Stop panicking.
Watch this.
Interviewed
I’ve been interviewed by WhoHub.com
Below is a transcript of the interview.
What is your specialty?
Graphic Design, Illustration and Photography
Where can we view your portfolio online?
http://www.zerflin.com
What made you interested in design?
I always drew as a kid, and design definitely grew from that.
What has been your professional career path?
I started out as an Art and Computers teacher, actually. After that, I moved to a print shop, then to a non-profit’s graphics team, and then to a full-blown agency.
I started my own company in 1999, though, and have been running it since then.
Have you received any awards for your work in the field of design?
Nope, but that hasn’t really been my goal.
What is your motivation? What makes you get up in the mornings?
To be honest, not design. I get up because I like living. I definitely get raw joy out of just experiencing new things. The design is a reflection of that, and sometimes a source of that joy… but not the main source.
How would you define your design style?
Eclectic. I like mixing styles from various timeperiods… and from various cultures to come up with something new.
How do you promote and move your work?
Mainly through word of mouth. My customers have been the greatest mouthpieces for my work; and a few particularly vocal clients have actually become part of my team and now get paid to bring in new clients.
In which new areas would you like to experiment?
I am constantly experimenting by trying to break rules and seeing what happens. When I was learning screenprinting, I asked my professor what things had never been done before, and then went and tried them out.
The results were pretty cool.
Shapes, color, concept: where do you usually begin when conceiving a design?
Concept. I draw. A lot. Drawing helps loosen me up, and calms me down from whatever stresses I might have.
What are your sources for documentation and to generate ideas?
Oh, all kinds of things. I have stacks of magazines and folder and folders of images on my hard drive of just pure inspiration. I tend to keep a larger mental library, though, so I usually just let things stew and come out of that. I only look at my inspiration files when I’ve got designer’s block.
Which festivals or awards in your field do you find most interesting?
Never been to any. Not particularly interested. Any ones with free food?
What is your favourite type of customer?
The ones who say “I trust you, you’re the professional. Do what you do best”.
I live for those customers.
To a certain point, is copying justifiable?
No, I don’t think it is. I hate the use of clip art. If you like a piece of clip art, just redraw it! It might take more time, but the result will be better. If the result is worse, you need more drawing practice.
…and you can practice using the clip art as reference.
When you use something as reference, you’re putting your own spin on it. If it’s not your spin that the client is paying for, what ARE they paying for?
List some things you dislike seeing in design.
Templates. Pre-made stuff that’s applied to everything. Pick a different font. Make UP a different font. Try a different layout. Take an overused layout and work to make it so different it’s brand new. But don’t take the default settings at face value.
Do you believe the newer generations are better at designing?
Absolutely. And they should. They have a bigger pool of design to draw inspiration from.
With which type of client would you decline in working for?
Anything that hurts other people.
How do you calculate budgets for a design project?
By the hour. I estimate how long it will take to create, and then charge by the hour.
Which professionals in your field -contemporary or past- do you most admire?
I don’t know of many. I admire the way my professor David Kasparek critiqued without making you feel personally offended.
Which software applications do you most utilize in your work?
Everything Adobe makes. Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver, After Effects, and Flash.
Up to what point do your designs reflect your personality?
Completely. My designs are a direct result of my personality, and often the way I’m feeling at that time.
How do you distinguish passing fads from mainstays in new trends?
By the time you realize it’s a trend, it’s on it’s way out. It’s better not to focus on such things.
If you weren’t a designer, what would you be doing?
Probably drawing, animating, or playing the piano.
At this moment, what would be your dream job or project?
My dream job? Anything where I can combine what I love with what I’m paid for.
Can you see yourself in this field twenty years from now?
Absolutely. And I hope to be.
Which design resources online do you frequently visit?
StumbleUpon, Logopond, and Advertising Age.
Nya Visits Jaju
Over Christmas 2007, we got to journey up to Connecticut to visit home. My grandfather Edward Jancewicz (Jaju) had recently taken a fall, and was in a recovery center.
He hadn’t been in high spirits, but when Nya came to visit him, he lit right up. My favourite photo is when my dad was swinging Nya in front of Jaju; every time she got really close they both burst into laughter.
Babchi (Martha Jancewicz, my grandmother) seemed so proud to hold her!
On the road in Ohio
Fun with a camera, on our way from Joy Schoenleber’s wedding in Ohio. Nya is a cute kid. Tamika is a cute wife. I look funny with limited facial hair and long head hair.
City Vista Grand Opening Banners
This is a set of banners I created for The V at City Vista’s grand opening event. I had a lot of fun figuring out this animation. It uses large hidden panels of green and black to wipe away text (because clipping masks just wouldn’t cut it, it was too complicated of an animation).
How I furnished my basement
Click on the image, then give it a minute to load. It’s worth it.
I set my camera (a Canon 20D) to the Delay setting (you know, the one you use when you want to do a family photo with you in it), and placed it on a tripod.
Then, every time I walked by it, I hit the shutter.
I saved all the images, opened them as frames Adobe ImageReady, and exported it as a gif.
Pretty cool, huh?
Bill Jancewicz has a Website
I’m very proud to announce that my father, Bill Jancewicz, had a website. Or, a journal, if you prefer. Or a blog, if you’re a nerd.
In any case, I designed it for him for Christmas, and now that’s he’s been using it regularly, I thought I’d announce it. He uses it to post updates on the Wycliffe translation & missionary work, as well as what’s going on with the family.
So visit http://www.bill.jancewicz.com and check it out!
Hello, Feedburner
So, if you subscribe to this website by email; you’re not getting this.
Why? Because I’m too popular. Ah, my public, how they love me…
It used to be that you could enter in your email on the left side of this page, and every time I published an entry, people would get a nice little email in their inbox with the post. Convenient, no?
Sometime in January, this journal hit the 100th subscriber. But rather than have a celebration and happy happy fun times, the thing stopped working. No warning, no alert, just gone. And all this when I was just getting consistent with my posts; getting into the habit of posting every day.
I racked my brain. I spent hours on the phone with GoDaddy.com (my hosting plan). I spent hours scouring WordPress forums. I got on the nerves of some WordPress admin. Finally the nice fellow who designed the plugin that I used (called Subscribe2) said I should check out what GoDaddy’s limits on emails were.
Lo and behold, I can only send out an email to 100 people at a time.
So, I’ve ditched Subscribe2, and moved to Feedburner. It’s a great service that essentially does the same thing, except it’s not on my server. But the sad thing is, I can’t tranfer all my existing subcribers to Feedburner.
Looks like I’m going to be sending out a lot of emails…
REAL good reason why YouTube is not lame
May I introduce you to Kutiman. He makes music from videos. Except he ignores the original song that the artist was trying to play, and uses them for their individual notes.
This is incredible.
Hat tip to my friend Christopher Smith for sending it to me.
Never too old – My grandmother goes tabogganing
Martha Jancewicz, 83, of Norwich, rides her toboggan down a hill off the first tee of the Norwich Municipal Golf Course on Thursday. Jancewicz takes to the slopes several times a winter when snowfall permits, for some sledding fun aboard a vintage wooden toboggan that she estimates to be 50 years old.“My kids rode on it, my grandkids rode on it,” she says.
That’s my grandmother for you. You may remember her other article.