Inclined to Design - Canva Creatives Conference 2014

Canva Creatives ConferenceNovember 16, 2014

Thank you for inviting me to Canva

Hi everyone, I’m Christian San Jose Owner and Creative Director of Create.ph

We’re a design agency focused on digital media for global brands.

I founded Create in 2011, and since then we’ve created the official websites of athletes, celebrities, and various companies.

Very interesting clients

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Foreign clients…

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…and local as well.

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Design Talk

with lessons and sh*t.

A

This was supposed to be titled “A design talk with lessons and shit”

Design Talk

A

with lessons and sh*t.

But they asked me to change the title to something more diplomatic

Inclined to Design,

and the lessons I learned along

the way.

Being

Being Inclined to Design [and the lessons I learned along the way]

designer

I’m 25 now, but I’ve been been inclined to design almost my whole life.

5 years old

I started illustrating as a 5-year old kid.

5 years old

But I wasn’t really that good.

12 years old

Then I was 12 years old

12 years old

And I didn’t really improve that much.

25 years old

Fast forward to right now,

25 years old

Still can’t draw shit!

I still can’t draw shit

12 years old

So I sort of gave up on it really early. But at least the interest was there.

At 6th Grade, I stumbled upon The Sims.

It was a great game, and even though it was awesome finding different ways of killing them…

…Trapping them in a room, setting Sims on fire

Killing more Sims…

I found it more enjoyable designing houses and its interiors.

…Designing a shit-ton of houses

At one time I made 20 house and vacation lots that were downloaded a total of 80,000 times. It’s crazy.

14 years old

I also stumbled upon graphic design at an early age…

14 years old

Graphic Design!(not really)

But not directly. It was actually incidentally through…

14 years old

Basketball!(do the thing! score the points!)

Basketball! As a kid I loved basketball a lot.

14 years old

But I never played it…

14 years old

…since I was short, clumsy, and had bad eyesight.

So that’s that.

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So I resorted to basketball forums online like any basketball fan…

Not my stuff…and everyone had these amazing forum signatures — it was the cool

thing then, you just couldn’t post on the forum without a great signature.

My stuffWith enough curiosity and tinkering around, reading tutorials everywhere, I

found myself creating my own graphic signatures.

Then from basketball signatures, I created basketball wallpapers.

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From tutorials I also learned how to slice PSD files and have it generate HTML automatically.

Graphic design soon became web design, and with little knowledge on HTML, and I was creating image-heavy slow-loading websites at 15

Basketball websites, school projects, church websites…

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ALL FOR FREE!

because I didn’tknow better!

…all free because I didn’t know I could charge money for what I was doing.

16 years old

I never thought that this could even be my career. I just did what I enjoyed doing.

POST MY WORK

ONLINE

but then, I started to

I was on the computer at a regular basis. I posted my work online, just so everyone can see.

16 years old

Then I started getting inquiries bases on the stuff I’d do for free anyways, and they wanted to pay me.

16 years old

My first paid job was a website layout for $100 (back then was PhP 5,000).

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$100For a 16 year old, that’s a lot of money.

16 years old

Then my second job as a “freelancer”

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16 years old

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The inquiries kept going, and with all the small jobs accumulated

Very different kinds of projects and clients saw my work

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I didn’t mind

And kept wanting to give me money…

I didn’t mind.

Awesome.

ENJOY WHAT YOU DO, & THE MONEY WILL

FOLLOW

Lesson 1

(EVENTUALLY) Lesson 1: Enjoy what you do, and the money will (eventually) follow.

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I was able to buy my own laptop before I got to college. I was enjoying what I did, and was self sufficient.

COLLEGE!

I liked tinkering on my computer a lot, I was in front of it everyday, so me and my parents figured I should take Computer Science in college.

So I graduated…

NOPE!

Nope. I hated it.

F*CK COMPUTER

SCIENCE

Eventually, I dropped out.

17 years old

And I went back to what I did best, being in front of the computer, designing.

DESIGNING

And I was in front of the computer every single day.

EVERY

Every

SINGLESingle

DAYDay

HONEDMY

SKILLS

I honed my skills.

