unfortunately, I had to leave for a week but when I was gone it seemed my team did good and we settled on colours (thanks to Jorden) and with that finished the style guide (thanks to Chelsea). Once we figured out the colours and sent them to other teams, social media and web got to work on their content using our colours (yellow, red, black) and fonts (agenda).

I think we figured out pretty early in the game that the poster would just consist of the letters all the classmates made, slowly spelling out “Variety Pack”. It was tougher than I thought with how the letters should align and move with each other on the poster. After sharing a few concepts and poster layout ideas, the class gave great feedback and we kept moving!

Final poster to the right! I thought it was so cool seeing how our posters kept changing (but for the good)! I was really happy with how our final poster turned out. The letters were placed randomly, but there was still the sense of the grid with aligning the additional context with certain letters and spacing. It was also kinda weird seeing how our colours kept changing. For some reason the codes kept getting funny on us and the printers kept changing the colour, but it all worked out!

Invitations! After a bit of research and just discussing ideas we came up with one right away. These we kept pretty simple, but I’m really happy with how they turned out. Chelsea thought of using the R and E for reception and exhibition which I love! The front side was our logo printed out on a sticker placed on top of the rip to give that idea of the sticker holding the paper together. We also decided to write “You’re Invited” with marker and once we did that, we kinda kept that theme going in a few others things from then on. The digital version was the same, but we just included the Variety Pack sticker look on the same side as the info.

More posters! These posters we hung up in the three window displays by the gallery. When we were doing a walk around a couple weeks before the show, Jorden, Chelsea and myself felt that we needed to use these windows somehow. We thought it would be nice that when you first walk into the cultural center and see posters that explain and showcase our show would be nice.

We definitely new about the map poster and our show poster, but we didn’t know what to do for our third poster. We thought back to our handwritten feature we have around the show and decided to do something with that. Initially it was going to be “Thank You for coming to our show”, but we ultimately decided on “Welcome to Our Grad Show”. The map Jorden and I worked on together, and the Welcome poster I wrote but Chelsea designed. I was very happy with how these posters turned out :)

Next up, guides. These were by far the biggest headache makers. We were cutting it close on time so the three of us got these done up and finished in just a couple days. Our initial design had type go across the spread with all the graduates a little over the center. Unfortunately, however, when it came to printing there were a few issues. None of the pages aligned and the headshots for some reason came out looking really “greasy” and not good honestly. We were not happy with this, and given how close it was already to the show we decided to redesign it without spreads and just do the information on pages.

The new and revised version printed out much nicer. Also, on top of things we decided to hand stich the books together. I personally struggled a bit with this but really enjoyed learning the process of it! I also loved the aesthetic it gave to our guides. It connected it more to us rather than just having some store do everything for us.

Just a few days before the show as well, we hung up our exhibition statement and a giant “sticker” in the main entrance of our show. So the first thing people see when they walk in is our logo and can read about our show. (also shoutout to Chelsea for writing a killer statement).

Aside from all this, we also made stickers for all the letters, trading cards for all the students and social media posts. I don’t have any photos on me right now like I thought I did so I will post some tomorrow morning!

I should’ve been on my process more, but things just got away from me - which is no excuse, sorry. Overall, I am super proud of my Graphic Design team. We did A LOT. I never felt so much stress before but it was well worth it. Our show turned out so good and so us as a class. There's a few things I would do differently now knowing everything, but wouldn’t change anything about the show.

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mainsmr · 2 years

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Set opening page in jutoh

SET OPENING PAGE IN JUTOH HOW TO

SET OPENING PAGE IN JUTOH CODE

SET OPENING PAGE IN JUTOH TRIAL

I'm going to use Kafka's The Trial for this tutorial. That's because your book file needs to be pretty simple to convert it to ebook. If your book is in an MS Word file, you should actually have saved a simple copy, before you did any print formatting. In either case, skip down to the lower sections.*** *** If you used Scrivener or Adobe InDesign you can export as an Epub file directly if you used another open source word processor you can probably save as RTF or HTML. And that may seem depressing, but it should be liberating: you don't need to spend a lot of time or energy making your ebooks perfect, just make sure they work and are clean, and people can read your book without distraction. If you're like me, you're probably thinking these don't look very good. I'm taking a picture of a bunch of the books on my Kindle so you can get a sense of what they look like. And maybe you'll offset the first line in all caps, or a slightly bolded or larger first sentence. The first paragraphs of each chapter will be non-indented. What you can doīasically, you'll use "H1" or "H2" tags for headers. So don't get hung up on the small details. Even if you try to use a dropcap or special formatting, it might look funny. The most important thing is that - even if it doesn't look the same - it doesn't look "broken" or obviously flawed.įor this reason, most mainstream publishers use extremely simple ebooks with no decoration at all. It's very hard to get your file to look exactly the same everywhere.

SET OPENING PAGE IN JUTOH CODE

While this can be done, my complex code would look fine on Kindle or Barnes & Noble but might like strange on Kobo. I was trying to approach it like a print book, and insert images and special designs, and fixed fonts. When I first started learning ebook formatting, it was frustrating. While you don't really need to learn this code, it will help if you need to fine tune the details. To achieve this, ebook formats use something very similar to html code. This is so people using various ereaders can set their own options, change the fonts and text size, to make the reading experience suit their preferences. Unlike print books, for which you want everything to be "fixed" and perfect, ebooks need to "flow." Most ebook stores use a file format called "epub" - but Amazon/Kindle uses a slightly modified file format called "mobi." Most bookstore chains have their own ereader device and their own bookstore but some companies like Smashwords, BookBaby, and Lulu offer "distribution" - which means they'll send your ebook out to all the online retailers and keep track of sales for you. "Ebooks" are digital versions of your book that can be read on tablets and smartphones. Luckily, you can do it for free, and it can be pretty easy - if you aren't picky about the little details (and I'll explain why you shouldn't be).īelow you'll find a few different methods for converting your document to epub and mobi formats, as well as formatting a Smashwords file (ideal for broader distribution). So even while you're formatting for print, you should be thinking about ebook conversion. Since ebooks have no production costs, they let you be much more flexible in pricing, and can be a powerful marketing tool to attract new readers. No matter what kind of book you're publishing, ebook sales will probably be your biggest numbers. I'm not sure what to do with them yet but you can check them out here: Ebook Conversion and Formatting Tools. Recently I had a couple custom ebook formatting and conversion tools built. Until then, you can read through the guide down below or watch the videos above. But I'll start adding individual videos here for each separate method of making an ebook (From InDesign, through Scrivener or Jutoh, etc) I plan to have about 25 of them. That's the simplest process, which I recommend for beginners.

SET OPENING PAGE IN JUTOH HOW TO

The video below will show you how to convert from Word (.docx) to epub and mobi formats with my free ebook conversion tool.Īnd this video will teach you how to edit your epub file with Sigil Above is a video explaining the basics of ebook publishing, formatting and conversion.

#Set opening page in jutoh

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lyd-jms-lwrs · 2 years

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Heads and Three Tales - Foundation Art and Design Final Project 2022

This is the story of my journey with this art project and how I learned to love my art. Enjoy.

PROPOSAL

Something I can say with a lot of confidence about what I have learnt on this course is that art is not that scary. I had a pretty traumatic experience during my art a-level, so much so that I became utterly terrified of art. It was only during the 2020 lockdown when I, and like a lot of other people, started enjoying old passions again and started to rekindle old fires within us. I took a year out to let the fire keep growing, and it did very slowly. I would say at this point it has become a giant bonfire. My original plan was to take two years out but I have a feeling if I did that, then my fire would still be relatively small. This course definitely threw gas onto the flames and I am very grateful for it.

This course has helped me gain interests in mediums that I didn't even know that I had, for example like lino printing. I had only done lino printing once during my first year of a-level and it was taught very differently (they never mentioned the lino needed to be warm for it to work). I also realised how much I enjoy the interactive route with my work – the more interactive the better. In past projects, I have noticed that I stick to a medium that I am comfortable in, my GCSE was practically only digital art that I had printed out and stuck in a book. I did that because it was what I was most comfortable with at the time. I don’t like surprises and I don’t like not having control – that's why other mediums scared me. But now, the idea of using multiple mediums only fills me with excitement.

When brainstorming this project, my first thought was immediately interactive again. I think since I want to make interactive stories in the future, I am always drawn to the idea. However, instead of doing a story again, I took a step back and looked at my other interests, one of them being games, the digital kind and the not digital kind. Since one of my interests is character design and it is something I enjoy doing in my spare time as well, I wanted to design three characters for this game that I wanted to create. Obviously, I do not have enough time to create a fully playable video game but I thought back to games I enjoyed taking part in and one that kept coming up in my mind was the choose-your-own-adventure book Romeo and/or Juliet. In this book, you have to turn to pages depending on the options that you choose and it is one of the best books I own. But, again I ran into the problem of not having enough time to write a full length choose your own adventure book, so I went back to the drawing board. I went back to the drawing board many times and came to the conclusion that a book format would be the best option. The original plan was to do a big flow chart, but due to me not researching how much space I would get at this exhibition, I had to do an emergency change to a book format. Also, when I starting typing my stories, I realised that if I wanted to do a flow chart, I would have had to remove nearly all detail and that would have just made the whole thing underwhelming. So, book it is!

I got my format, but now I need to get my concept. What is it going to be this time? I thought back to my last project which has a fantasy and mystery aspect to it and knew that I would be safe should I decide to take that route again. I would be safe but I also think that I would be bored. I began thinking about stuff that had happened recently in the world, or what is going to happen to the world and came to the conclusion that I was going to make an apocalypse themed project. Three apocalypses, three stories, your choices. I wanted to add an aspect of reality to this project, so two of my apocalypses are based around events that could actually happen one day: a nuclear apocalypse and a plague apocalypse. The third apocalypse will be a fantasy themed one.

I felt the need to include a fantasy themed apocalypse to make sure that it is not taken completely seriously. It is just a game after all. And people like zombie games! Think to Last of Us (2013) by Naughty Dog games has won many awards. However, like Last of Us I did not only want to focus on the zombie aspect of it all – that would just be boring to me. So, that is where the idea of creating characters that would stick with you came into play. I wanted to focus on the relationship you build with these characters in this dire situations and how that can change people.

The artists that I will be researching would be down the war art path, like Langlands and Bell who created the House of bin Laden interactive piece. There is also the book Unofficial War Artist by Peter Kennard. That book is very interesting since it used collages as the medium – a very different medium to what I originally planned but am definitely interested in incorporating. I also looked at choose-your-own-adventure video games, specifically ones that had choices that could affect the whole story instead of one character. Games like Until Dawn and Life is Strange. I also liked the idea of having to drive readers into a corner like how they do in these games – they force you to make decisions you don’t really want to make and that’s what makes them stand out.

The problems that I encountered weren’t severe but they did cause a couple hours of extreme stress. My teacher’s reaction did not help but it’s ok because I did it. The first problem was that everyone I explained my idea to, did not really understand what this would look like. It was only until I stood up and used a wall to explain how this would look (which turned out to be pointless because I changed the way that I would format this project anyway but it was something to learn from)

One of the big problems was to do with my original format. I was drawn to do a flow chart because I had convinced myself that it would be easier – just a few bubbles of text and a simple story line, how hard could this possibly be? Well, it turns out, extremely hard. I had ran into a problem when I has been told how much space I was allowed for my project and it was a lot smaller than I would have wanted. I was then told that I could use some wall space and I thought that that had solved my problem and I went about my day. However, the problem came crashing down on me again when I had started writing later that evening. I already had 1,500+ words in my document and I had only just met Box (I wrote her story first). In that moment I knew that I had to change my plan. If I wanted to stick to a flow chart then I would have had to cut out about 99% of the details and it would be so disappointing. I had called my older sister in panic and asked what to do. I knew what I needed to do, I was just incredibly intimidated by it. Fortunately, I decided it would be best to do the book format instead.

All of the other problems I encountered I could easily fix such as time management and how to use inDesign. Luckily, I used to play around on the Adobe programs a lot so I can easily figure out how to use them. As for time management, I just decided to be more strict on myself. No social media, no video games, get up at a reasonable time and take breaks when necessary. It surprised me every time how much work I can actually do if I just don’t let myself get distracted.

Probably the most important skill that I need to learn to be able to complete this FMP is time keeping. Yes, I have to do a number of things for this project to work but I am confident that I can bring this to life, provided I use my time well. My project will be a mix of mediums since I want to show a variation of techniques that I have learned on this course. I will use my passion for character design to bring the three main characters into existence, but I will need to use a mix of mediums to fully bring them to life. My work will be displayed as a big wall piece, separated into three sections, each showing a different story. I want the viewer to feel like they can pick whichever story they want. I want them to experience the fun of the game but also acknowledge the reality of the stories – this could happen to our world. Around the three sections, I wanted to add objects to create a sort of environment for the viewer to step into. For example, in the fantasy apocalypse, the viewer might encounter the antagonist – a psycho killer who wears a big, vintage dress and wears a cardboard box on her head who also happens to have a fascination for knifes.The viewer will know that she is the antagonist because around the area where her game is, there will be printed wanted posters of her. This is to try and bring some of the world to the exhibition.To evaluate this project and to keep track of what I have done, I will keep a reflective journal. I noticed that this helped a lot during this course and I could see how my opinions changed on certain topics as the weeks went on. I think feedback from teachers and fellow students would also help me develop this project.

#headsandthreetales

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samwebsteruniblog · 2 years

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Typography Workshop

The first workshop we had was to create a couple page spreads from a selection of texts and images provided, we had to create a parkour segment in a magazine. This was a lot of fun to do and I will be going back through the spreads as we didn't get a lot of time so I would like to improve the designs. This was group work so we worked on a slide each and then adjusted them to make them fit like a collective.

We were also allowed to use other photos which took up a lot of time but we wanted to be proper authentic parkour photos or Moroccan photos.

The next workshop was about creating a business card, we got given a few made up business and information to create a card for, I went for the choice of creating one for the yoga teacher. The name of the business was called yellow yoga I decided to go for a more calming approach and used a green colour scheme this was to use nature as a way to show relaxing and becoming still.

I first worked out the hierarchy I think all of this informations is clear and flows well in the way of importance as it should. I then coloured some text and added some symbols for the social media to even show the information clearer. I then created some water painted leafs I did this digitally but made them to feel like an analog piece of art. I did this to create a more caring feel the idea of creating each one by hand I felt created a more personal touch.

I then printed this out and cut it and put it together I did want a green sheet in the middle but as we had a little amount of time and not the full printing available.

The next week we made a poster, I missed this one so had to do it in my own time but really liked the task. For this i wanted to something more experimental and eye catching rather than being completely legible.

The following week we had to create some social media posts for the event.

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dimeeasy · 3 years

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10 Legit Ways to Build Passive Income Online

Whether you are a student looking to make some extra cash, a working professional wanting to build a side hustle, or a corporate escapee and whosoever who is starting to build an online business need to have some cash inflow for the further smooth flow of your business.

There are many sites out there saying make money like $100 a day with surveys, with google sites, etc. Of course, they may make you money for a certain period of time but are not long-term and passive.

You always need to look out for ways to make money that are passive. You need to earn money every month and double it. Here are my top creative ideas to make money online. These real methods have worked in past and will work now and then too.

