branding – Page 3 – Musings of a Generic Asian

Conversing with a Cartographer Part 1

art, Books, branding, publishing, Uncategorized

The book series which I’m about to launch (International House of Vampires) in 2014 is considered a dark urban fantasy genre. Many fantasy books in general have maps in the front as it helps build up a world for the readers. So I decided to seek out a cartographer to help me make two maps for my book: a world map and an invisible fortress map.

Here is the world map of places where various characters travel to in the book. Then I realized, what the heck are 3 Canadian places doing on the map? Oh right, Canada is such a big remote country, it’s easy for cults to hide in the north…

With a stroke of luck, I connected with Robert Altbauer, a cartographer who lives in Salzburg. I keep enviously envisioning him as a polite, handsome man who lives near the Alps somewhere eating bon bons and drawing maps in an ancient library somewhere. You can see some of his fantastic work at www.fantasy-map.net – Where visions become maps and www.sapiento.deviantart.com – deviantART portfolio.

Hi Robert, thank you first of all for taking on my crazy map requests. First, can I ask how long have you been doing this cartography craft and how did you start?

Hi Jean, thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about my profession.

I have been making maps since the beginning of 2010. I had an idea for an alternate history setting and wanted to do a map for it. So I bought a graphic tablet and started mapping.

At what point did you become serious and form a website, etc to make cartography an entrepreneurial business for yourself?

This was a few months after my first map, in mid 2010. I applied for a cartographer job – a novelist needed a map for her setting (sounds familiar, I guess 😉 ). I got the job and soon afterwards I decided to turn this into my second profession. One of my first clients created websites and we did a quid pro quo – he got a map and I got my new website.

Do you also have a day job as well? Or what do you hope to do? Or would your dream be to only do cartography?

I’ve studied law at the Universityof Salzburg, Austria. I quit my last job a few months ago and now I’m looking for a new job where I can use my study. While mapping is really great and I love it, I like the changes in working within another business that uses my other talents.

I found you on the Cartographers’ Guild forum – do you think having online guild website such as this one has raised the bar in cartography? I mean, before the internet age, I’m not sure where one would go to find mapmakers. Now, it’s a global competition for freelancers. Do you think it’s a double edged sword?

More or less, yes. While you get a whole world of potential clients you get a world full of competitors, too. The Cartographers’ Guild is a very friendly and helpful community. Of course, everyone applies for the same jobs and sometimes I come off second-best, but on the other hand it is a great place to learn new things and exchange your experiences. The cartographers influence each other with new ideas, so this leads to many excellent maps that are made by the guild members.

Do you see any future evolution for cartography? More 3D video game stuff? I mean, where do you think changes are happening?

3D is certainly something that has the potential to change a lot – but at the moment only for certain areas, like gaming or TV. As long as there are no 3D capable e-readers I don’t think that a lot of maps will be true 3D.

The greatest challenge for human cartographers will probably be sophisticated computer programs that can produce maps by just giving them a set of parameters. While they cannot substitute real creativity – at least not until we have some kind of artificial intelligence – these could become a competition for humans. But that’s a general problem of modern society and one that still has no satisfying solution.

Continued into Part 2…

Making a Family Crest

art, branding, family, publishing, Uncategorized

On a rainy day, this might be something you might want to do for fun. Digital art in a way has replaced scrapbooking/colleague art for me and leaves less of a mess! If you have been watching any historical stuff you may notice that European families tend to have crests. It’s usually on a shield or flag and there tends to be lots of lions involved.

I’ve decided to make a new crest as a logo, so here are the few steps it took to make it:

1) Figure out if you have a graphics art program

There are free ones available with basic to advance levels – Paint.net (free – basic) – Gimp (free – advanced). Many professional artists use Adobe Photoshop, but it’s a very powerful tool and you have to buy it.

I have Paint.net installed and will be using this program.

2) Look for stock art

There are two great sites with FREE stock art – Stock.xchng & Pixabay. There are license agreements for this royalty free art, but if it’s for personal use, it’s generally ok.

I looked for a few images which I knew I wanted: shield, lion with sword and chrysanthemum flower. I couldn’t find the flower on it’s own so I will have to manipulate and cut the flower out for use.

