A Designers New Years Resolution

by | Dec 31, 2018 | Blog

You’ll hear a million resolutions of “New Year, New Me” posts, blogs, tweets, messages, etc. What’s different about mine? None. The only vague difference is that I’m making them as a designer and a guy who runs a youtube page. There’s nothing special about this blog post that is any different than you’d see anywhere else. The unique flavor is that it’s me. If you know me, want to know what’s happening and what I’m hoping to happen, then keep on reading!

This year was a little more crazy than usual.  I won’t go into detail on the negatives, but here’s are some positive defining moments in 2018 for me:

  • I was published in .net magazine for a a small page about my youtube gaming channel
  • I broke out of my rut at work and just started designing what I wanted, and it worked heavily in my favor
  • I finished a 6k Spartan Obstacle Course Race
  • I completed a design challenge for .net magazine that will be published in 2019
  • I started on the path to learn AR

 

I think it was a pretty decent year, but I have some plans for the new year as well. When I look back on this post a year from now and I see 30% of it completed, I would of considered it a success.

 

Career Goals

Finish up some backlog courses on Udemy

I have dozens of courses I just buy on the cheap and sit on. There’s a ton of cool subjects that I wish I’d jump into, but I never have. The majority of it is development courses, but quite a few are Unity and game dev courses.  This brings me to my next design goals

Launch an AR app

I’ve been learning about it, but I think if I make a goal of launching something, i’ll probably be able to make it happen. I have an idea I’ve been working on, but never came to light due to technical stupidity I guess you’d say.

Update My Personal Brand

As a designer, we all say we’ll reinvent ourselves. I don’t plan on reinventing myself at all. I tend to be more consistent throughout my personal brand. This includes my website, portfolio, resume and online social presence. This is primarily to potentially get some freelance work this year.

Obtain 3 Freelance Clients

I’ve been out of the game and working in house for the past few years. I plan on opening my web design experience to helping other people build their business.

Get 1000 Subscribers on my Youtube Channel

I run a gaming channel over at www.youtube.com/thenowgamingzone  It’s a video game channel I run that hasn’t been getting as much love as I’d like it too. With the help of my family, I plan on creating a plan to get to the 1000 sub mark so that I’m able to monetize the channel again.

 

 

i could go on and on, but I figure this should be plenty enough to share with the world. If anybody needs an accountability partner for their design or development needs, then reach out to me on social media

Twitter: https://twitter.com/cliffn

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cliffnowicki/

 

Cliffs AR/VR Life Recap – August 6th – 12th

by | Aug 13, 2018 | Blog

Welcome to another quick recap of my AR/VR life, which has been super fun with momento360 and 360 images.

Websites

Momento360
This is an easy upload are to put your 360 images up and check it out online through the browser, or through your phones VR headset. I’ve been playing around at work with this, so I don’t really have anything I can show as of right now, but I’m working on it. Super fast and easy to upload and share.

Flickr VR
I literally came across this site thinking the following plugin “Flexify 2” was called flickr 2 for some reason. Either way, it was a happy mistake. Flickr VR is Flickr, but with only 360 images to view. This helps you check out all the cool stuff on your headset without getting stuck with a normal image. It’s been fun checking out some of the breathtaking images.

Software

Flexify 2 – Photoshop Plugin

This is a plugin I found online for the equirectangular grid that takes that grid, turns it into something manageable, and lets you built a cube VR room from there. What exactly is an equirectangular grid? It’s a grid use to proportionally show align everything in a 360 image. The process is simple. Take a flattened image of your grid, use the plugin to turn it into a “horizontal cross”, insert what you want or hatch together your photographs, and reverse the process. This easily puts it in an image ready to upload to your favorite VR image area.

The only downside is that it’s pretty pricey at $55. Is it worth it? You can check it out for yourselves with a free trial. I tried doing a warp in Photoshop myself, and I seem to do a real hack like job. This plugin makes it super easy to put it all together. If this becomes a thing or I find a niche in it, this plugin will make its way onto my computer.

That’s all I have for this week. Stay tuned as i continue a few more things and post them up to Momento360. I’ll be making sure to put the up on my twitter as well as post here for a more complete version.