Freelancing

You would have heard a lot of this from others. But yes, this is the first best way to earn some cash before starting out your business. It will help to get some extra money into your pocket as well as fund a little for your software if you are starting out. You can start freelancing with no investment upfront. It's FREE. You can make money online freelancing.

Don’t worry if you think you don’t have any skills. You can learn small skills by taking a free trial in skillshare. There are tons of gigs people are looking for to get their work done and with the right process, you can make money as a freelancer.

By the year 2027, freelancers are projected to make up the majority of the workforce in the United States, with 50.9% of the working population. In fact, at the current growth rate, it’s estimated that 67.6 million Americans will be freelancing by the end of 2021. That’s 42% of the American workforce! (Website planet).

What are you waiting for? Search in-demand gigs on google keywords and search trends. And yes, patience is the key. You need to wait a few weeks while you get your first gig. Start promoting your services on social media and find your spot.

Starting a Blog

As of 2021, there are more than 570 million blogs on the internet, based on activities reported by WordPress, Tumblr, Blogger, Wix, Squarespace, and Medium (and this number is constantly growing) (firstsiteguide).

Now do not get overwhelmed, the one thing is though blogs are growing rapidly, and so are people reading blogs. Of course, blogs are saturated, but when you niche down and find your audience then you can achieve your space in this sea of bloggers.

Starting a blog, yesterday, today, tomorrow, is possible as long as you are using proper rules, like optimizing your SEO, giving unique content to your readers, and more. But, the best day to start blogging for your profit is today and now.

Let us look at some stats on why you should start your blog today

61% of online shoppers in the US say they made a purchase after getting a recommendation from a blog post

Companies that blog actively have 126% better lead growth

80% of bloggers say that they see positive business results from their blogging efforts

Blogs affect customers’ buying decisions as 47% of them go through 3 to 5 blog posts before the buying process (Firstsiteguide)

Give me a better reason why you should not start a blog after these mind-blowing facts.

You can start a niche blog, review blog, cooking blog, gaming blog, parenting blog, and more. Just write what you know or keep an eye on your competitors and outperform them. And blogging is the best for your long-term passive income.

Starting a YouTube channel

Now as we’ve known how YouTube has evolved to be like a video search engine, the platform has grown considerably and is been growing millions of YouTubers.

Again, let’s talk about some statistics about YouTube. YouTube has 2.3 billion users worldwide.

79 percent of Internet users have their own YouTube account.

YouTube viewers watch over a billion hours of video on the platform every day and generate billions of views. (YouTube, 2021)

YouTube is localized in more than 100 countries and is available in 80 languages. (YouTube, 2021)

Every day people watch one billion hours of video on YouTube (source-Oberlo)

Now, the real question is how to make money out of YouTube? Well, there is enough space for you to sink in. Are you a coach, fitness enthusiastic, a person with good communication, or even just an individual with no skills at all? You can make videos, monetize your YouTube account, and earn from AdSense and affiliate marketing.

Umm! Some people may say that YouTube is not for me. I don’t know how to make and produce videos. I don’t have any skills. Well, I have a solution for that. You can make money from YouTube absolutely by not showing your face at all.

Here are some of the niches you can make videos y not showing your face.

If u do not want to record videos, you can head up to free stock videos or images and give a voice-over and start making content.

If you feel shy to start, you will never get ahead. So, the one thing I want to tell to everyone who is shy to make videos and for my younger self, stop doubting yourself. Just do it, don’t care about criticism, success will follow you

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is when a person earns a commission for referring a product to others. For eg: You register yourself as an affiliate to promote certain products, when the person you promote the product click on your unique affiliate link and purchases through your link you earn a commission. A commission can range for each and every product.

And the affiliate marketing model is the best, safe model for beginners. You can drive traffic for free and for paid as well. You can be an affiliate marketer if you need a passive income, you don’t need to have any other customer support, you can work from home at your own comfort.

Now, how to register as an affiliate. First, think of what do you like the most. What products do you love using? Type the name in google and see whether there is an affiliate program or just see other affiliate programs in your niche. Choose the one you love so that you don’t feel tired and exhausted in the long run.

There are many other sites where you can choose your products from. You can take products from Click bank, Digistore24, Share a Sale, Jvzoo, and similar other platforms.

Here are the best affiliate platforms for you to choose from

How do you want to promote is the next question?

Well, you can create landing pages in click funnels, kartra, or builderall and promote them through ads. If you are on your budget, you could start a blog and promote it. You can write blogs for free on medium.com. It is a cost-effective way to sell your products. You can create a YouTube channel, talk about how you love using those products, and promote them, you could even use Pinterest to promote your blogs and landing pages.

We all know that Pinterest is a visual search engine and no doubt you can get quite a good sale from affiliate marketing in Pinterest

Once you get your first sale and testimonials you can start your Instagram page and build trust with others to promote the products and scale your business.

Instagram Influencer

Do you love making TikTok videos, always want to be active on social media? Then here is your chance to start earning being an Instagram influencer.

You can start by creating content about the topic you want to talk about the most. If creating a YouTube channel feels a bit challenging, grow your audience and monetize them through Instagram. Feel free to talk about what you feel.

Collect your follower's email IDs. Once you become consistent with the audience and platform, the content you are generating makes a digital course or something you think to monetize your people. Giveaway a lot of freebies, checklists, and many other things to lead your audience to the product you are offering. Build trust with them and try to use all of Instagram's available channels. Use carousals, reels, IGTV, go live to show behind the scenes of your work, and more!.

Staying consistent is the key to grow your audience on Instagram.

Starting a T-Shirt Business

Whether you’re an artist, writer, designer, or entrepreneur, physical products can be the perfect canvas for monetizing your creativity. Yes, you heard that right. You can start your own merch for free. Starting an online T-shirt business is booming in this era an why don’t you be one of them. You do not need to hold any inventory, just design your t-shirt online and publish it.

Let me make it clear. So what is print on demand? How to start your free t-shirt business

Print on demand is a process where you work with a supplier to customize white-label products (like baseball hats or tote bags) with your own designs to sell them on a per-order basis under your own brand.

That means you don’t pay for the product until after you’ve actually sold it, so there’s no need to buy in bulk or hold any inventory yourself.

Plus, with print-on-demand services, everything after the sale, from printing to shipping, is handled by your supplier. Once you’ve set everything up, it takes only a few clicks to fulfill an order once you’ve made a sale.

You can use print-on-demand services to:

Test a business idea or new product line for an existing business without the risks that come with buying inventory.

Monetize an audience you’ve built. Printing on demand is a great option if you’re a YouTuber, cartoonist, or social media influencer who wants to spend your time creating content instead of fulfilling orders.

Create original products for a niche of customers. For example, apparel for people who are passionate about gaming.

Easily print one-off items—t-shirts, books, shoes, bags, wall art, phone cases, clocks, laptop skins, mugs, and so much more. You can send these as gifts or keep them for yourself and your team (source-Shopify)

You can get started with print on demand for almost free with teespring, redbubble, printful . Or you can start your online store on Shopify and sell them as a custom branding.

Do not worry if you are not a pro in graphic designing. You can design your t-shirt on canva and paste the design on your t-shirt too. This is a legitimate and easy business for beginners online. You can promote your merch by using SEO, keywords, and various social platforms.

Let's take a look at the print on demand statistics:

This statistic depicts the market value of the custom t-shirt printing market worldwide from 2016 to 2025. In 2016, the global custom t-shirt printing market was valued at 1.16 billion U.S. dollars, and was forecast to reach a value of 3.1 billion U.S. dollars by 2025.

This is insane amount the industry is making from print-on-demand only.

COVID-19 impact Fabric face mask accounted for 11.14% of all goods sold through Printify in September 2020. (Printify)

A 2020 survey revealed that about 96% of millennials and Gen Z have concerns about how the ongoing pandemic will impact the economy. (BigCommerce)

With more people staying at home and focusing on home improvement projects, the Home & Living category is on the rise, with the first 6 months of 2020 seeing a 243.77% growth. Both canvas gallery wraps (2.19%) and premium vertical posters (1.35%) are in TOP15 products sold by Printify merchants. (Printify)

According to Merkle’s report in 2020, roughly 79% of consumers plan to be more conservative with how much they will spend shopping online during the pandemic. (Merkle)

In the first 6 months of 2020, Printify monthly active users have grown by 69%, with registrations up 39%. (Printify)

62% of sellers in the United Kingdom changed their marketing plan because of the pandemic. Moreover, only 14 percent of businesses have decided to stick with their original marketing strategy for 2020. (Statista) ( All sources- Printify) Read more at: https://printify.com/ecommerce-statistics/ And these are just stats alone. Don’t wait now. Start your print-on-demand business right away.

Online Tutoring

Again, online tutoring is gaining massive demand in this digital age. During the pandemic the online tutoring business was a boom and it will be more in the coming years. Just teach people what you know. There are many people in this world who want to learn and are ready to pay for it.

Whether you know to speak English, or drawing, graphic designing, marketing, business, or anything that matters, turn your own skill into a business

You can tutor in paid platforms like cambly, Oakary, iTutor, or just start teaching in YouTube and create tour own course and sell it. You can create courses and teach in udemy too. People all over the world are searching to learn skills and may be you can teach them what you know and monetize your skills.

Amazon KDP [ Selling E-books and low content books ]

As I told you print on demand is a big thing and so does amazon KDP is too. What is KDP? Amazon KDP is nothing but kindle direct publishing. KDP allows you to self-publish eBooks and paperbacks for free. Amazon gives you direct access to your book on Amazon and allows you to create a product detail page for your book. It also gives you the option to expand your book’s availability on a global scale, making it more accessible for readers around the world. Publishing with KDP gives you full rights to your book, which is not something a traditional publishing house typically allows.

What types of content can I publish through KDP?

KDP allows you to publish eBooks (Kindle) and paperback books. However, KDP does not allow the creation of magazines, periodicals, or spiral-bound books.

Content types typically published using KDP include but are not limited to the following:

Novels

Book Series

Children’s Books

Comics

Cookbooks

Journals

Poetry

Textbooks (source: amazon.com)

Selling Photography

Are you a photographer? Are you making enough money? If no then this will help you , if yes you are gonna make an extra dime.

You can sell your beautiful photos on Getty Images, Pexels, Shutterstock, Adobe Stock and many more sites and earn money whenever your image is downloaded. If it is a subscription-based site then your earnings will be more. You can post your beautiful images on Instagram and become famous. Ultimately you can collaborate with various brands for their product photography.

If your camera is lying there near you, take it and start clicking pictures and sell your photos online.

Selling on Etsy

Etsy is an online market place that works as an intermediary between customers and artists, crafters of handmade items or collectors of vintage products. The company engages in customer to customer (C2C) or peer to peer (P2P) e-commerce in which both the seller and the buyer are private individuals or micro-businesses. This is in contrast to other forms of internet commerce such as B2C or B2B (source: Statista).

Let's head to our facts about how profitable it is to sell on Etsy

Etsy had over 2.5 million sellers at the end of 2019, and we can only expect that this number has increased.

Etsy sellers live all over the world, in 234 countries

62% of Etsy sellers are based in the US.

California is home to the most Etsy sellers with 14% of US-based Etsy shops. (credits: veeqo)

Etsy is a huge commerce platform, with an especially strong US presence. Plus, the fact that most sellers are multi-channel retailers—and also selling their products on marketplaces like Amazon and Shopify sites—suggests that the platform isn’t just for amateur makers. It’s for eCommerce businesses.

So if you’re already selling handmade or vintage products on another platform, it’s worth it to expand and start selling on Etsy.

If you’re starting a business, it’s important to run the numbers before setting up shop—or at least quitting your day job. Etsy does have associated costs, though it’s worth noting that the listing and transaction fees are lower than other platforms, like Amazon and eBay. (cre: veeqo)

So, if you can start your print on demand you can sell it on Etsy too. If you are good at handicrafts Etsy is the best place to promote.

Conclusion

So here are the top 10 ways where in you can make legitimate money online. You can try all these methods one by one. Well, everyone will look for quick methods to make money online, but those won’t suffice for long run.

If you should build a strong business online you need to stay consistent no matter what. Staying consistent will help audience grow along with you on your journey to make money online. For beginners starting out these methods will help you in starting out to make a dime or two.

One thing I need to make particular is you will not see results instantly. You need to try and try, keep on trying. Whether it is 2 weeks, 1 month or 3 months, you should not stop. Keep up that grind and let’s start the digital lifestyle. Start by making money online fore free with these methods and start investing in ads and make the business run for you in long run.

#passive income #makemoney #make money online #remote jobs #jobsearch #building a business #freelance #social media #education #money tips #earnmoneyonline #make money blogging #make money on instagram #make money now

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matthew5310117 · 4 years

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Week 10 Activities

Week 10′s activity was a physical modelling task where students took their preferred 3D model of their lotion bottle and produced a 3D printed scale model.

{Week 10: 3D printing final 3ds Max model}

To start off I 3D printed out the model I had made in last weeks 3ds Max activity. I am fortunate enough to have access to a 3D printer at my home so I didn’t have to go through UNSW printing process. Using the Cocoon version of Cura I sliced the stl file I had of the model and used the settings I knew would work for the printer and filament (bed temperature: 60 ° , nozzle temperature: 210 ° , layer height: 0.2mm). The model was printed at a 20% density using a spool of 3dfillies light grey PLA filament and took roughly 10 hours to complete.

{Week 10: Sanding and priming model}

After removing the brim off of the bottom of the model I went about sanding the exterior surfaces to smooth out the layer marks. I started off using 80 grit wet and dry sandpaper and wet sanded each surface until I couldn’t see the layers. I then washed and repeated the same process using 100 grit wet and dry sandpaper. For the largest curved surfaces I opted to sand them down by just holding the sandpaper sheet because I felt was able to get the most even coverage. For the flat surfaces I used a sanding block and the top and bottom using sanding sticks. Looking back now, I should have been using 60 grit sandpaper and sanded down each surface far more than I did. While the surfaces were far smoother than they had been after printing, the surfaces could have been smoother and more even. After I was done sanding I washed the model and stuck it to a workbench using blutack. I then applied two coats of plastic primer, going back after each coat and spraying the bottom.

{Week 10: Spray painting model}

Once the primer had dried I sprayed the model with an acrylic semi-gloss spray paint in the shade “post boy”. I started off with a very light coat and then added progressivly thicker coats as I went. I had always thought that when you were spray painting you were meant to do multiple light layers but it would have taken six or seven coats to get the same amount of paint on the model. After the paint last coat of paint had dried I was surprised to see how many scratches and layer marks were still visible through the paint. In the lecture we were told how important it was to prepare your model properly in order to get a good surface finish. It is clear that I didn’t sand the models enough and should have also applied thicker coats of primer.

{Week 10: Final photographs of finshed model}

Finally, I photographed the finished model. Using a portable studio, I photographed the model at different angles, also using different backgrounds. The darker background shows the scratches and imperfections on the model better than the white background. Despite the visible imperfections of the models surface finish, I am still very happy with how it turned out. The surfaces are far smoother than they had been directly after printing and the semi gloss paint catches the light far better than the filament did. Its the first time I’ve ever painted a model and I’ve learnt alot from it. I’m sure that the next time I paint a model I will be able to use what I have learnt from this task.