The lion s tands for courage and strength (tribute to Garrard name as the ancestral shield features a lion) while the chrysanthemum flower represents hope/light in darkness.

3) Open Shield graphic & manipulate

Step 1

The idea is to put all the images into the shield. Generally, I want a white logo with “transparency” so my wallpaper on the webpage could show through.

-open up graphic in paint (File tab > open)

-click “magic wand” tool from upper left “Tools” panel and adjust tolerance if needed

step 2

-press a spot on what you want to delete; for me it’s all the white stuff in the shield.

-the wand will highlight everything in blue, then you just press “delete” and a checkerboard pattern will come through meaning image in that location is transparent

4) Add Lion

There is something called “layers” in every graphic program. On the right hand side there is a box which tells you what “layer” you are on. The shield is on one layer and you will be adding more layers for every graphic.

So before opening up the lion graphic, add another layer (Layers tab > add new layer) to the shield. Then open up the lion graphic (File tab > open)and put into new layer you have opened – now you see 2 “layers” on the Layers box to the right.

The lion was a very big graphic so I had to drag the corners and shrink it.

5) Cut out flowers, leaves

The chrysanthemum flower is only a small part of its original graphic. A few steps were necessary to make the flower work for me:

-open up flower (File tab > open) in its new canvas/window and cut out the flowers by highlighting it

-open a new giant canvas (File tab > new), then paste the flowers in it so there is room to play around

-use rotate tool to move flowers around (Layers tab > Flip vertical) (Layers tab > Rotate/Zoom)

-cut out one of the flowers by highlighting it and using cut & paste function to put it on an empty part of the canvas

-cut out one of the leaves and rotate to the desired angle. (Layers tab > Rotate/Zoom)

-the leaf and flower have overlapping lines. So to erase lines, use the eraser from the “Tools” box on the left.

6) Add flowers & leaves to the shield

-add another layer to shield graphic (Layers tab > add new layer)

-go back to flower/leaf window, cut & paste flower/leaf into layer in shield graphic window

-to create mirror image leaves and flowers, I played with the (Image tab > flip horizontal) function

-the shield line in the middle was created by just highlighting the top part of the shield and then cutting & pasting

7) Add “JF Garrard”

-the canvas has to be bigger (Image tab > canvas side) for adding text, so I increased it in width

-initially the added canvaspart is white, so I had to use magic wand from “Tools” in left box to make it transparent

-using “Text” in “Tools” left box, I typed “JF Garrard” using font Goudy Old Style, size 550

8) Save file in black and white

There are places where I’ll use it in black ink and others in white. Important – to keep transparency, it has to be saved as a .gif file. Also, when saving, it will “flatten” all layers, which means everything will be merged into one layer. Keep a paint.net file (.png) in case you ever want to play with this graphic again with its layers.

-default is black, just save to .gif (File tab > save as)

-to make the logo white, we have to invert the colors (Adjustments tab > invert colors)

-of course at this point I realize that the lion graphic isn’t totally transparent, so I use the magic wand tool to “erase” the white spots. After 10 min of painfully doing this (lot of little edges/spots), I discover a flood tool, which does it in 2 seconds. (Tools, Magic Wand, Flood Mode > Global)

-now save white logo to .gif (File tab > save as)

However…

In the end I didn’t use this logo on my website as the shield graphic lines looked too thin after I put it in the header. I’ll use it on my facebook page though, you can see it here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/JF-Garrard/406247922764234

The more you play with the program, the more you will know. Good luck in making some fabulous crests!

Everything I've done Wrong This Past Weekend

branding, conventions, Geek stuff, manners, Uncategorized

I’m proud of my friend Chris, as he has proven to be superb deliverer of guest services. We met again this past weekend at Fan Expo as it turned out we were both doing liaison guest work. He put me to shame as after a long conversation with him last night I realized all the things I had been doing wrong all weekend.

In general, I have a lot to learn from Chris in regards to how to service delivery while having fun at the same time! So in summary, I’d like to hypothesize what he would do in the same situations I encountered or “What Would Chris Do?”