HONEDMY

SKILLS

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& LEARNED NEW ONES

I learned new ones.

ALWAYS BE DESIGNING.

Lesson 2

(NEVER EVER EVER STOP)

Lesson 2: Always be designing (never ever stop)

There was a job opening at Team Manila Graphic Design Studio.

After the conclusion of my interview, they mentioned that I’m going to start in a week, and their software of choice was Adobe Illustrator.

NO PROBLEM! I LOVE

ILLUSTRATOR!

I said “No problem, I love Illustrator!”

I DIDN’T KNOW SH*T ABOUT

ILLUSTRATOR!!!

I didn’t know shit about Illustrator. I never clicked the pen tool in my life.

For 1 whole week, I watched Lynda.com tutorials…

and taught myself everything I need to know about Illustrator.

FAKE IT UNTIL YOU

MAKE IT

Lesson 3

Lesson 3: Fake it Until You Make It

Up to this point, I still didn’t have a clear idea what’s going to be my future. I just knew I wanted to design, and now, also Illustrate.

Here are some of the things I did while at Team Manila.

I was surrounded by very talented people

and it was the first time I really grew as a designer.

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The whole experience was amazing.

Not long after, I needed to go to the States, less than a year working at Team Manila, because I was migrating there with my parents.

PersonalWork

ClientWork

The experience I gained at my first job, and the skills that came along with it, gave me the confidence to continue and further pursue personal design work.

I was able to work on personal projects, stuff I did, as I always did, just for myself.

Emo guys

Forbidden Kiss

Ultimate Cute Shirt

Printed in the states, and pirated in Thailand

Stuff that made no sense

And awesome collaborations with fellow artists

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PERSONAL WORK OVER

CLIENT WORK

Lesson 4

Lesson 4: Personal Work over Client Work

Client

Can you make the logo bigger?

Because sometimes, stuff like these get tiring.

Client

Can you make the logo bigger?

NONo.

Client

Can you use my daughter’s logo? She’s good in…

Can you use my daughter’s logo? She’s good in Pai…

Client

Can you use my daughter’s logo? She’s good in…

NONONONO.

Eventually I got client work that I actually liked.

Bands like Cobra Starship. Sold at Hot Topic.

It was awesome to have clients that were able to appreciate my personal work.

And since they enjoyed it from the start, for their own projects, they gave me enough freedom and trust.

…one illustration was even tattooed on to a Spanish stranger. There is a person right now, with a clown on acid, inked on her back.

A music themed shirt design, which sold 4,000 copies. I didn’t REALLY know how much 4,000 shirts were; They didn’t even give me one.

I really only believed it, when the shirt appeared on a Tonight Show with Conan taping, worn by an audience member

…And on iCarly / Nickelodeon.

The Siren Song, illustrated in 2009

And Mechalabaw, in 2009 as well

For the Mechalabaw design, I was lucky enough to win $10,000 from DesignByHumans Annual Contest, which lasted 2 months.

After that exposure, Adobe contacted me to make an Illustrator artwork, to be included in and bundled with the release of Adobe CS5.

Adobe even made banner ads with a sample of my work

I thought my computer was playing tricks on me. Didn’t know anything about the ad until I saw it while browsing online. Maybe it was in the

contract I didn’t read.

21 years old

Constant, consistent work, made my work and myself better. And it opened up a lot of doors along the way.

I was lucky enough to be contacted by HS3, a digital marketing agency based in Los Angeles.

They saw my portfolio, asked me to design the official logos of a few athletes, including Albert Pujols.

That’s awesome!

They said: “That’s awesome!”

Interestingly enough, something else I did before caught their eye, my old web design work.

Do you also do websites?

They asked: “Do you also do websites?” I answered: “Yes, of course!”

NOPE.

NOPE. Not in a long time.

MAKE YOUR OWN LUCK

Lesson 5

Lesson 5: Make Your Own Luck

I haven’t done websites in 4 years

This was 2010, I hadn’t done web design in 4 years. I had to relearn it again.


HTML5

4 years out of the web makes a whole lot of difference. I had to get my knowledge up to speed.