{Week 10: Process images of final lotion bottle design}

As a recap of the what I have done over the past couple weeks, I compiled together some of the process images for the lotion bottle design. Its interesting to see how the design has evolved from week to week as we learnt and experimented with new physical and digital model making techniques. Overall I am happy with the model that I was able to produce, even if it does look more like a bottle of cologne than a bottle of Olay lotion.

{Course Reflection}

Over the past semester I feel as though this course has; consolidated, built upon, and taught me information and skills regarding both drawing and model making. I feel that the first few weeks acted as a refresher for what I had learnt in highschool about technical and perspective drawing whilst also building upon my knowledge in both areas. The rest of the term I feel was spent learning new skills in both freehand concept drawing and digital and physical model making. As a whole I think I have learnt alot about the design process, particularly how important it is to experiment with drawings and physical models before refining ideas in CAD.

Out of the three subjects I took this semester I enjoyed this course the most because of how structured it is. Each week an aspect was taught and then was applied in the form of a practical activity. These activities would force students to build their own skills and form their own stance on what does and doesn’t work. I enjoyed how clear and informative each of the lectures and tutorials were and the style of submitting work online. I think I liked this subject the most because of how black and white everything was, and how that reflects me.

If I were to do anything again in this course it would be to put more thought into my early blog posts. While they conveyed what I had done to an adequate extent, I feel as though they lacked a lot of the small details which diminished the overall quality of the work that I was producing. From the work of my peers I feel as though I have been able to identify what things I could do differently in order to improve my work. This being organising picture layouts instead of posting individual images and formatting each blog post with subheadings and separate sections for each part of the activity so that post would follow a more cohesive flow.

The main take away that I have gotten from this semester is the importance of exploring ideas using low fidelity physical models. Take the foam modelling task as an example. It was far easier to just... do than to sit there and think about how I was going to digitally model my idea. This also meaning that I could spend more time experimenting with ideas and concepts, being able to produce multiple physical models in the time it would otherwise take me to produce one digital model. The idea of being economical with your time is another idea that I have taken away from this course. Producing what is viable in the amount of time that you have and not trying to perfect what doesn’t need to be. I’m not saying that I should become careless with what I do but to rather not hold the expectation of perfection above absolutely everything. I think the hardest part of anything for me is starting because of how I hold the expectation of perfection above everything. I think I need to think less and just do more.

#ides1262 2020 week 10

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thisnorthernboy · 4 years

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Off the radar

Hi all, apologies for the lack of blog posts in the last few months. I've become a little disillusioned with social media lately and that's meant I haven't been posting content as frequently. I'm not sure if that'll change too much, algorithms and the like are taking a bit of the joy out of it. When you post something and it gets half the engagement a similar post was getting a couple of years ago, despite having more than twice the number of followers, it's a bit discouraging.

Anyway, here's what I have been up to since summer.

Patreon. I've continued to work on my Patreon project - Weird Field World. There's a bit of info about it here. I'm really enjoying fleshing out the world, adding background, history, little stories and characters. The engagement with my supporters there is great, and it's very energising to have people to discuss the project with. You can support me here.

Inktober. I failed to finish Inktober this year. I think I just ran out of steam and enthusiasm for the project after a couple of weeks. My plan was to draw a series of little building based, loosely, on the play Under Milk Wood, by Dylan Thomas. I started off OK, but there wasn't, perhaps, quite enough to go on for a whole month of building drawings. I think I managed 14 or 15 in the end. I was reasonably happy with most of them, and I might add one or two more at some point. A bunch of the illustrations are available to buy, so I'll add a separate post soon.

Illustration work. This year has been a disappointment compared to last year. Working on a couple of books, plus work in a couple of magazines, some t-shirt designs and a little concept art work meant that 2018 was by far my best year for paid illustration work. 2019 by comparison has been awful. I've had a steady flow of private commissions this year, but no major commercial work at all. I've worked on concept art for a couple of clients, but both of those projects fizzled out due to publishing or financial issues. It has made me realise that I need to be much more proactive in seeking work, so in the last few weeks I've been getting organised. The year has ended brighter, a few little commercial projects have come in over the last two weeks, and I've had enquiries about a couple more.

Digital Illustration. A year or so ago I bought myself an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, hoping to dive in to the world of digital illustration. One of the main reasons for doing so was to be able to produce super clean linework that would reproduce well in print. I have found working digitally a huge, and difficult, leap. The simple act of drawing on something other than paper, even with a matt screen protector on the iPad, has taken a huge amount of time to get used to - and there were many times when I thought it simply wasn't going to be possible for me. The turning point was a suggestion from Rob McCallum on Twitter that I simply give up working on paper for a while, and only sketch on the iPad. It might seem like an obvious solution, but to draw digitally, and not get the results you want, for even a day was quite a task for me. Gradually, over the course of a couple of weeks things began to feel more natural. I got used to the feel of the stylus on glass, to the way digital lines worked, how to tweak brush settings to suit my way of drawing. Now, although I still have huge amounts to learn, I really do feel comfortable working on the iPad. I even enjoy it. Part of that is down to just how good the iPad and Pencil are, and how great a piece of software Procreate is. Together they are really quite formidable. Adobe and Wacom should be worried, particularly with the lacklustre release of Photoshop for iPad.

Parklife. I've continued to get out for walks as often as I can, if not as often as I'd like, in Bushy Park. Getting out in to the fresh air, and out in the open is hugely important for me, particularly if I've been stuck at my desk for a few days. I still get a thrill from seeing the variety of wildlife in the park - Red and Fallow deer, woodpeckers, kingfishers, and a huge number of other different bird species. I can't recommend getting out in to the countryside enough. Make the effort if you can, you won't regret it.

Reading. I've struggled to find moments to read this year. Not commuting in to London at all has been one factor - the only good thing about a three hour commute each day is that it gives you three guilt-free hours to read each day. Apart from that I just don't seem to have been in the right frame of mind. Perhaps it's a feeling of guilt - spending time reading when ideally I'd be working - even if I haven't had the work to do this year. I've tried to put things right in the last month or so. I read and thoroughly enjoyed Gareth Powell's sequel to Embers of War - Fleet of Knives. And Ann Leckie's Provenance, set in the Imperial Radch universe she introduced us to in Ancillary Justice, was a great read. Currently I'm reading Wilding by the appropriately named Isabella Tree. It's the story of how she and her (affluent) family set about rewilding large parts of their 1400 acre estate in Sussex.

That's it for now. I'll do my best to post more often. Do let me know if there's anything in particular you'd like me to write about.

You can find prints of my work here

I also have a Patreon page

And you can find more of my work online… Twitter Instagram Facebook Blog

#blogging #blog #illustration #thisnorthernboy

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firefly-in-darkness · 4 years

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Christmas in New York - Part Two

Characters: Thor, Val (Valkyrie), Jane & Loki (as a pet..)

Summary: Y/N is clouded by her love for her boss, Brock Rumlow, but is that about to change with a trip to New York?

Prompt: The Holiday

Word Count: 2.8k

Beta: @princessmisery666 - the fantastic Stacey - but as always, mistakes are my own!

Warnings: Angst, fluff

A/N: This is for @lostinaseaoffictionalbliss Winter challenge. Only a little bit of Thor in this one... BUT Y/N gets to meet Val and visit the Lake this time. Oooh and I’m posting a day earlier than planned!! I’d love any feedback too

A couple of days had past since Y/N had met Thor and Loki, her feet began to itch at the laziness she had revelled in previously; reading a book at the window, completing sudokus and word puzzles beside the fire and sitting on the porch with a hot chocolate to watch the navy velvet sky come to life as the stars sparkled in all of their glory. Last night, Y/N decided that today would involve visiting the local town and taking the less difficult path to the lake.

After breakfast, the grey clouds had shifted to blue skies and Y/N rushed out of the house before the snow began to fall once more. As she took a left out of the drive, she spotted a woman in a wheelchair being pushed towards the path of the drive not far from hers. The woman had her head in her hand in a sulk, whilst their carer chatted away cheerfully. So those are my neighbours, Y/N smiled at the pair before she continued on her journey.

Twenty minutes and after a consultation of a map she found in the cabin, she was rewarded with the sign; Welcome To Lake George Town. Y/N grinned from ear to ear at the small triumph and entered the first store she came across, Marvellous Cafe. A bell chimed above the door as she pushed it open, the immediate warmth and smell of coffee, bread and… vanilla occupy Y/N’s thoughts.

“Welcome to Marvellous, how may I help you?” A young woman greeted her with a bright smile.

Y/N clocked her name badge and began to remove her gloves. “Erm… what would you recommend Maria?”

“Oh, you’re the out-of-towner everyone keeps talking about!” Maria chuckled, “Well, you’ll have to try my boss’, Nick, wonderful blueberry muffins. What do you think?”

“Yes that’s me!” Y/N unravelled her scarf to hang loose around her shoulders. “Sounds perfect. How about a cappuccino too?”

Maria set about making Y/N’s coffee and Nick handed her a plated blueberry muffin. She found an armchair next to the window and watched the town in action. Various people passed by, either for work or leisure, and they all greeted one another with kindness.

Y/N was deep in her thoughts of how different life in a small town was compared to the one she had come accustomed to in LA. Soon she began to think of Wanda, her old job and Brock. I wonder what he’s doing… Probably planning his wedding with Ruby. Y/N’s thoughts began to turn sour and she would not allow that in this place of tranquility that she had found.

As if on cue, Maria interrupted Y/N to pass her a second cup of coffee. “On the house from the boss. Apparently, he loved your five star review on trip advisor.”

Y/N held the mug of coffee to her chest, the heat warmed through her jumper and settled her mind onto what she should do next. Then she spotted Loki, her heart began to pound against her rib cage, as Loki halted outside the door of the cafe. She craned her neck to see Thor walking hand-in-hand with a woman. He never mentioned a girlfriend, Y/N tried to recall any mention or hint of one during their conversations but came up blank.

I guess it wasn’t necessary, he only saved me from being lost in a snowstorm and drove me home… and helped start a fire…. In my panites. Y/N blanched at her thoughts and tried to ignore the blush that crept up her cheeks. She sank into the armchair further and tried to occupy herself with the small menu on the table in front of her.

The bell chimed and try as she might to avoid them, she had no choice to but acknowledge them when Loki’s muzzle came to rest on her lap. His brown eyes looked up at her with pure happiness. She petted his head and looked up to meet Thor’s large grin when he stepped behind the dog and into her line of sight. Her eyes drifted to the dark haired beauty beside him, and it seemed Y/N’s confusion was contagious. The gorgeous woman regarded her with confusion that mirrored her own from earlier.

Y/N felt the awkward silence between the couple seep into the atmosphere. His friend glared at her, even though a smile was on her lips, and Thor watched Loki. A cough from the woman wrapped protectively into his side brought Thor back to reality and he placed an arm around her waist.

I hope this doesn’t get any more awkward, Y/N chewed at her cheek.

“Jane, this is Y/N, the woman that Loki found lost in the woods the other evening.” He gestured between the women as Y/N stood to greet them, “Y/N this is my Jane, Jane not Myjane.”

Y/N waved at Jane, who shook her head before she headed to the counter. Jane looked at her phone and sent texts one after the other, a smile grew on her face and she reached the front of the queue, out of sight.

Y/N turned to Thor and smiled, “How are you?”

“I am well, I see that you found the town easily.” He chuckled and rubbed at his neck, “I should have said this the other day, but if you ever need any help or would like company then please text or call me.”

Y/N placed her phone in his hand and he dialled his own number. Jane returned and passed Thor the coffee in a to-go cup, widened her eyes at him and walked towards the door.

Thor patted his leg for Loki to follow and reluctantly left the cafe, “See you around.”

Loki hesitated, as if Y/N was supposed to follow, “Go on boy, maybe your dad will let us go for a walk soon.”

Thor watched the way Y/N interacted with Loki, love and affection in her words and touches. He liked the way her warmth was shown in the simplest of gestures; a smile, a pat on Loki’s head or the way her eyes sparkled when she looked at him. Loki barged past him at the door, and trotted after Jane.

Two waves and a bell chime later, Y/N discovered her coffee was almost cold. She placed the mug on the counter and said her goodbyes to Maria and Nick, zipped up her jacket and put on her gloves. She was ready to explore the town even further and visit the lake.

Y/N casually strolled along the sidewalk with the intent to make the most of her visit. She watched parents with their children entering Banner’s Bookshop, a group of construction workers leaving Stark’s Workshop and a few people chatting outside Vision: Prints & Digital Designs. She approached another store on the corner before the turning for the lake, Y/N realised it was a bar and smiled to herself, I’ll visit you on my way back.

Tall pines flanked the edges of the lake, protectors of the peace that flowed through Y/N as strolled along the snowy covered path towards the pebbled beach. When she reached the opening of the trees, her breath was taken away by the spectacular view. The silvery-blue water remained still and mirrored the trees and hilltops that surrounded it as she walked beside the lake, only a slight hush of a wave along the shore could be seen.

Y/N settled on a bench and closed her eyes as she attempted to empty her mind, to get away from all the uncertainty she had thrown herself into. A breeze flickered across her face and brought a shiver down her spine.The crisp air was thick with the smell of fallen leaves and a comforting freshness. Y/N could hear her heartbeat echo alongside the birds’ chorus that softly floated along the light wind, tears pricked at her eyes and fell slowly down her cheeks.

Why was I never good enough for him? What did I do wrong?

Her mind spiralled as she thought of Brock, the way he looked at her on that last day; without a care, the way he played with her heart and soul and how he broke her down. He used her job promotion to torment her and the final blow of an engagement was enough to shatter her dreams. She replayed in her mind, over and over again, how she thought she was happy, and that she was convinced he would show up at her door after she walked out of his office, her job, his life. Y/N’s bottom lip trembled as her sobs took over.

Footsteps and laughter disturbed her emotional outlet, she quickly wiped away the salty remnants of tears. She turned around to see Jane talking on her mobile phone. She had her gloved hand twirled around her locks and a smile that beamed out to the lake. Y/N recognised the look of infatuation, she couldn’t blame her. Thor seemed like the type of guy to find his way into someone’s heart and take up permanent residence.

Caught up in her envious thoughts, Y/N hadn’t realised she was staring, until a voice bellowed from behind, “Loki don’t you dare jump in that water, I am not rescuing you again!”

Y/N ducked behind the nearest tree and watched as Jane scrambled to end her call before Thor appeared behind her and slipped his arms around her waist.

The walk back to the main street was quicker than Y/N had expected, her thoughts focused on Jane’s reaction; I’m just caught up on Brock and Ruby. Plus, it’s none of my business. She decided that alcohol wouldn’t be the best move, particularly with her current state of mind. As she reached The Red Room bar, a dark haired woman was being brought out of the doors by another. Y/N immediately recognised her neighbour in the wheelchair, who was now using a walking stick.

“Please, just one more.” She pleaded with the redhead.

“No Val, you’ve had enough already. Go home.” Her words were stern but concern was etched across her face. “What do you want?”

The woman had turned her attention to Y/N who flinched, “Nothing, I-”

The redhead turned on her heel and walked back into the bar, leaving Y/N wide eyed and Val slumped on her stick. She was uncertain what to do next, she could see the pain behind her drunken stupor.

