Dylan's Portfolio

For a part of the branding from my groups company "Patchwork", we decided to make a website for our company

I worked with 2 other teammates, to create the one pager website, that gets all its inspertation from the name Patchwork, that has its subtle animation so that the page has a little life.

Working together with a software student that is doing his minor at media, made it a little more challenging since we have to include him in the process of designing a website. This time I learned how to explain my work to someone who doesnt do the same field, this gave me a good insight on how to write future reading guides for any project.

P.S: We did not finish coding the website due to other project priorites, it will be done later on.

Here is the link to the website prototype on Figma: Figma Website Prototype

For the main project we had to make a presentation so that we can show who we are and where our talents lies, and what we can provide to her.

For the presentation I had led a photoshoot so that we can get all the selfie images for both the presentation and the website.

With help and confirmation from Jan the photos were great, and Malou took over and drew masks over our faces to add an artistic layer to the presentation.

Overall the experience was nice, I learned some new skills again from this for example the effects of standing further away from the target shot and zooming in to elimate some background, which is called "Lens Compression".

Here is the link to the presentation on Canva: Canva Desca presentation

Because this semester had almost no photo workshop so photoshop and camera workshops, I want to take photos hat only required to use the camera settings, and with no editing afterwards.

Some photos were final products used in the branding project, and the rest for fun me, just experementing.

Because some were final products used for the branding project, I believe it belongs in this learning outcome.

With jans feedback aswell, I identified the blurry ones from the good ones, and seperated them to avoid confusion.

For upcoming vacation, I want to experiment more, I believe taking photos outside would teach me more than in controlled enviorments like school, because researching on the spot to take a picture of something in a specific way, it stick better in my head than just listening and just casually trying it out. I hope by doing this my skill level would increase.

Here is the link to the GUI on Figma: Photo Gallery

My team and I made a prototype of the GUI that Desca will use to control her tamagotchi game we are making for her. This GUI has (hopefully) all the features she requires to control the pet, for different situations.

It would also allow her to edit the cosmetics, decide how long the pet could stay alive, manage how her twitch chat is able to interact with it, and lastly turn the pet on and off.

Personally, I was not proud of the prototype, we focused more on the appearance of the program and even that wasnt what I wanted, the consequences was the functionality of the prototype wasnt fully finished, only enough to do some small stuff. In the future I will focus more on the functionality of the prototype than the looks, since users would care more for thhe functionality than the actual look.

Here is the link to the GUI on Figma: Calcifer GUI Figma

I have created a git for my portfolio so that I can have better control of my version, but also for safekeeping.

For the group project we also used git for the same reasons, we have a central place to store/share the files, we have the version control just in case files get damaged or just if a huge mistake is made we can always go back.

Working with a software student, I learned some more information on git, which are branches since I havent really used branches this was hard yet not hard to understand. What I learned was that branches are made to avoid conflicts, and only 1 teammate is reccomended to do the final merging, this lets us designers work easier without needing to worry about it.

Here is the link to my portfolio Git : Portfolio Git

Here is the link to the Patchwork Git: Patchwork Git

My team and I used Figma to make the brand guide, company website prototype, and the GUI prototype for Desca.

Figma helped my team to create these prototypes and other products, which also doubled easily sharing the prototypes between everyone.

This semester, I used Figma again, and it still works well for creating and sharing prototypes, and other products.

It also has other features that I havent used, and I think it would do me good, to experiment more with them, since it may help with future work.

Here is the link to brandguide in Figma: Brandguide Figma Prototype

Here is the link to the Patchwork website prototype in Figma: Website Prototype

Here is the link to Desca GUI in Figma: Desca GUI

Honorable mention goes to my portfolio Figma: Portfolio Figma

I made 3 version of my prototype with multiple color palets from my current favorite game Hollow Knight.

I had also started on other version with a second them of Tron, but stopped to fill in my portfolio

Both have their own moodboards, and have each their side of prototypes.

Here is the link to the figma where the prototype is located: Figma link

For the group project, I started with a clear vision and built a first version, expanding it step by step until the core layout was complete. I then created supporting elements.

“Text Box 3” went through one iteration based on teammate feedback. Afterward, we combined everyone's work: two team prototypes were selected, and we finalized a single direction by merging the strongest parts of all three ideas.

Here is the link to the figma where the prototype is located: Figma link

I researched gamification to understand key information and common pitfalls,and also the do's and don'ts. I used secondary research (literature reviews, case studies, expert articles) within the Double Diamond framework, mainly during the Discover and Define phases to inform design decisions.