1) Slow down…Relax…Keep Things Simple

My guest Shawn is an adult, but I felt like I had to be very attentive and almost maternal as once he turns “on” for the fans, I have to be “on” too; in order to make sure he meets his schedule, eats, go to the bathroom, sign all the autographs people line up for, take all the pictures people line up for, etc. My maternal instinct was on overdrive and I was like a rabid chipmunk mother. So I felt really stressed all the time as I was worried about meeting timing of events and keeping things moving along. I would over think how to efficiently do things by running multiple scenarios through my head, then things would change and I would freak out underneath (although I can’t show my stress on my face to my guest).

What Would Chris Do (WWCD) – Although he was doing transportation of all the guests, he kept a calm head and just did things without overcthinking. In the past at Anime North we would bump heads as I would worry about how inefficient he was being but in the end, the result is the same. So just think about the route from A to B and then just dive into it. Often, reality does not reflect the scenarios you think about as there are too many changing factors, such as people blocking the path or an elevator not working etc…Keeping calm at all times instead of freaking out is the best as you don’t waste energy on unnecessary emotional turmoil! Chris took the time to have fun under stressful situations and even calmed down other people!

2) Talk to Strangers and Smile!

This is a hard one for me to do, as I have been raised all my life as a female to not talk to strangers or smile as you worry you are inviting a disaster of some sort. There were many awkward situations of me standing there with strangers as Shawn would run off to talk to one guest and their assistants would be there, often unsmiling. There was one man who kept looking at me and I was worried he wanted something I couldn’t give. It turns out he was an agent and could have been scoping me out. Argh! Missed my chance for stardom!! In general there was lots of odd silences which could have been avoided if I reached out, but was worried about reactions of people and if they had the time to even talk back since everyone is on a busy schedule. Also, I don’t speak very loudly so sometimes when I tried, people didn’t hear me.

WWCD – Chris is a very cheerful guy and when you first meet him, he loudly says hi, then shakes your hand. He is very genuine and sincere with people. He didn’t worry about potential walls of unsmiling people or what people might be doing next. This is a hard thing for me to do as a germaphobe since I worry about hand germs a lot. Sigh. But I know I have to learn to speak loudly and shake hands as it is a “North American/European” gesture of friendliness. I found myself bowing a lot all weekend perhaps due to my Asian background. So I think I have to do both, bow to the fans when they meet my guest as a hospitality gesture and shake hands more with strangers. It’s so hard to break out of your shell when most of your spare time is spent hiding and typing…

3) Don’t Over Focus on Your Guest

This is an anti-Japanese/American idea, as the usual ideal for customer service is to only focus on the guest. There were a few times where I could get pictures with other guests, so I would leave Shawn on his own and run over for a snapshot. Thinking back, I don’t remember if I thanked them for taking the time to do that with me as I was so worried about getting back to Shawn. It was like he was my baby and I couldn’t just leave him on the street on his own. But he is an adult and he will survive a few more minutes without me as I take the time to talk to other guests properly. He complained that I would leave him for “other men” but he was laughing, so I knew that I didn’t offend him.

WWCD – Chris handled multiple guests, but he told me stories about taking the time to drink with one, then have a cigarette with another. He had a great time and divided his attention equally. I know I was assigned to only one guest, but when I meet the others, I need to learn to focus my attention on them right away, even if it’s for a few minutes. Again, I have a hard time talking to strangers and my default position is one of shyness/introvert. But Chris had such a great time and got to know all of them, so I think he did a much better job than me at creating an impression. Memory wise, the guests would remember a cool guy they hung out with and then there was that crazy Asian girl that ran around like crazy, not thanking or talking to people properly.

Really messed up with Karl Urban (Dr. McCoy, Star Trek) on this one as I didn’t get a chance to read his bio, so I asked if he was British which made me seem silly as he is from New Zealand. Need to read more bios next time!

4) Have fun!

As you can imagine from the scenarios above, I was not exactly a great person to hang out with as I was like a mother worried about her child most of the time. My guest had a great time, Chris had a great time and I think I could have had a better time if I learn how to do things more like him.

It was a privilege to have done some guest work at this convention and hopefully next year I’ll have more fun if I get to work with Chris!

“Do your time, to pay the price
For every thing you’ve done wrong, baby
In your life, you get so high
There’s nowhere left to go but down
Don’t believe that no one cares
‘Cause we’re here waiting for you, baby
Do your time
and then come home for good”
-Sloan, Everything You’ve Done Wrong – an awesome song, popped into my head when I was thinking about writing all this!