“Hi, I’m Y/N. Are you okay?”

“Val. I’m fine. I just need to get home,” her expression changed from determination to an uncertain blankness as she looked around.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

Val kept her eyes on the ground, her voice quiet that Y/N almost didn’t hear. “I don’t know how to get home.”

Y/N’s gave a half smile, “Good job I know the way, now.”

As Y/N walked beside Val, and attempted to fill the silence; she spoke of the competition for a cabin retreat and how she had gotten lost the first day she arrived, which received a few chuckles from Val.

Val mumbled, “I’ve lived here for nearly five years and I still manage to get lost or forget where I am. I suffer with short term memory loss. I drink to forget the past but it doesn’t always work out well. Nat, the bar owner, she’s only looking out for me. I don’t always have to use a stick, or even a wheelchair.”

Y/N helped Val up the porch steps and grinned, “Well this was some Meet Cute.”

Val’s brow pulled down in confusion, “A meet-what?”

“It’s from a film, I can’t remember which, but it’s about how two characters meet for the first time, it could be any situation and ours was outside The Red Room.” Y/N spotted the confusion on Val’s face, “You’ve never seen a Rom-Com have you?!”

“Not my thing…” Val turned and stretched out to unlock the door. Her hand shook as she aimed the key at the hole and failed a few times.

Y/N softly took the keys to help, as she opened the door she was greeted with a large hallway. Val planted herself into the wheelchair by the door. Y/N was overwhelmed by the amount of photographs that lined the stairwell; Val in army uniform, meeting the President, award presentations.

Valerie Brunnhilde receives the Silver Star for their gallantry in action.

The Purple Heart was awarded to Valerie “Valkyrie” Brunnhilde for their wounds suffered in combat.

Y/N followed Val into the living room and saw a few more photographs. The various awards and medals glittered against the sunlight that streamed in through the large bay window. Her attention turned to the veteran who had begun to set up a spot on the couch, a discarded microwave meal on a lap tray.

What happened to you? Her heart ached for the woman that, even though these accolades shone at her, sought the comfort of alcohol and isolation.

“Thank you for rescuing me, I enjoyed our meet cute.”

“Val, I don’t really know anyone here, and I am going for dinner in town tomorrow evening, would you like to join me?”

What about Thor? Isn’t he someone you know here… No! I need to be around friends not someone I find attractive. Plus he’s got a girlfriend, Y/N reminded herself as she awaited a response.

Val nodded, “I’ll book a table for 7pm at Bistro Barton. I haven’t been there in a while actually.”

The lighting in the restaurant provided a soft orange glow, the air was filled with the scents of different foods and the ambient music drifted over the sounds of chatter and laughter. Y/N twirled the spaghetti around her fork as Val recounted stories of her time in the army and the tours she completed.

“I’m actually supposed to be going to New York City to receive an award but I am not sure I’d like to go.” Val noticed Y/N had hardly eaten or said a word for the last five minutes, “Hello, is anyone there?”

Y/N chuckled at Val waving her hand in front of her, “Sorry, I don’t seem to be the best company at all.”

Coffees and a dessert replaced the pasta dishes and wine glasses. Her mind wandered back to Thor and Jane, the way she had looked whilst on the phone to someone that was obviously not her boyfriend. How could she be so casual about it? How had Thor not noticed? It’s none of my business.

Y/N returned her focus to the present, and her lava cake and licked at the melted chocolate on the spoon.

“So, what’s a beautiful and charming girl like you staying in a cabin in the middle of nowhere for their Christmas vacation?” Val scooped the gelato up into her mouth, an eyebrow raised at Y/N.

A sigh escaped her lips and she stirred the spoon in her coffee cup, “I guess, I wanted to get away from work, the people I see all the time. Actually, there was one person, a guy that I was in love with.”

Val reached over and squeezed Y/N’s hand, “Well, he’s an idiot for letting you go.”

Tears welled as she confessed her pain to the woman opposite her, she dabbed the napkin under her eyes, gave Val a watery smile and sipped her drink.

“It seems to me like you’re behaving like the best friend instead of the leading lady. Like in those rom coms you’ve mentioned.” Val pursed her lips and rested her head in her hand.

“Wait a minute, that’s from The Holiday! You said you hadn’t seen any?!” Y/N smirked and pointed at her companion.

Val rolled her eyes and huffed, “I might have watched it last night. But, what I’m saying is that you need to take ownership of your own life and be the leading lady, always. I’ve spent too many years in a haze since my last tour, I have tried to forget my past and drink it away but that hasn’t worked for me one bit. Now you, you need to put yourself first.”

Val pointed at her with sternness to which Y/N smiled and nodded, tears and heartache long forgotten as she listened to some well needed words of wisdom.

“So what’s this about an award in New York?”

To be continued...

#Christmas In New York #Thor x Reader #Thor Odinson x Reader #Thor #Thor Odinson #Valkyrie #Jane Foster #Thor Fluff #Thor Fanfic #Thor Fic #Marvel Fanfic #Marvel Fic #Marvel AU #Thor AU

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suicidalcatz · 5 years

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DOG DAYS ARE OVER : CHAP 5

AN: Hello frens! Are you having a nice sunday? In this chapter we exchange some texts. But also we make fun of Josh just because. In the next chapter, things get complicated between the three of you... I hope you’ll like it. Please feel free to comment or send me prompts!

Pairing : Jake Kiszka x Reader

Genre : College AU

Previous parts : Prologue ; Chap 1 ; Chap 2 ; Chap 3 ; Chap 4

Masterlist : here

Chapter five : New number, who dis ?

Packing never made me feel weird before. It was friday afternoon so a majority of students were going home or, like me, to their parents' place for the week end. Most of the time I'd stay in my dorm with Mandy because we had so much homework there was no point coming home at all. I already knew for a fact that I'll be locked up in my room all week end painting, drawing, and cutting paper, but I promised I'd see them since it has been a while. My parents' cooking and comfy house usually made me impatient but not this time. I knew the boys were staying on campus because they lived far away, and it gave me mixed feelings. Part of me longed for Jake, and the feeling of his touch on my wrist was still so vivid I sometimes got the impression his hand was still here. On the other hand, he and Josh were big family guys, and seeing them missing their home so much while I was reluctant to see mine made me feel like a spoiled brat. That's why instead of calling to tell my parents I wasn't coming home this week end either, I went home to enjoy every bit of it.

My mom had already made my favorite dish, and dad was excitedly chatting about this new movie he saw on tv the other day. It felt good, I could allow myself to relax a little, take a bath, hang out with some friends for an hour or two after finishing an assignment.

Sitting at my desk, I dropped the pen and stretched my back, falling back onto the chair and looking at my work. I did good this week, so the teacher didn't make me redo any of my assignments, which was very fortunate because I still had a flyer design to create. I unfolded that one Jake gave to me and took a look at all the infos, preparing a draft of my first idea. Why they didn't let the Illustration department do the visual com design was a mystery. By the look of it I bet it was the Music and Architecture dudes who made it. There was a bunch of band names thrown in the middle, what looked like a pixelled stock image of a Santa hat in a corner, « with beer ! » in a really ugly comic bubble in another, and the worst was that they though Comic Sans was an acceptable font choice. Unbelievable. That's why we can't let Architecture dudes do anything.

Creating a decent design took me a solid two hours, which was way faster than I planned. Getting up, I studied it from a distance, looking for flaws. It wasn't the best I could've done but it was pretty cool and not printed with neon yellow paper. For now, I'll rest my head for a bit and see if I can sketch the few more ideas I came up with later on. Feeling proud of my work, I took a picture to send it to Jake. It was dark and quiet outside, and one glance at the clock confirmed my thoughts on how late it was already. Biting my lower lip, I struggled. Maybe he was sleeping.

I never texted him since he gave me his number. I mean he gave it to me so we could talk about the flyers, right ? I would've been uneasy using it for another reason. Pondering whether of not I should maybe wake him up, I started pacing in my room, tidying and touching things, stuff I did when I was nervous. My arm still had some black marker on it, faded shapes and symbols vaguely resembling numbers, like an old letter with smudged ink and discolored paper. At first I didn't wanted to wash it off. Mandy and I got so excited by it we cheered together right after school, and classmates seemed intrigued by it. The cold weather didn't allow me to show too much skin so it could look like a tattoo, or a hot guy gave me his number (which was technically true). It could look like I just wrote it myself, but it was totally lame so I didn't want to think about it. Although I really enjoyed that empowering feeling of being someone's interest, at least a little, I scrubbed it hard the same evening. I didn't know if Josh was aware of it and couldn't raise suspicion in case he wasn't. It looked like we were doing something bad, and maybe we were, I had no clue. Guys had that weird rule regarding friends dating brothers and according to Netflix romcoms I was walking on thin fucking ice so I wasn't taking any risks. To be honest I don't think Josh would mind us talking but Jake seemed like a secretive guys so if he told Josh then I'll talk about it and otherwise, I won't. I'll just go with the flow and follow his lead on this, it was safer.

It was almost 2AM when I sent the pic and left my room to get a nice cup of tea/coffee after all these efforts. By the time I got back I had one new message.

« Hi to you too »

I felt my heart jump a little when I saw his name at the top of the screen, and his first text made me smile. I got so pumped by all these design ideas that I forgot to tell him it was me. The picture made it clear enough, though, but maybe it was a bit rude of me. Taking a sip of hot tea/coffee before putting the mug on the night table, I sat on the bed, eyes still on my phone, thinking of an answer. It took me maybe too long because I kept on rereading it to be sure I wouldn't embarrass myself with a typo.

« Hi, sorry. So what do you think ? »

The phone was threwn on the blankets and I turned on the tv to make me think of something else than his future reply. Saying that I was confident would be half-true. The design was good or so I thought so, but then again tastes were all too subjectives and art was tricky. He had all the right to hate it, I wouldn't take it personally (well at least not a hundred percent...). Idly watching a re-run of some old sitcom, I continued to quietly empty my cup and switch channels without really paying attention when I heard my phone buzz and let everything down to grab it.

« I got to admit you were right, our flyers sucked, this one looks fantastic »

And maybe my cheeks started turning pink. Compliments on my art meant a lot, more than those on my personnality or physic. It was really rewarding to have someone enjoy something you created from your own hands. It felt better than any other flattery, so the reply came naturally.

« I'm so glad you like it. I had a few more ideas in stock just in case »

His next message came so fast this time that I didn't even put down my phone yet when I felt it vibrate in my palm.

« Thank you for this, I really appreciate it. I'll owe you one. »

His sweet personality made a smile spread across my face. I took the flyer in my hand again, studying it. The number of bands playing this day was surprisingly high. Some of them I knew because I either heard people talk about it, or knew the guys playing. One especially because they kept rehearsing their rap lyrics in the dorms for everybody to enjoy, which I didn't since they started loudly singing at three in the morning and ignored all my complaints about the noise of their boombox. But most of the bands, no, I didn't know. I continued watching intently the names of the bands playing as if I'll have an epiphany and guess which was Jake's. Giving up, I took my phone again to tap.

« Don't sweat it, I'm glad to help. So... which one are you... ? »

Again, the reply was faster than the first texts we exchanged, despite the late hour.

« You mean the band ? Guess you'll have to come and find out »

I raised an amused eyebrow at this. Getting cocky, aren't we ?

« Alright then, Mister Mysterious, I'll wait and see. »

« You won't regret it. », replied Jake, and for some reason my face started heating up again.

We didn't speak for several minutes, I didn't know what to say now that the topic was closed, and I had nothing to add to it. Switching channels and drinking tea/coffee didn't gave me much help either, at this hour it was either old re-runs, or tv shopping. My eyes looked at the digital alarm clock, and it was almost three in the morning. That's how I knew what to write next.

« I just thought about it, but didn't I wake you up ? »

He was fast as ever again this time, probably wide awake and without anything to do.

« No, don't worry. Rehearsing with my brothers. I'm taking a break until Sam and Josh stop arguing and find a compromise for the new song. Our friend Danny's being the peace keeper once again, I left him alone on the battlefield and went out for a smoke. »

The war metaphor made me chuckle lightly, causing my imagination to run wild. The thought went through my mind that I couldn't believe they would argue, but since they were brothers it was normal I guess, even if they seemed pretty close. Close enough to form a band together at least. I never saw Josh angry, but he had a very vivid temperament, so it wasn't really much of a surprise either. My mind wandered a bit, and I briefly wondered how Jake looked in a heated argument. Probably hot, but also intimidating. He had that kind of quiet aura that seemed like it could become suddenly agitated, like a spotless watercourse that got troubled by the rain or rocks that ricocheted on it. I couldn't explain it, but it was how my limited knowledge of him perceived it.

My phone buzzed again, and this time it was a picture that made me snort in the ugliest way possible. It was a very unflattering close up of a moody and clearly unamused Josh who looked like he was in the middle of scolding Jake for doing whatever he did that got him upset. More of it came, one after the other, for my greatest amusement, and by looking at them in order I could see his actions and movements, like a flipbook of ugly pictures of an angry Josh wearing a colorful dyed t shirt and ample pants that I assumed were his pajamas. The last one got me shaking with laughter, poor Josh looked awful, in a middle of what I assumed was a menacing speech for Jake to stop his bullshit, with an eye half closed and his mouth stuck the weirdest twist of the lips humanly possible. I saved this one as blackmail material, might be helpful in the future.

I didn't even know what to respond to that, they all radiated such chaotic energy it was splendid. Jake was quicker, and sent me a text this time, saying Josh threw his slipper at his face and that he was lucky he hadn't had the tambourine in his hands at that moment.

« I guess rehearsal is over for today, hopefully they'll make up their minds about the song tomorrow. Thanks again for the flyers, see you on monday, we'll print them. »

I never knew I'd be that impatient to go back to school before meeting him.

#gvf fic #gvf x reader #gvf imagine #gvf fanfic #jake kiszka x reader #jake kiszka fic #jake kiszka imagine #josh kiszka fic #greta van fleet fic #greta van fleet imagine #greta van fleet #jake kiszka

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kidgezine · 5 years

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FAQ

General Questions

Are these the same mods that did [insert failed zine here]? No. None of our mods have ever run a failed zine. Some of us have been contributors for them though so we know your pain. We are doing everything we can to be sure that doesn't happen to us. All our mods have access to the zine email and socials as well as contributor submissions so if one of us were to disappear the rest would be able to pull it together. Finances are being handled by our head mods (umbraja and kdxart) who are both professional graphic designers with experience in small business management and print publications. The rest of the mods are being given updates and could take over finances if the head mods were to die in a firey laptop explosion.

Are these the same mods that did last year's Kidge Zine? Yes. Most of us anyway. We lost a few but also added some new faces and learned a whole lot - mostly about the horrors of shipping and taxes. We did a good job last year and hope to do even better this time around! We've also padded our schedule so there shouldn't be as many delays.

I'm so excited - when will the zine come out? As of right now we are shooting for a delivery date of early June, 2020. We may have an early (kickstart) round of preorders in the new year (with Valentines Day merch) for those who are super dedicated to getting this thing made but that's not set in stone. We may modify the schedule if we fall behind or need to take more orders to reach our stretch goals. See our Tentative Schedule for more information.