HTML5

SVG

HTML, CSS, UX, UI, Web 2.0, so many buzz words.


HTML5UXSVG

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HTML5CSS3UXSVG

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HTML5CSS3UX RWD

SVG

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HTML5CSS3UXBOILERPLATE

RWDSVG

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HTML5CSS3UXBOILERPLATEUI

RWDSVG

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HTML5CSS3UXBOILERPLATE

BOOTSTRAPUIRWD

SVG

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With galleries, tutorials, videos, developer friends, and a lot of trial and error, we were able to create good websites.

Along the way I taught myself PHP and Wordpress, and we were able to make our sites complete.

And we soon worked on local client projects too

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Web projects kept coming, and within a year I decided to drop my illustration works to focus on web full time.

DESIGN & ILLUSTRATION

DIGITAL

My obsession with design translated easily to my new obsession with user experience and digital interaction.

My web portfolio grew, and in 2011 I started Create.ph. We’ve been obsessing over the web ever since.

With my experience on sports design way way back, and my knowledge in web design and illustration now, I was able to

work on amazing projects with amazing clients.

Stuff I never thought possible. The official website of Kobe himself.

Kobe’s Foundation website.

Refining and creating his official logos.

Official artwork and shirts, worn by Kobe while touring the world.

I got to meet him and I introduced myself. I said “Hey Kobe!” He said “Hey CSJ!” — no, that didn’t happen. He didn’t know who I was. I name-dropped

my partners in L.A., then he figured it out. It’s fine.

So that’s Kobe.

Then I got to work on Wade’s official site.

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Various projects with D-Wade.

Extending his branding to various material.

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It was on his Li Ning shoes

So that’s Wade.

Then we got the fastest man alive, world record holder and multiple-time Olympic Gold medalist, Usain Bolt.

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So that’s Bolt

Then we got Big Sean. He’s with Kanye’s GOOD Music.

We did his official website.

So that’s Big Sean.

Is anyone seeing a pattern here?

We got to work on Usher’s official wardrobe website.

Where he orders from his own private personal collection or closet, then a stylist sends whatever he picks, wherever he is in the world.

So that’s Usher

Since 2011, our set up has mostly been the same. We’ve grown to a small team of 10 in 3 years.

EVERY PROJECT

I still work on each project,

EVERY PROJECT EVERY PSD

…on every PSD


EVERY PIXEL

…check every pixel


EVERY PIXEL EVERY LAYER NAME

…every layer name


EVERY PIXEL EVERY LAYER NAME EVERY CLASS NAME

…every class name



EVERY LINE OF CODE

…every line of code



EVERY LINE OF CODE EVERY FTP STRUCTURE

…every FTP structure




EVERY FAVICON

…every favicon




EVERY FAVICON EVERY 404 PAGE

…every 404 page





EVERY CLOSING TAG

…every closing tag





EVERY CLOSING TAG EVERY LINK

…every link






EVERY ANIMATION

…every animation






EVERY ANIMATION EVERY LOAD TIME

…and every load time.







This is the work that clients don’t see, but makes our work something we can be proud of, in an out, start to finish.







This is what our clients pay for, and what they deserve.

BE OBSESSED

Lesson 6

(YOU NEED IT TO SURVIVE)

Lesson 6: Be Obsessed (To not only survive, but prosper in our industry)

We’re very fortunate to work on amazing projects. And even though we’re a young company, our next project is designing the official website of Mitsubishi.

We’re not a big agency. We’re just group of young designers and developers, loving what they do. And we’re lucky to work with client like these that trust us.

With every work, our rule is that our newest work should always be better than the last, and this motivates us, more than money or anything else, and

makes each day in our office exciting, every single time.

FIND WHAT MOTIVATES

YOU

Lesson 7

Our last lesson: Find what motivates you.

That’s it from us at Create.ph

INFO@ CREATE.PH

I hope you enjoyed the talk.

THANK YOU!

Thanks everyone!

Inclined to Design - Canva Creatives Conference 2014

Design

Transcript of Inclined to Design - Canva Creatives Conference 2014