Here is the link to my portfolio gamification document: Research document

For the group project, we created a team charter to set ground rules and streamline communication. It documented our names, emails, roles, and responsibilities. We established expectations around attendance, deadlines, and updates so no one went off-scope or failed to communicate when running late or absent. Drafted at the start, the charter keeps us aligned throughout the project.

Here is the link to the team charter: Patchwork teamcharter pdf

For the Patchwork project, we set up a Trello board to track tasks, owners, and progress. Each card listed a description, assignee, due date, and checklist. This made it easy to see what was done, what was pending, and where bottlenecks were forming so we could jump in and help.

For the Desca project, we used the Scrum framework and used a Jira instead of trello to manage sprints. One teammate acted as Scrum Master to keep the board current and ensure tasks moving.

Comparing how we planned before, this has been a great improvement from work efficiency and quality.

Our team created a self-guided presentation for Desca, to introduce who we are, our skills, and relevant project details. Because we couldn't present live, we wrote concise slides with enough context for independent review. The result pretyy good, Desca understood our slides and responded positively to it.

Here is the link to the presentation: desca Presentation

We held a Discord meeting with Desca to review our project and current progress. The conversation started a bit slow since it was our first real discussion, but we walked her through everything we'd built so far and gathered feedback. The key outcome: she loved our game concept, which helped lock in the project direction.

The image explains what happened duringthe interview, it was written by another teammember.

At school we participated in a poster showcase where every team presented their project. We had conversations with each visitors, we gathered feedback, and even picked up new ideas.

We also received some negative comments, which were helpful for spotting errors in our work. The style of getting feedback, was a new experience, people came to us rather than us chasing feedback, and that made it easier to collect different perspectives quickly.

Here is the link to feedback pdf: Feedback pdf

My group attended the prototype event, where we presented our prototype for the Desca project, where we got feedback from teachers and fellows students.

We also had the chance to walk around and check other groups project, to see what we can learn from it.

Our way of presenting wasnt how I wanted it to go. The main problem lied when we had to switch, so I go walk around, and because they havent worked on what I worked on, so its normal they wouldnt understand 100%. Because of that they wouldnt be able to explain properly.

To fix this issue it would be best to talk over what is going to presented and that everyone knows what to talk about, and to also write down what needs to be talked abour during presentations.

This month I realized how many student are look for an intership, and that they are having a hard time doing so. To combat this for myself in the future, I though I could start searching now, and sending some emails.
The one I want to talk about now is Monomi Park, a game dev studio, that made one of my favorite video games, slime rancher. I had sent an email a couple days ago, with no email back or confirmation of the email being sent to take a screenshot as proof.

Here is the contact page of Monomi Park: Monomi Park contact page

Online I have found a website that asks me questions and sees what my values are which are listed in the document, this test showed me where my priorities are and in what situation they shine more in.

Here is the link to my personal values : value document

This link will bring you to the page to check your personality: Personal value website

to figure out more about myself I went online to see how people can identify their traits with mulitple tests online.

This test explained how my personality is, and I used it in the past a long time ago, and was able to see my past results, doing so I see I start as a introvert, one time turned extrovert, and now im back to mainly introvert for example.

On the 22nd of November, I went to Dutch Comic Con for the 1st time. I didnt want to go at 1st, but I was invited, so I decided to give it a try.

The experience changed my view on how see people express themeselves in different ways. I saw so many different ideas, and colors during my trip, with people dressing up as character, creatures, and other types of beings.

Because there were so many different people from different places, all with different interests, it was inspiring to seehow they designed their crafts and sold them, but also the ones who made their own "suits". There were so many unique art styles, and it was awesome to see how creative people can be.

There were also talks and speaches that I found interesting. For example, I paid close attention to Carl Lumbly, the voice actor of martian manhunter in the dc comic universe. He talked about his career and shared experiences and advice, even though I can't remember everything in detail.

Going to Comic Con helped me grow as a person by opening my mind to new ways people can express themeselves. I saw the different creative works people did, without the fear to present theme aswell infront of hundreds of people.

I would like to go again next year, not only to see what new things people create, but also to take more photos and use it as an opportunity to practice working with just the camera, like I mentioned befiore in LO1.

I would 100% reccomended other people to go aswell. It was a great way to discover new ways to present artistic work, and to get your creative works out there.