OMG I NEED this, how can I help make this zine a thing? The best thing anyone can do is reblog our posts to help get the word out. If you want to do more you could make a money donation to help cover costs (and enter to win a Limited Edition Bundle). Just buy Pidge some coffee on Ko-fi: ko-fi.com/kidgezine.

Zines are usually self-financing so why are you talking about money donations? Because it lets those of us who have extra money subsidize the cost for those that can't afford it so we all get a better product. A self-financed publication has to price itself to cover the full cost of production but that severely limits the number of artists and writers we can put into it and what merch we can sell alongside it. Last year we had over 50 contributors create a 200 page full color book with lots of merch and priced it all considerably under cost so that our community could actually afford to buy it. We still lost money in the end but it was less than our finance officer had put aside to cover it and that is thanks to the many, wonderful people who were willing to kindly donate.

How do I go about donating to help cover costs? First, thank you so much for the willingness to help out. All you need to do is buy Pidge some coffee on Ko-fi: ko-fi.com/kidgezine. This will also enter you for a chance to win a Limited Edition Bundle when the zine comes out.

Are profits from zine sales going to a charity of some kind? No. Unless you would consider next year's Kidge Zine a charity, then sure. Truth is we don't expect to make money. We hope it does better than last year so we don't end up covering a loss but we're pretty sure it's not going to profit. In the very unlikely event that we do turn a profit the funds will stay in the Kidge Zine account for use next year.

Contributor Questions

Will contributors be paid for their work on the zine? We would love to pay our contributors but, due to legal and logistical concerns, the staff voted that no one should get paid for this endeavor - not even the staff. We are giving contributors a free digital copy of the zine and a discount on buying the physical copy and merch. The discount amount will depend on stretch goals so we can't provide specifics at this time.

I want to give you content for this zine, how do I do that? Read over the Requirements and fill out the applications listed there.

What kind of content is allowed? We're pretty chill but we do have a few Requirements to follow. Check that link for specifics but the short of it is pretty much anything featuring Keith and Pidge in some sort of fantasy situation. It doesn't have to be romantic, AUs and canon are both allowed, so long as those two are together in some way. We're not even going to limit it to the usual digital art and narrative writing so if you want to do something unusual give it a try. We'll accept: cosplay photos, sculptures, journals, poetry, songs, schematics, editorials, things I can't even think of right now - pretty much anything Kidge related is welcome.

I want to write but English is not my first language, is that OK? Some of my favorite authors don't speak English at all and some of my favorite fanfics are written by people who only know it as a second or even third language. So long as you can get your writing translated to English our staff will work with you to get it polished and sounding natural. You just have to be willing to go through that editing process with us.

Will everyone who applies be accepted as a contributor? We're going to try and include everyone but since the zine is a print publication it's going to cost real money for every piece we include. If we get too many submissions and put all of them in the book it would end up costing too much for most of y'all to afford. Nobody wants that. So we might have to leave some things out of the book itself but will be more than happy to include any work that gets left out in the pdf version so long as it follows all the rules. This will allow us to produce a better product while not excluding anyone from participation.

How will contributors be chosen? Our staff will use the samples provided in your application to judge your average quality of work so be sure to give us good examples. We will be looking at your work only, not your popularity or participation in the fandom, so don't worry if you're new to the ship or just don't know anyone. Some of our staff don't know many people and our production designer hasn't even seen the show (she just does very good work). Art will be judged on overall aesthetic, perspective/proportions appropriate for the style, composition/balance, and technique. Writing will be judged on overall readability, characterization, plot, style, and flow. We will not judge grammar because we want to include non-native English speakers. Just be ready for an editing process where we'll help you get the grammar fixed before publication.

When will I know if I'm accepted as a contributor? Acceptance emails will be sent out November 1st. Everyone should get an email so if you don't get yours then ask a mod to see what's up. We had trouble with emails getting lost in junk filters last year so be sure to check for that.

Do you have a deadline for submissions? We have multiple deadlines to keep y'all on track but the finished work should be turned in by February 15th. See the Tentative Schedule for more information.

Is this canon only or are AUs allowed? We're not gonna limit setting so canon or any other universe is allowed. Have fun with it.

What if I don't want to write/draw something Fantasy themed? Fantasy is such a broad theme that we are going to be strict about it this time but we're certain y'all will be able to find something you like that fits. Pretty much anything that's not limited by real world physics is, technically, Fantasy. So canon universe is Fantasy. So are superheroes, any sort of mythology, folklore, most horror, sci-fi, steam punk, supernatural, occult, and way too much else for me to list.

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tenderfootsecurityblog · 5 years

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Week 7: Lecture Notes

MID-TERM discussion:

Question 5: Suppose there is a 10 digit pin to arm the country's nuclear weapons …

The correct answer is Type I / Type II error. The biggest problem is that having a 10 digit pin introduces a reasonable mechanism to stop a launch when it shouldn’t launch. When you have a launch that should happen, that is when type I error occurs because he is a single point of failure for their launch.

Question 10: Merkle Puzzle Question

RSA 64, you can crack this very fast. Then Richard realised that non of the answers are correct so we all get full marks in this question. Wow.

Class Content:

Diffie Hellman

This uses the fact of exponentiation, remember that if you raise something to the power and then another power, you get the same value if your do it the other way round (duh). The idea is that if we both think of a secret number and then raise it to the power of each other's secret number, we will have the same number. A hacker cannot observe this because they don’t know the individual numbers. The two now use this as a key.

The difference between this is and RSA is that we have the same key where as in RSA we exchange keys.

Good at establishing confidentiality but not authentication.

Krak des Chevaliers

A very nice castle, has two rings of defence around it (defence in depth). No one could ever breach the inner wall. They then failed to social engineering because of a fake letter from someone

Vulnerability

This is just something that

Software bug

When a software has a mistake in it, it is not always a vulnerability. A collection of bugs can be the main vulnerability

The main types of bugs we are concerned about are:

Memory Corruption: the simplest type of this is a buffer over flow. If the amount of space you need for a buffer is known before run time, you store it in the heap. Attacks to the stack are more diabolical.

How functions are called in C: This is process switching that your operating system does. So function calls and stuff. He went pretty quick.

Integer Overflow: If you keep adding to an integer it will eventually overflow the allotted size. This obviously depends if it is a signed or unsigned int.

Format String:

C has a strange way of printing things with printf. This is a function and expects a variable number of arguments passed into it. The first one is a format string that tells you what to do with the other arguments. We all know this. In the old says you are supposed to do it like this printf("%s", "Hello World!");

This is long so everyone would just do this printf("Hello World!");, everyone would put what they wanted to print out as the format string.

An issue with this is having some string callled name that takes in your name, then calling printf(name);. This is vulnerable because the name could have % in it then you can change the printfs. E.G. if you put in Tom %s into the printf, since C does not check if there are two arguments put in, it just looks somewhere lower in the stack for the %s. So if we put our name then %x %x … %x, this will print out everything in the stack in hex. This is an information gathering attack and could potentially reveal things like stack canaries. %n writes to memory if you do it in the print command. This is very bad.

The Swiss cheese if you have it as a block, it is a solid block of cheese but if you slice it up you get holes in it. This is analogy for bugs in code, sometimes the holes (bugs) will line up and then you get a major vulnerability.

Memory Leak: printf is a way of getting this.

National Vulnerability Database

This is like naming new animals, it is a world wide data base for discovering a new vulnerability, you get to name the number.

Responsible Disclosure

When you find the vulnerability you're supposed to tell the person first then slowly escalade it to higher ups. There are still many debates about this.

Bug Examples:

This is optimising indenting. Lol.

Security Engineering - Assets:

Work out what all the things you should be protecting and their relative value to you. E.G, the Louvre is priceless so destroying it is not worth it at all.

It is easy to protect the wrong thing, dedicate some time to deciding what your assets are.

Regularly surveying the values of people of the involved in what you are protecting. Multiple pairs of eyes is a good asset.

Develop a sensible plan - well designed to tease this information out of them. Humans are generally poor at regurgitating everything they know.

Periodically revise current lists of assets

Think of Coke, the brand is worth more than the actual formula to make the drink.

Authentication:

This is a huge problem, if the computer has been pre-loaded with a shared secret, it can use that but once it has been used once, what happens then? This is a very difficult problem, a computer in a room with no context has to make a decision.

You can have a one sided difficulty, say for example there is a store and you are interacting with them. The store does not care about if you are real or not, they just want your money where as you care if the store is real and legitimate. This is a one way street. You can get destroyed by a man in the middle attack, they intercept the public key and give your own.

Man in the middle attack:

Web of Trust: (PgP) find how this works.

PKI (this is the more dominant one and common one ): This solves the man in the middle problem but creates a whole lot of other problems.

SSL is how we will communicate between each other (TLS is another name I think)

This is kind of like a passport. It is a document that links a photo of me to my name and other information. X509 Certificates links a public key with a domain and maybe some other information. Signed with a public key of specific signers, the padlock that comes up in your browser shows this.

Look up how tls handshake works, find example of when CA were compromised

Bug Bounties presentation:

Hacker 101 has some good tips on bug bounty hunting.

Fuzzing:

This is a technique you use to look for bugs. There are different types of this. You put in some input then mutate it / generation based stuff to see if the output is what to be expected.

You can back door a mac https://null-byte.wonderhowto.com/how-to/hacking-macos-configure-backdoor-anyones-macbook-0184637/

Fuck.

Penetration testing:

This is an authorized simulated cyber attack on a computer system to evaluate security risks.

Nmap is fucked lol.

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jessicaoniell-blog · 5 years

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Product Design Process: Ultimate Guide for Beginners

You have an idea in mind. You want to build it. What form should it take? How can you make an app or a product the most intuitive for people to use? Good design is not just intuitive but also memorable - it does not blend into the background, yet using it should come naturally. Leaving a (good) lasting impression on users is important. This is the noob’s guide to product design. If you have no idea of how to design a product, start here.

Product Design Process - Step by Step Guide

The entire design exercise, however, should only come secondary to market needs and opportunities. Once you have scoped out your market opportunity, you should have a rough idea in mind of what possible forms the final product may take. Using this as a framework, you should dive deeper into what the product looks like and why. While this document focuses primarily on user-facing software, the core principles can be applied to any generic product. Initial Conception This phase primarily focuses on concretizing user needs and putting down a defined form for the product. Does a website make the most sense? If perhaps the use case is geared towards on-the-go utility then is a mobile app a better fit? These are questions that need to be answered. Your answer does not have to be absolutely correct at this stage, but it should be a well-thought-out starting point from where to iterate and improve your understanding of what you should build. Customer Interviews It’s always a good idea to do multiple sets of user interviews, and at least two. With a product in mind (or on a piece of paper), go out and start interviewing people who you think might use your application (your target persona - more on that here). Make sure that the initial set of interview questions is verifying your product hypothesis and customer need. At this stage, it might be helpful to show customers competitor apps or use other what-if scenarios, to more clearly build the story around your product and help you understand whether you should really build what you’re building. At AppRocket, we use Google Forms for customer interviews, which allow you to easily view all of your form responses in a spreadsheet. Wireframing and Prototyping of Mock-Ups Based on preliminary interviews with your target user personas, you have a clearer idea of what your customer needs are and what the product should look like. It’s time to start putting pen to paper and creating a rough prototype of what the app should look like. This is basically a set of screens that show the functionality of your app, and can be made digitally or even drawn with pencil and paper. Essentially, an initial (or low-fidelity) prototype should focus on the overall structure and flow of the application, in particular: Mapping user flows and journeysNavigationPage structure and layoutsContent information and hierarchy This should be kept deliberately rough (with all the features & functionality depicted) for quick feedback and rapid iteration. Easily available wireframing tools like Balsamiq Mockups or Sketch allow you to put together wireframes quickly, and Invision makes the process of sharing your work and getting feedback a lot easier. Many people draw things out on paper with paper prototypes. However, I personally feel that paper prototypes are very slow and not worth the time and effort people gradually begin investing in paper prototypes. If you’re working with teammates on this stage, you should be able to answer what is where and why, with findings gleaned from your customer interviews incorporated into the low-fidelity mockup. I cannot emphasize this enough, the goal once again is to create a rough outline, a low-fidelity mockup of your product that clearly shows what the main user interactions and flows are, and to use this as the basis for creating a high-fidelity design and then the final product. What Is the Difference Between Wireframe, Mockup and Prototype? User Testing with Wireframes Here, paper prototypes have an advantage over digital prototypes made by e.g. Balsamiq Mockups, but then you can always print your digital prototypes. The people providing feedback on your product should ideally be the people using it and if that’s not possible, then a small sample set of people from the same demographic. Put your wireframes into an intuitive and easy-to-use form and share them with your users. Be there when they have a look. Note down the aspects of the product the testers understand, and what they don’t. Make sure your design and product teams are both present in these sessions if possible, as it will give them food for thought on how to address any shortcomings that come up. Every user testing session should be focused, with concrete questions you would like to answer. If you are making a food delivery app, does this app help testers seamlessly get food delivered to where they want to? Are the processes happening behind the scenes optimized towards this? Ask specific, directed questions around different use cases of the app, and observe whether the task is easy or hard e.g. If you were to change your profile picture, how would you do it?If you wanted to add a post, what would you have to do? And then add follow-on questions built around that particular use case e.g. how to rollback a user action or unlike something you previously liked. Note down: Any points of friction or confusion (“I was expecting do to something else”, or “I don’t know why you’ve done X this way”)Any general comments on the UI (“this feature was nice”, or “I couldn’t find this button”)Feature requests (“I would really like to also be able to do this”, or “If you could also add this that would be really cool”) Now using these findings, it’s your job to determine what feedback is actually worth listening to and what feedback is just noise. At the end of the day, people’s opinions are just their opinions. Incorporate relevant feedback into your wireframes. Repeat this process until you’ve honed down what you want. Final UI Designs and High-Fidelity Mockups At last, you’re almost there and the final product is within sight. Now it’s over to the designer, to convert the low-fidelity mockups into high-fidelity pixel-precise UI designs. Following standard design patterns here is a double-edged sword - it can lead to brilliance, or crash spectacularly. A general rule of thumb is to follow accepted norms unless there’s a very strong reason not to. Design patterns are ingrained in most people’s psyche and easy and intuitive to understand. Material design guidelines, for example, are highly popular and for a reason - they work. Incorporating them into your application immediately brings a familiarity to the product, and helps onboard users easily. Apps that have their own design theme such as the X-plore file manager (which is one of the oldest mobile file managers still running) often have a much steeper on-boarding curve. Something to avoid. This is approximately the point where high-fidelity wireframes should be made before the final ‘paint’. These are very close to the final design of the product, but still primarily focused on the interactions and user experience. The idea is to depict a user experience as close to the finished product as possible, to iterate on further and improve. However, these are often time-consuming and may be skipped if the final UI design can be iterated on and brought to perfection. However, these are often time-consuming and may be skipped if the final UI design can be iterated on and brought to perfection. Post high-fi wireframes, the design team needs to bring the whole product together with the final splash of color, the animations and interactions, and the icons and artwork, and build the product in final form visually for the development team to bring to life. Final pixel-perfect designs are to be delivered at this point. If you’re working with an independent or offshore design team, make sure that at this point they deliver to you at this stage: Initial high-fidelity wireframes (if that’s a step of the design process you want to include)Full and final UI design documents (a lot of designers use Sketch these days, but Sketch is Mac-only and you will probably need the flexibility. Require Adobe Photoshop Documents (PSDs)All the assets & design elements used in the design including any icons and any artwork or other UI elements, in PNG format (this is a process called ‘slicing’ - slicing the image into its components so that the development team can pick and place them at the appropriate points throughout the app. If you don’t get this done, you will have to export the images yourself, which will require that you have the time and the requisite software (Adobe Photoshop / Sketch / whatever). Which Is But to Say... Designing a product is more complex than the standard ‘just as someone to put together what looks good’. Of course, you can do that, but for your product to actually be any good, there is a clearcut path to success, at least from usability. Which, of course, involves more time and effort than the average notion of designing a product. However, if you can incorporate the above process even partially into your design process, you should be able to come up with a much more robustly-designed product. Want your Product to be designed by Professionals? Get in touch with us at AppRocket! Read the full article

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pentakillmaven · 5 years

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The Nose Knows, Chapter 11 (NaNoWriMo 2018)

Here we are--the penultimate chapter! Once again, thank you so much for all the likes, reblogs, and new followers! I will be revising and posting this on Archive of our Own, along with a bonus sin chapter :) so please look out for that! Also, this chapter includes links to visual references for the outfits I have in mind for the characters if you want to check those out.

Chapter Rating: T

Chapter Warnings: Mild language, canon-typical violence

Chapter 11

The next week seemed to pass by in a blur; between school, Ladybug duties, and working on her dress for the fashion show, Marinette was lucky to get five hours of sleep a night. But unlike the week before, when the dread of the standardized testing had dragged her down, she felt light as a feather despite the relative lack of sleep.

When Saturday rolled around, Marinette was just putting the finishing touches on her dress, hand-stitching the green embroidery along the neckline. The dress itself was a fairly simple knee-length, one-shoulder black dress, with leather-edged horsehair ruffles giving the skirt some dimension. On the bodice, playful embroidery brought to mind one particular feline superhero. As always, Marinette stitched in her signature, letting it flow into the design running down the side of the bodice under the single shoulder strap. She tied off the thread, snipped the excess down, and stepped back to survey her handiwork. "Well, Alya, what do you think?" she asked, turning to her best friend.

"I think… it looks amazing! This has definitely got to be some of your best work yet!" Alya, on her part, was already dressed for the evening, opting for a burgundy-colored full-length jumpsuit with a tie waist that offset her hair beautifully. Said hair was up in curlers at the moment, while Marinette's was still unstyled, a messy topknot keeping it mostly out of the way. "And you finished just in time, too--we only have three hours to get ready before we have to leave."

"Oh, merde, is it really that late already?" Marinette whimpered as she looked at the clock, confirming that it was already after four. "All right, I'm going to jump in the shower really quick, and then we can finish your hair before we do mine."

"Sounds good, girl! See you in a few minutes."

Marinette slipped into her strappy pumps, wrapping one of her mom's black faux-fur stoles around her shoulders for warmth as the girls put on the finishing touches to their outfits. The choker Adrien gave her nestled right at her collarbone, the green stones in the pendant pairing beautifully with the embroidery just below. "I feel like that should be a bell instead of a pendant," Alya teased Marinette gently. "That way Adrien knows where you are at all times."

Marinette giggled, an embarrassed flush visible even through her makeup. "I don't think Adrien's really the collaring type… Now, if it was Chat Noir, I wouldn't be surprised."

Alya's eyes widened in shock at the innuendo, but she burst out into laughter a moment later. "Oh my god, Marinette! Since when do you have such a dirty mind?"

"I guess someone is rubbing off on me," Marinette said pointedly. "Or am I not the one you confide into regularly when it comes to your love life?"

"Touché. I'll give you that one." The two girls hustled downstairs, where Nino was waiting with his car. Being the oldest of their friend group, he was the first to get his license, and his side gigs as a DJ allowed him to afford to get a car. It wasn't a top-of-the-line model by any means, but it was better than public transportation or walking. "Ooh, don't you clean up nice?" Alya asked as she slid into the front seat alongside her boyfriend, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek.

"Thanks, babe--you look pretty foxy yourself." Nino gave Alya a wink. Marinette didn't miss the glare and subtle tilt of the head that Alya gave Nino in return, figuring that it was in response to the "foxy" comment.

For once in his life, Nino wasn't wearing his hat, though Marinette could see it tossed into the back seat alongside his pea-coat. He had on a nice button-down with a waistcoat and tie paired with dark-wash jeans and a leather belt. "You look very nice too, Marinette," Nino added as he pulled away from the bakery. "Adrien's going to have a heart attack when he sees you."

"That's the idea," Alya replied, turning up the heater and crossing her arms over her chest for warmth. The night was clear, but cold, temperatures already in the single digits Celsius now that it was past sunset.

"Okay, so I'm headed to the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles, right?"

"Yeah, that's it. Adrien said there will be people directing traffic, so we just have to show them these badges. Apparently we get special parking, too." She pulled the three VIP badges out of her clutch, handing one to each of her friends and keeping the third for herself. She slipped the lanyard over her head, nestling it under her wrap.

"Damn, I knew Adrien and his dad were, like, famous and all? But I had no idea that things were going to be this cushy tonight."

"Yeah, have you read these passes, Marinette?" Alya asked, looking down at the fine print on the back of the badge. "We get free VIP parking, special seating, free appetizers and drinks, the works! I bet this is what it feels like to be Jagged Stone."

"I heard a rumor that he might actually be here tonight, actually. Another DJ I see around sometimes has a cousin whose best friend is acquaintances with Jagged Stone's agent, and he said Jagged had some big party to go to."

"If he's there, I'll have to say hi," Marinette replied absently, staring out the window. She was starting to feel nervous, the butterflies building up in the pit of her stomach. Even though she didn't have any of her work on display in the fashion show, this was still a huge event, and she was wearing a dress of her own design. What if some famous designer said it was horrible? What if Audrey Bourgeois was there and she called it a failure? What if Adrien didn't like it?

"Hello! Earth to Marinette!" Marinette jumped as she snapped out of her thoughts, looking toward Alya, who had turned in her seat to look back at her friend.

"Sorry, Alya, what's up?"

"I was going to ask if you wanted to grab a bite before we go, since we have time, but you look like you're about to be sick. What's wrong?"

"Oh, you know… just nerves, that's all."

"Marinette, honey… you look banging, your dress is lit and you're just going as an guest, not as a designer. You have nothing to worry about. If Adrien doesn't declare his undying love for you tonight, the boy has way more serious problems in his future."

Marinette gave Alya a small, wan smile. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Alya. But I am kind of going as a designer. There's always someone there who asks the VIPs, 'Who are you wearing?' If I tell them I designed my dress myself and people don't like it, that could mean my design career is over before it even begins."

Alya reached out a hand toward Marinette, who took it; Alya squeezed her fingers comfortingly. "I highly doubt that. You're a talented designer! Even if this dress doesn't dazzle people--which I think it will--you still have a lot to offer in other departments. Your hats, your purses and bags? I mean, you designed Jagged Stone's glasses that one time, right?" When Marinette nodded in confirmation, Alya continued, "So if formal dresses aren't your thing, then you design what you do know that you do well!"

"That's true; thanks, Alya. I needed that." Marinette let go of Alya's hand and leaned back into her seat, tucking her arms back up under her wrap for warmth. She looked back out the window, watching the city lights go by, a quiet sigh escaping her lips.

The trio decided to forgo a food stop for the sake of getting to the venue early; it ended up being a blessing, as traffic was absolutely snarled in the vicinity of the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles. It was already close to 8 when Nino pulled off of the road, spotting a sign for "VIP Parking." With a flash of their badges, the guard waved them on. "Pull up to the side of the building over there and a valet will take your car from there," the guard explained.

"Valet parking?" Nino glanced back at Marinette through the rear view mirror; the midnight-haired girl shrugged in confusion. "Damn, this really is fancy. I could get used to this." Pulling up to the building, a young man in a red vest approached them. The three teens all climbed out of the car, Nino passing the keys to the valet along with a five-Euro bill. "Merci beaucoup," the valet replied with a bow, hopping in the driver's seat and pulling away from the curb.

"Wow, this is kind of incredible," Alya said. Just ahead of them was a red carpet, paparazzi lining both sides snapping photos while Nadja Chamack interviewed a group of people for the local TV news station. "Oh, shit--isn't that Chloé and her parents?"

Marinette's head whipped around, spotting two familiar-looking blondes standing near an older man with a red, white and blue sash wrapped around his torso. "God damn it… I was really hoping not to run into them… I should have figured they would be here."

"Hey, Marinette, it's okay! Just keep your head up and don't let them see you sweat." Alya reached up and unhooked the clasp holding Marinette's wrap closed, revealing the embroidery on her dress. "No matter what, you created this. Your hard work deserves recognition. All right?"

Marinette couldn't help but smile. "Thanks, Alya. I needed to hear that." Shaking her head and straightening her back, she led the group of three toward the red carpet.

"Marinette Dupain-Cheng! What are you doing here?" Marinette clenched her teeth to maintain a smile at the sound of Chloé's voice.

"Hello, Chloé. We were invited by Adrien personally," she replied, gesturing to the VIP badge hanging from her neck.

Chloé looked at Marinette, Alya and Nino behind her, then turned away with a sniff as she crossed her arms over her chest. "Well.. I hope you have a good night, then," she muttered under her breath.

"Chloé, who are these children? Do you know them?" Audrey Bourgeois pulled her sunglasses down, peering at the teens over them. "Oh--you're that girl, the one who made the feather hat, aren't you?"

"Yes, Mme. Bourgeois." Marinette straightened up a bit more as Alya poked her in the back, tugging her wrap off of her shoulders to fully expose the embroidery.

"Your dress is… fantastic! That embroidery work is impeccable. Who is your designer?" Audrey asked.

"Mère! You can't be serious!" Chloé whined, stomping her foot. "Her dress is so, so... "

"It's inspired, is what it is! Tell me, did you design this yourself?" Audrey continued.

"Yes, madame. I was actually inspired by the necklace, you see." Marinette reached up and touched the pendant hanging from around her neck.

"Oh, yes, I can see the influence! The color selection is fantastic, and the texture of the ruffles is divine compared to the smooth embroidery. Well done!"

Marinette's whole face was flushed under Audrey's praise, though only a faint glow came through under her makeup. "Thank you, madame." She looked toward the door, realizing that Nino and Alya had gone ahead of them. "I need to be getting back to my friends, but thank you again."

Audrey nodded; with that signal, Marinette made her way around the rest of the people on the red carpet as politely as she could until she got to the door leading inside the building. Through the glass, she could see Alya and Nino talking to Adrien, who was dressed to the nines in an impeccably tailored black suit with patent leather shoes.

"Gee, thanks so much for having my back, guys," Marinette said as she walked up, shoving herself between Alya and Nino and giving them both a playful elbow.

"Why would you need us to have your back? Clearly you handled yourself out there just fine!" Alya replied. "Chloé looked like she was going to combust when her mom started praising your dress."

Marinette couldn't help but giggle at the mental image of Chloé exploding like a firework. Turning to Adrien, she smiled shyly, entangling her fingers behind her back. "So… what do you think, Adrien?"

The blond just started at Marinette dumbly for a long moment until Nino sidled over. "I think he might be broken," the bespectacled young man said, reaching out to poke his friend in the side of the ribs. Adrien jumped in surprise, shaking his head. "Are you with us now, dude?"

"Y-yeah, sorry… Marinette, you look… wow." Adrien seemed to be awestruck by Marinette's appearance.

Marinette's flush became even more pronounced at Adrien's praise. "I'm glad you like it."

"And you're wearing the necklace," Adrien said, his voice soft.

"Of course. It's part of the reason i designed this dress specifically."

"You designed that dress? And made it in a week? Marinette, that's incredible!"

"Thanks, Adrien. That means a lot, coming from you."

"Adrien? Adrien, where are--oh, there you are." Nathalie walked up to the group, her noticeably pregnant stomach covered with a soft empire-waisted dress in a navy blue color. "The show is about to start. You're needed in the back."

"Okay, Nathalie, I'll be right there." Adrien turned back to his friends. "You guys are going to be right up at the front; any of the ushers can lead you to your seats. I'll try to come out and sit with you guys if I get the chance."

"Are you modeling tonight, Adrien?" Alya asked.

Adrien shook his head. "Thankfully, no. I'll probably have to come out on stage with Father and M. Spadafora at some point, but I won't be wearing any of the designs."

"Oh, that's too bad. I know Marinette always likes to see you on the catwalk." Adrien's eyes widened for a split second before he chuckled, rubbing the back of his head.

"Sorry to disappoint. Maybe next time. I'll see you guys later!" With that, Adrien turned and walked away, leaving the other three teens alone.

"Guess we should find our seats, if the show is about to start, huh?"

"Yeah, sounds like a plan," Nino replied. "Marinette, since this was all because of you, why don't you lead us?"

"Oh, all right." Marinette headed toward where the seating area was set up, creating a U-shape around a temporary raised stage with a catwalk jutting out of it. Around the perimeter of the seating area, more men in red vests waited to lead guests to their seats. "Hello, we're in the VIP Section?" Marinette said questioningly to the nearest usher.

"Of course, mademoiselle. Right this way." The usher led the three down to the very front on the left side, into a seating area marked off with red velvet ropes.

Rather than standard folding seats, this area was furnished with soft, cushy-looking couches, a handful of waiters holding trays of champagne glasses and hors d'oeuvres. Marinette could see the Bourgeois family sitting in a similarly-furnished area on the opposite side of the catwalk. "Oh, thank God we don't have to sit with them," Marinette whispered to Alya and Nino. "I think I would have had a heart attack."

"Yeah, I don't think I could handle an entire night of sitting with them, even if we didn't have to speak to one another." Alya glanced over to see Nino already stuffing his face, giving a heavy, long-suffering sigh. "Why don't you go find us a seat? I need to get my boyfriend before he makes a fool of himself."

"Sounds good." Some of the couches had already been claimed, but there was one couch right up at the front that was still empty. Marinette hurried over, using her wrap and Nino's coat to save seats for the other two. Glancing down the row of couches, she spotted some familiar faces--and a very familiar crocodile. "Jagged Stone! Penny! It's great to see you!"

"Marinette Dupain-Cheng! It's wonderful to see you, doll," Jagged Stone said as Marinette made her way closer to their sofa. "What are you doing here? Do you have some designs in the show? Killer dress by the way. Very Rock and Roll. Made it yourself, I presume?"

Marinette couldn't help but laugh, unable to get a word in edgewise until Jagged stopped to take a sip of champagne. "I was invited by my friend Adrien; his father is the owner of the Agreste fashion design company, so they're hosting the show. No, I don't have any designs in the show itself, but yes, I did make this dress. I'm glad you like it!"

Penny smiled gratefully at Marinette for coming over, struggling to hold Fang's leash as he tried to climb up onto the sofa with them. "I'm glad you're here, Marinette. Jagged is working on a new album, and he actually wanted to ask if you'd be willing to design another album cover for him."

"Really? I'd love to!"

"Great! I believe I still have your email, so I'll send you some of the tracks we have recorded so far so you can get a feel for the album's sound. Do you think you can have the cover done in, say, two weeks?"

"I can definitely do my best! I look forward to getting the email from you."

"That's what I like to hear!" Jagged piped up, leaning over and scratching Fang on the head. "Who's a good boy, who's a good boy?" he baby-talked to the enormous crocodile.

Penny couldn't help but smile at the man, who was now sliding off the sofa to sit on his knees in front of his pet. "Thank you again, Marinette, and tell your parents thank you for hosting us last time. Oh, and if you see Ladybug, will you thank her for me as well?"

"Wh-what makes you think I would see Ladybug?" Marinette asked quickly, tucking her hands behind her dress to hide the sudden shaking of nervousness.

"Well, because you live here, and we don't. We fly back to the States first thing in the morning for more recording."

"Oh--of course! That makes sense. I'll definitely let her know if I see her."

"Thanks, Marinette. It looks like your friends are back, so we won't keep you, but it was great seeing you!"

"Great seeing all of you too! Good-bye, Fang!" she specifically said to the crocodile, who turned its head and lolled its tongue out at Marinette almost like a dog. With a giggle, Marinette returned to the other end of the VIP section, where Alya and Nino had taken up station on the couch she'd reserved.

"Well, would you look at that?" Alya commented. "Nino's friend was actually right!" She took a sip of her glass of champagne.

"Yeah, I guess so. Honestly I thought his 'information' was pretty sketchy, but he was right for once," Nino added

"I'm not surprised," Marinette replied. "He is a celebrity, after all. Celebrities tend to get invited to these sort of events."

"True." Alya handed Marinette a glass of champagne, but the midnight-haired girl waved it off. Shrugging, Alya finished off her own and then started on the second. "So when is this thing supposed to start?"

"I think any minute now." As if on cue, the lights in the exhibition hall dimmed, twin projection screens rising on the back of the stage. A video started to play, showing drone footage of Paris on the left screen with footage of what Marinette presumed to be Milan on the right. A female voice started to speak in English:

"Paris and Milan. Two cities separated by over 600 kilometers, a mountain range between them--yet never before have they been closer than they are today."

The drone footage on the Paris side closed in on the Eiffel Tower, while the Milan side focused on a massive Gothic cathedral. With both landmarks on screen, the Agreste logo and Spadafora Leatherworks logos appeared, superimposed over their respective cities.

"With the collaboration between Milan's own Spadafora Leatherworks and Paris's crown jewel, Agreste Fashion, these two cities are coming together like never before."

Twin spotlights came up, focusing on either end of the stage. From the Paris side, Gabriel and Adrien stepped out; Gabriel was wearing a similar suit to Adrien's, both impeccably tailored, showing off the family resemblance between father and son. On the Milan side, Vincenzo Spadafora walked out with his own twin children, his bald head gleaming under the spotlight, contrasting with his blue-tinted sunglasses and dark goatee. Gabriel and Vincenzo approached the center of the stage, shaking hands and then embracing like old friends as if to show the closeness of the collaboration between their companies. The crowd erupted into cheers at the sight, the screens going black except for the combined logos for the new collection that would be premiering in France for the first time.

Gabriel began to speak, his voice amplified by the microphone clipped to his lapel. "Good evening everyone; thank you all for coming. It is my great honor and pleasure to introduce to you, for those who may not recognize him, the president and CEO of Spadafora Leatherworks, Vincenzo Spadafora." The bald man gave a wave at the introduction. "Like Agreste, Spadafora is a family brand. The Spadafora family has raised cattle in central Italy for over ten generations. When I first visited Vincenzo's family's cattle ranch in Tuscany, I knew they had something special going there. However, the Spadafora legacy has spread beyond the family ranch. The Spadafora Leatherworks global headquarters in Milan is where the real magic happens. Tuscan leather is turned into high-end accessories fit for any fashion-forward individual, and the company is spearheading the development of eco-conscious faux leathers that are truly indistinguishable by the naked eye. That was when I knew that the Spadafora and Agreste companies could create something truly special. And that is what we bring you tonight." The crowd broke into applause and cheers once again. "Please sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. Thank you so much." The two families split off, heading backstage, while the spotlights reset for the start of the show.

"This is so cool!" Alya hissed in Marinette's ear as the music started, a deep thrumming bass practically shaking the floor. Marinette just nodded, her eyes trained on the stage, watching the first handful of models walk out to show off the collaborative designs.

"I wish I would have brought my notebook!" Marinette replied, more to herself than to Alya. Her fingers were itching to draw, to create, inspiration striking at the most inopportune time.

"What do you think, Nino?" Alya turned to her boyfriend.

"I think whoever is in charge of the sound needs to turn the bass down a bit, or they're going to blow out the subwoofers," the DJ replied, wrinkling his nose. "I can barely hear the treble over the shaking of the bass line."

"Well, you're no fun either." Alya took another sip of her champagne, tucking her other hand under her arm.

Marinette looked over at Alya apologetically. "Sorry, this really is awesome! I can see all of the little details from here. It's just making me want to draw!"

"That's fair!" Alya conceded. "So what makes this stuff so special anyway?"

"Well, from what I've been able to find out, Spadafora has been able to make a faux leather that feels and acts like real leather. The only way to tell the difference is under a microscope or with other scientific equipment."

"Oh, that's neat!" Marinette nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, I'm actually kind of surprised there wasn't a crowd of protesters outside when we pulled up--stuff like this can sometimes draw those kinds of people, you know?"

"Yeah, I've seen stuff on TV before, especially around Fashion Week. Isn't that part of the reason why the locations of some of the events is kept private?"

"Yeah, that's part of it. Also the secrecy helps to protect the different fashion houses from having competitors rip off their designs."

"Oh right! That's, like, a big deal in the design world, isn't it?"

Marinette nodded again. "Yeah. All of the major fashion houses have their employees and models sign things like non-disclosure agreements, and some of them even require non-compete clauses."

"Wow. That's pretty serious. Is the fashion world really that cutthroat?"

"You have no idea."

All of a sudden, from behind the seating area, a loud crashing sound interrupted the show, a sudden chill coming into the exhibition hall from the blown-off front doors. Standing in the entryway was a villain whose outfit seemed to span myriad different fashions, ranging from a Renaissance-style neck ruffle to bell-bottom jeans. In one hand, she held a large, feather quill, which seemed to glow with dark magical essence. "Peasants! I am Villainista! Turn over Ladybug and Chat Noir's Miraculous to me at once, or suffer the consequences!"

Screams erupted at the sight of the villain, the mass of people in the exhibition hall running for the exit on the opposite side of the room. However, before some of them could get out of range, a beam of the dark energy shot out of the pointed end of the quill, striking the victims. At the moment of impact, they froze in place for a moment, before righting themselves and approaching the villain. "Is there anything we can do for you, Mme. Villainista? Anything at all! Just say the word!"

"Bring me Ladybug and Chat Noir at once!" Villainista ordered her simpering slaves.

"Yes, Mme. Villainista! At once!"

Marinette, Alya, and Nino watched the exchange with horror in their eyes, but before any of them could react, Adrien ran over and grabbed Marinette by the hand. "Come on! You need to get somewhere safe!"

"Adrien!" Marinette's eyes widened as she was dragged bodily away from the VIP area. "Forget about me, you need to get somewhere safe too!"

"Come on, I know a hiding spot. You can wait there for Ladybug and Chat Noir to get here and take care of the villain."

"What about Nino and Alya?" Marinette looked over her shoulder for her friends.

"I saw them running away too. Come on, this way." Marinette started running under her own power, following Adrien, his grip still firm on her hand. On the far end of the exhibition hall, Adrien opened the door to a supply closet, shoving Marinette inside. "Stay here until I come get you, all right?" Adrien said.

"But, Adrien," Marinette started, but the blond interrupted her with a quick kiss to her lips.

"Please. For me." Marinette nodded mutely as Adrien closed the door between them. As soon as she heard his footsteps running away, she opened her purse, Tikki flying out.

"I don't know what just happened, but there's an Akuma outside, and we need to take care of it. Tikki, spots on!" A flash of light filled the supply closet as Marinette transformed into Ladybug. She opened the door and darted outside without looking--only to run smack-dab into a solid chest. A very familiar chest.

Chat Noir stood in front of her, a knowing smile on his lips. "I was hoping it was you, My Lady."

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous tales of ladybug and cat noir #ladynoir #adrinette #marinette dupain cheng #tikki #adrien agreste #ladybug #chat noir #alya cesaire #nino lahiffe #chloe bourgeois #jagged stone #gabriel agreste #nanowrimo #nanowrimo 2018 #identity reveal #cat noir

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calligraphist-artemisia · 6 years

Text

I’ll Take Her Place (Chapter 19)

Summary: AU. When Allura breaks the news that she is to wed Prince Lotor in order to continue the peaceful relationship between Altea and Daibazaal, Pidge knows that she has to do something to change that. And so, with a little help, she comes up with a new plan. A better plan

Pairings: Keith/Pidge (main) ; Shiro/Allura (minor) and Hunk/Lance (minor) ; one-sided Lotor/Allura

Edit 11/18/2018: Since inserting links is currently causing my posts to not appear when you search through the tags, I’m removing them from my most recent chapters until this issue is fixed. To find the rest of the chapters, just check my page and it’ll be under “My Voltron Fanfiction”. I’ll be doing my best to keep the masterpost up-to-date. (For mobile users, every chapter has been tagged with “arranged marriage au”, which may be your best shot at finding the other chapters.)

To find me on AO3 or fanfiction.net, my penname is “kishirokitsune”

Chapter 19

Why?

Why was it so hard to tell her?

It should have been so simple! It was only one sentence: “I am Keith.” That was it. Easy.

Keithir growled into his pillow, his ears pinned back as he took a moment to vent his frustration. He really wanted to tell her as they sat there at the overlook on Olkarion, but every time he tried, he couldn't get the words out. Either she beat him to talking by offering him a piece of dessert or one of the local wildlife would make a noise to distract him.

(Okay, so that was a poor excuse. He knew that. He didn't need Thace to tell him that no less than five times since they arrived back at the Castle of Lions.)

At least he managed to surprise her with one final gift – the book on Galran technology he ordered just for her. The beaming smile on her face was well worth the effort he put in to get a copy printed and bound for her, which was rarely done as digital versions were considered easier to deliver and took up less space. Personally, he thought it was nice to have a few physical copies around.

Other than his inability to tell her the truth about his alias, their date to Olkarion had been fantastic. The food was delicious and conversation flowed as they sat and looked out over the forested valley. It was more perfect than he'd dreamed.

Everything about his future had shifted over the course of the last two months, which he had expected when he agreed to Katie's proposal, and yet...

Keithir rolled over onto his side, contemplating his unexpected friendship with the Green Paladin. A friendship which was steadily growing towards something more.

He slowly exhaled.

That was the reason it was so hard.

He liked her.

A lot.

For more reasons than he could accurately put into words.

And it terrified him, liking someone that much. If he went about things the wrong way, telling the truth about “Keith” could ruin the balance they'd established. It could bring down their whole friendship!

That was why he needed the right moment. It was why he didn't march down and knock on her door to tell her the truth.

I don't want to mess this up. The desperate thought seized him, derailing the rest of his thought process. But what if I'm already too late?

“Pidge, you look beautiful!” Allura gushed as Pidge stepped out of the fitting room.

“You said the same thing about the last fine,” Pidge said, twisting to check out her reflection in the mirrors around her. Just like the last five, the dress flowed over her body and down to the floor. The silk-like material was light and the skirt shifted with every movement, while the bodice pressed firm against her, accentuating her slight curves.

Nilani eagerly moved forward to help her arrange the skirt, tutting over the length and altogether simplistic design. “It needs something else. More layers? No, no, that would be too much. Perhaps beading? A lace overlay?” The half-Altean rambled on to her herself, paying no mind to Pidge's put-out expression at the thought of trying on more.

When Nilani invited her down to try on “a couple” of gowns, she'd expected three or four, not the twenty-seven waiting for her once she arrived. And that was after Allura and Lance had to step in to curb Nilani's desire to put her into more elaborate gowns, reminding her that Pidge had requested a simple, more modest style.

Allura cleared her throat. “How do you like it, Pidge?”

“Uh, well...” Pidge tried to focus on her reflection and ignore the way Nilani hovered nearby. It was pretty enough, with wide straps over her shoulders and a scooped neckline that was almost too low for her comfort.

“A no, then,” Allura said, recognizing the uncomfortable pause for what it was. She strode over to the rack of gowns as Pidge stammered out excuses, not wanting it to seem like she hated all of the hard work Nilani was doing to accommodate her.

Nilani herself watched the princess with curiosity in her gaze as Allura went through the rack until she found one that met her approval. She carried it over to Pidge and pushed her back into the dressing room, going right along with her to help unlace the back of the one she had on.

“Sometimes you have to be a little more forceful about these things,” Allura advised in undertone. “Nilani is a brilliant seamstress, but sometimes she gets so caught up in what she's doing and how she can make it even better. Don't forget, this is all about what you want. If you look at it and you don't like it or if you'll feel uncomfortable wearing it, you won't offend her by telling the truth.” She stepped back when the dress was loosened enough for Pidge to slip out of it. “Now tell me, what do you think of this one?”

For a moment, Pidge thought Allura was testing her and she almost turned it away without really looking at it, but the lace turtleneck caught her attention and the more she looked at it, the more she found herself liking it. “I'll try it on.”

Allura beamed.

Daibazaal.

The home world of the Galra.

Pidge was a bundle of nerves as Keithir helped her down from the shuttle and she set foot on Daibazaal for the very first time. There were only a few guards there to meet the pair of them and Shiro, who Keithir picked as their chaperon for the trip. She'd already been told it would be a low-key affair, with few actually knowing the date and time of their visit, so the lack of crowd was an expected thing and helped a little to calm her. At least she wouldn't have a big audience if she messed up.

She held onto Keithir's hand, letting him take the lead while she looked around, mesmerized by the massive, gleaming buildings and the unusual reddish sky. Architecture wasn't really her thing, but that didn't make it any less fascinating to see the stark differences between the more sleek and bright Altean buildings and the sharper edges the Galra were prone to.

They quickly moved into the citadel, escorted by a handful of guards. Keithir was quiet at her side. Actually, he'd been quiet for most of their journey, lost to his thoughts and unusually inattentive.

What if he's changed his mind?

It wasn't the first time that thought crept in to poison her good mood. And just like with the others, Pidge pushed it away. If Keithir had changed his mind, he would tell her. Or she hoped he would. They only had two weeks and three days left until the end of their courtship and then they would make an official announcement of their engagement.

Pidge became hyper aware of how warm Keithir's hand was around her own.

Two more weeks.

She swallowed, glancing up at his face, wondering if he'd realized the same.

Their courtship was coming to an end, bringing their marriage into full focus. She wracked her mind, trying to remember what, if anything, she'd read about Galra engagements. Was there a proposal involved? How was it done? And what about the engagement period? Were there rules or steps to follow for those three months as well, or were they going to be too busy with wedding planning to worry about that? What about--

Keithir gently squeezed her hand. “Is everything okay, Katie?”

“Oh, um, yeah,” Pidge lied unconvincingly. “Sorry, I was just thinking about something. Where are we going first?”

“It's not anything interesting, but I thought I'd show you and Shiro where you'll be staying while we're here. You'll share connected rooms. I hope that's alright,” Keithir said, raising his voice enough for Shiro to hear as well.

“That sounds perfect. What better way for me to keep an eye on Pidge?” Shiro said teasingly.

Pidge rolled her eyes. “Ha ha.”

Shiro took her sarcasm in stride. “Well, that is my job as your chaperon.”

Keithir looked amused by their banter. He waited until he was sure they were done before telling them the rest of his plans for the evening. “Mother and father ave invited us to join them for dinner. After that, I thought I'd show you around the citadel, if you'd like.”

The spark of anxiety that came up every time Pidge thought about talking to Emperor Zarkon fizzled out with the knowledge that Keithir wanted to give her a tour.

But what if--

Pidge violently beat back her dark thoughts as she squeezed Keithir's hand and smiled up at him. “That sounds great.”

He was going to be in so much trouble if Thace found out what he was doing, but he just wanted a quick moment alone with Katie. They were safe at the citadel; not even Lotor would dare try anything right under Zarkon's nose. (Not that he had to worry about that, as he'd been assured Lotor was off-planet.)

Dinner went smoothly thanks to Shiro, who struck up a quiet conversation with Zarkon regarding security at the wedding. Katie seemed much more relaxed without the Emperor's attention on her and it was a relief to see that she was comfortable talking to the Empress when asked about her current projects. All of that gave him the confidence to do what he'd been meaning to do for weeks.

He couldn't keep waiting for the perfect moment to present itself, so he'd have to create one himself.

There was a balcony he loved to relax at. Well, it was more of a retired crosswalk for the guards, which overlooked a stretch of the inner-city to the east. The view was a spectacular one and the wind was rarely harsh.

“Wow,” Katie breathed as she leaned against the rail, gazing out over the capital city.

As much as he wanted to, Keithir didn't allow himself the pleasure of standing back to watch her for long. He walked up next to her, close enough that they were almost touching. “I've always come up here when I wanted to be alone to think. Something about it helps me clear my head. Makes it easier to talk about things.”

His heart was pounding in his chest as he turned to meet her eyes. “Katie, there's something I need to tell you.”

“Is something wrong?” she asked, looking almost afraid to hear the answer.

Keithir shook his head. “No! No, nothing's wrong. I just...” He paused to take a breath. “I'm--”

“Well now, isn't this a pleasant surprise.”

The sound of that voice, thick like too-sweet honey, had Keithir instinctively moving in front of Katie, shielding her from view. He narrowed his eyes as his brother joined them on the balcony. Behind him was his personal servant, who stood back with his head bowed.

“What do you want, Lotor?” Keithir demanded.

Lotor made a show of acting shocked. “Why, I merely saw my dear little brother and his bride-to-be out here all alone and came to say 'hello'. Is that such a crime to you?”

Everything about him was cold and controlled, his voice ringing with a falsely pleasant tone that set Keithir's nerves on edge. Whatever his brother was there for, it certainly wasn't to say “hello”.

“Well now you have. You can go now.” Keithir didn't care if he was being rude. He wanted Lotor as far away from Katie as possible, as soon as possible.

Lotor tutted softly, whether from the demand or something else. “And leave the two of you alone? As your older brother, it is my duty to escort you back to your chaperon. After all, it would be most unfortunate if anything were to happen to you while you're out here all alone.”

Behind him, Katie inhaled sharply at the unspoken threat.

“We can find our own way back,” Keithir said, maintaining eye contact for another few seconds.

Show no fear.

And then, calmly and dismissively, Keithir turned and ushered Katie away from the balcony, wanting nothing more than to get her back to Shiro and off of Daibazaal. His parents would understand his reasons for cutting their trip short.

He needed to talk to Kolivan. Everything about what just happened felt weird to him.

And since when did Lotor have his personal servant follow him around the citadel?

“Keithir?”

A gentle touch to his arm had him slowing down so Katie wasn't running to keep up with him. “Sorry,” he apologized. “I didn't think – He's not supposed to be here. I don't know how he found out we were visiting.”

“It is weird,” Katie agreed, easily keeping pace with him as they descended a flight of stairs. “Shiro needs to hear about this.”

“You can tell him on your way back to Altea.”

“You're coming with us, right?”

Keithir didn't hesitate for a second. “Of course I am.”

I'm not letting you out of my sight.

On impulse, he reached for her hand, threading their fingers together. Katie looked startled by the action, but didn't pull away. Instead, she moved a little closer. And despite everything, a tiny burst of affection settled in Keithir's heart, soothing him.

Whatever Lotor was planning, they'd get through it. Together.

#voltron #fanfiction #kidgemas #kidge #arranged marriage au

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scottmaxwell360-blog · 5 years

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Creative Problem Solving Interviews

To get a sense of how design professionals use creative problem solving techniques to tackle industry challenges, I interviewed three experts and asked two questions:

How do you generate ideas? (How, when, and where are you inspired? What inspires you? What obstacles do you face in coming up with a new idea and how do you overcome those obstacles?)

What process(es) do you use to solve problems? (Describe the steps of your problem-solving process. Explain your journey from inspiration to implementation.)

Niall Fitzpatrick - Photographer

How do I generate ideas / What inspires:

There are different specialities in photography. Folks that go deep in a very specific specialty; and others that take a broader array of interests, are perhaps two extremes. I tend lean more toward the latter. I'm very interested in exploring daily settings (people in action, portraits etc., for example); and street and landscape photography. I let the project lead me to an extent. That said, being "prepared" is essential. I like to build a story with my photos. I’m always looking for a way to use the moment and timing to describe the project. This requires a few essential elements:

Base idea framework: having a conceptual framework for what I want to achieve - a loose framework with not too tight an expectation. This allows me to follow my eye and the surroundings to evolve the story I’m trying to describe.

Inspiration: The surroundings, people, landscape, and light - these are elements of my inspiration. But really the biggest element of inspiration comes from taking the time to "see." It's tempting to hurry through a photo shoot; or settle for a "good" shot. But I find that for inspiration to flow I need to take time to see. This can manifest in different ways: Looking at the setting from different angles or perspectives, snapping to warm up with 'no expectations'; sitting and watching; exploring and walking; ultimately getting in the 'zone' which is when I'm thinking less and doing more. Ideas beget ideas.

A willingness to follow the flow: Things often don’t go to plan. A subject shows up late; the sun doesn’t come out; the scene isn’t what you anticipated. I like to follow the moment – see what happens naturally. How can I use it? These elements often present subconsciously “in-the-moment” but the critical element is a willingness to be flexible.

What obstacles do I face?

Lack of focus is a critical blocker for me - feeling rushed in process or not being prepared.

Bringing Energy: In addition, particularly when people are involved in the shoot, making sure I have energy to bring to the project, to motivate others and or direct the subject. A tired me is a less creative me.

Being Prepared: Finally, it is critical to be prepared. Being prepared includes a fluidity with the camera. If I put my equipment away for a period of time and then pick up and shoot it invariably means I am not 'one' with that camera. This leads to basic mistakes: overlooking critical settings; shoot perhaps at wrong settings; slow and focused more on camera than subject. The more I use a camera the more fluid I am - hence why I try to shoot daily.

I overcome obstacles by:

Being practiced and fluid with the camera

Well rested

Creating an environment of relaxation for both myself and the subjects of my photos (where people are involved)

Where possible researching the setting

Timing the setting (golden hour, planning for ideal light, etc)

Continual study of photography; in particular examining and understanding the art of others

What process(es) do you use to solve problems?

In photography problems arrive in a variety of possible categories including:

Subject not presenting as expected or not willing to participate as expected

Lighting (how is the light at this time - soft, harsh, other)

Setting (physical surroundings) not as anticipated

The objective (why am I here not going as planned)

When I approach a shoot I try to keep these things in mind so I’m prepared. The best way to ensure you can overcome a problem during the creative process is to be prepared and focused. The journey from inspiration to implementation involves ensuring I am ready; have timed the shoot (conditions), can take advantage of light, and know how to engage my subject. It’s also important to have a mastery of the technical approach. Knowing how to use in-camera or post-processing techniques to achieve the desired outcome. In the end though –inspiration often comes from the moment. Implementation comes from practicing technique such that one thinks less about the camera and more about the objective.

Alecia Lewis - Graphic Designer

1) Idea generation, inspiration, and obstacles:

Idea generation and inspiration: I'm often inspired by people - the more you know and understand and develop real conversations and empathize with them and how they relate to things. That's true communication and that's what really inspires me to do great works that connects people with ideas. Of course, I also subscribe to several design blogs to see trends and see what's new and how others are solving similar problems. Often, I just think "Man, they're so clever, how do I improve on that?” Really, I'd say my most creative pieces were thought of after hanging out with a big group of friends. Then, on my way home or laying in bed, I'll think about a project I was working on, and instantly the ideas start to form. I substantiate my ideas with a real understanding of best practices and commonalities, or biases that already exist around us, almost capitalizing on them.

Obstacles I face are really deadlines and ignorance. People who contribute to my work as a designer, while they provide their expertise of the market, often aren't aware of design principles, design thinking, or best practices for that matter. They've often not even Googled design terms like "hierarchy". Just the other day, the executive who claims to be a strategist with all of the experience says, "Oh, well, I don't know your lingo." My lingo isn't some revolutionary terms or design speak. It's founded in basic, standard terminology that designers use. With all of their experience "working with designers", you would think they would have compassion or respect and would, at the very least, Google things like "design principles" and see that not everything can be the same size. In order for your CTA (call to action) to actually evoke an action in their audience, it needs to stand out, not be surrounded by everything else.

As a designer, I’ve exposed myself to the executive’s field and researched best practices and developed personas. I ask questions about the piece - where it lives, why it lives there, how the viewer gets to it, etc. Oftentimes people haven't thought about the process in a holistic way, but I, as a competent champion of effective communication, have knowledge of the sales cycle, market strategy and economics, and I always approach things in that way.

I overcome those obstacles in a variety of ways. Just as I'm designing a print or digital piece, I take the same path to addresses my frustrations - define, identify, research, understand, relate, concept, create, execute, test, evaluate, complete. Essentially I try to put myself in their shoes, understand the problem from their perspective, and address it by provided validated information that supports my views, and enlighten them to why I make the choices I make.

Sometimes people recognize the effort, applaud, and move on. Other times they could care less and just want it their way. I'm not always right, but I do always have a purpose so it keeps me motivated. I will say though, this is also the reason that I changed jobs - because I worked with people who didn't care to be better, do better, or communicate better, so I changed jobs to find more purpose - to use my creative talents to advocate for something I believe in, which is affecting positive change in the world.

So now when I feel defeated by idiots, I still have the reward of doing good work for a good cause. Oh, and the deadlines - well, everyone thinks creativity is like science. “It should only take 2 hours. Last time it took 2 hours, so this time it should.” Well creativity isn't a science, it's a journey. Every new piece is a new story, and it's extremely frustrating when the story has to be told too fast and you skip parts. Because if you skip too much it doesn't make sense.

2) Process to Solving a Problem:

Every designers process is different, but the good ones are similar and start with

Defining the problem: So many times people who request work have no idea what problem they are actually solving - which seems insane, but is absolutely true. Literally, they'll say "I want x" and I start asking questions and they actually want "7%dg".

Next, you identify your audience: understanding them, their likes/dislikes, why they do what they do, what they need/don't need... relating to them and almost becoming them.

Research and more research: Now that you really know the audience, you do a real competitive analysis - you look to see what competitors are doing right and wrong, and understand the real value proposition so that you can differentiate your solution from theirs.

Create: Because we can relate to the audience and understand the market, we get to create - you could use any word here like develop or ideate - either way, this is the sketching, the inception of the idea, the concepting phase - this, to me, is the most fun part.

Execution: which is the creation of the piece, the development of the idea - massaging the good ideas and eliminating the bad ones that may have had potential but don't solve the needs of the audience.

Testing: this is when you send the piece out and actually obtain feedback. Often the feedback is measured in sales initiatives and lead gen numbers, but really it should be like an email. You send two out and judge the outcomes compared to each other. Then you deliver to the world because now your work is validated. It helps the viewer, it dismisses alternatives, it is validated. Now it should be approved to be printed or coded and sent out to the masses.

Reflection: Then the key is to look back - and reflect. This is the retrospective, which rarely happens, but always should - this is the discovery of the process, it's efficiencies and inefficiencies. You get to find out if the piece and audience are really who you think they are. Seeking a true understanding of what worked and why it worked, or what didn't, and being honest with yourself that we're not all brilliant every time, but we need to grow from the feedback and let it continue to nourish your next iteration,

Completing the Cycle: then the cycle is complete because you've solved the initial need or provided the initial solution, while also informing the next piece.

So often, defining the problem, the persona development of the audience, the research, ideation is skipped. The testing and retrospective -- all of these phases are skipped because someone says, "I need X" and incompetent people say, "Designer, you have 2 hours to give me X" while no one asks questions are challenges the reasoning. So "X" is not a true solution. It's an unsubstantiated demand that will likely produce some success, but not the success that a truly validated, well thought-out initiative could have provided.

So I'll say the general process is, "get assigned, ask a million questions, research, design, revise based on feedback from non-designers, attempt to educate them, revise more, then send out to the public to be forgotten about" lol ...but real designers like me have adapted. For instance, I don't know every audience member but I've formed a generalization that I can attribute to the brand, then I ensure that I understand the holistic nature of the piece, and then design.

Also, I'm not even sure these are all of the steps, but, that's basically everything. The funny thing too is it's on my list to put something like this together for my company - to truly show the executives how much more productive and proficient our company could be if we followed a real process, and to also explain to them why things take so long - because good design can't be bottlenecked by time. It has to be well-informed in order to inform the right audience and produce the best results. I'll also add: the creative team I'm on is referred to as "Creative Solutions" because we aren't a "service" department, we don't cater to people's needs of X - we are presented with a problem and create solutions that solve those business needs.

Ashley Stacey - Photographer

1) Idea generation, inspiration, and obstacles:

Ideas often come to me while I’m shooting, which can be both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it’s often the person and or landscape that inspire me – anything I can do to that helps bring out the very best in that person is my goal. So, if that means switching from what I had planned to a completely different set and/or position to make them more comfortable, then that’s what we do. I’ve been the subject in front of the lens and know how uncomfortable it can be sometimes – making a last-minute change that allows comfort (and ultimately confidence) to shine through is worth every obstacle that may come with that change. Which brings me to the “curse” part of this question – these last-minute changes can introduce obstacles with lighting, composition, props, etc. To get around this, I try to move as quickly as possible rearranging sets or re-positioning the subject – my hope is for a seamless shoot where the subject doesn’t even notice we ran into the obstacle(s) in the first place.

2) Process to Solving a Problem:

The process I use to solve a problem depends on the problem. For example, if it’s around creativity, I think about past shoots I’ve done - what worked and what didn’t. I also try to put myself in the shoes of my clients and think about if I were them – what would make me happy? My clients hire me (hopefully) having looked at some of my work, which means they like my “creative eye”. If it’s something that I like, the hope is that ultimately, they will as well. On the flip side, if the problem revolves around business operations, I think about whether I can relate the problem to my corporate experience – if so, I incorporate what I’ve learned from past experiences in my next steps.

#creative #creativeproblemsolving #photography #design

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