Bryan Connor

How to Find a Job with RSS

bryanconnor — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 18:09:02 +0000

The economy may not be in tip top shape at the moment and if you’re in the job market then consider using RSS to help deliver the most up to date and highest quality opportunities to you.

But what is RSS?

RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a way to broadcast web content that changes frequently. A good example of this is job listings since they are updated daily and syndicated out to subscribers looking for work via an RSS feed.

Why is RSS good for job searches?

Job opportunities come directly to you and only ones you specify.
New feed items come in as they are posted instead of delayed by days or weeks like classified ads.
RSS feeds can be customized to target the exact type of job, location, and pay range you’re looking for.
Feeds are searchable so you can look for keywords among the jobs that are delivered via RSS.

How do I get started?

RSS feeds are delivered to you using an RSS reader. Readers pull content from all the websites you tell it to and displays them to you in one place. Recommended RSS Reader: Google Reader All the functionality you need with good saving capabilities. Sign up for an account or login with your Google credentials and have a look around. Feeds you are subscribed to show up in the left hand column with an unread count for feed items you haven’t looked at yet. There won’t be any to start out with which is why we need to find RSS feeds. Other RSS Readers: Bloglines, Newsgator, My Yahoo, Netvibes.

Where can I find RSS Feeds?

In order to add feeds to your RSS reader you need to get the RSS feed URLs from websites. There are tens of hundreds of job sites out there but check on your favorite targeted website for the RSS symbol or the words ‘subscribe’ or ‘RSS feed’. Here area few to get you started: Design: AIGA Jobs Development: DevBistro Jobs Writing: Freelance Switch Writing Medical: Healthcare Jobs for RN Education: Inside Higher Ed Engineering: ThinkJobs – MD Other major job sites: Career Builder, Monster, Simply Hired If you click on an RSS feed link and the page looks like code just copy and paste the url into the ‘add feed’ box in Google Reader

How can I make the jobs more targeted?

Most job sites will have a search field where you can input your term and when you hit search the results page will often have its own RSS feed so you can stay updated on your search term on that particular site. Many sites also have ways for you to drill down and specify your job by price and location and often these additional details will have their of RSS feeds you can subscribe to.

A philosophy for sorting and responding

A slight drawback to so much immediate information is an overload of job opportunities. Before you get overwhelmed devise a system to sort through and save jobs. Google Reader has a staring system you can use to place jobs you want to inquire about into the starred items folder. Many jobs will come in that are close to what you are looking for but in most cases there will be so many opportunities to sort through that taking time to respond further to each job that is close would be impossible. Save the opportunities that could really work for you and from there contact the poster through the website or through an email provided in the posting.

Happy Hunting

Staying up to date on the latest job postings with RSS is the fasted way to spot new work and the best way to see what employers are looking for in your field.

Glossary

RSS – Rich Site Summary
Syndication – the process by witch web content is broadcast over the internet
Subscriber – the people who get RSS feeds delivered to them through feed readers
Feed Reader – A service that collects RSS feeds from many sites and displays them in one place
Feed – a shortened term for an RSS feed of a website’s content
Feed URL – the web address for an RSS feed (will often display as code)
Starred Item – a highlighted feed item that is put in a separate folder in Google Reader

Orba Squara – The Trouble With Flying

bryanconnor — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:55:11 +0000

This might be the only piece of music I’ve bought mostly based on the design and marketing of the album itself.

Orba Squara’s album The Trouble with Flying is an upbeat piece of music with heavy narrative and apparently great design.It’s one of the best examples in my memory of a truly combined effort between facets of a marketing campaign for an album. I quite like some of the music too.

The website is a pretty interesting log of graphic representations, letting, and photographs from Orba’s tour presented in a highly narrative and interesting way. There’s a little surprise and the very end of the website that I’ll let you find.

The album art and website were done by Random Collective who have a limited website that I wish I could see more work on.

Glimmer by Warren Berger

bryanconnor — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 15:04:42 +0000

The Glimmer Universe

This book is for designers trying to find the soul of design. Glimmer captures the optimism of the social design movement and has inspired me and many readers to engage in truly meaningful design every day.

The design thinking principles of revolutionary Bruce Mau are the centerpiece of the book and help segment it into four spheres of design – Universal, Business, Social and Personal.

Starting with the universal principles that can be used for any purpose, Berger draws from a number of case studies to make his Mau-ist points. From Mau’s incomplete manifesto for growth Berger illustrates how to ask stupid questions that challenge conventional wisdom, jump fences using abductive reasoning to make unique connections and make hope visible by simply sketching and prototyping.

This Design Thinking Business

The case studies presented in the business portion of the book involving hugely influential firms like IDEO and individual design thinkers like Mau will make you want to drop what you’re doing and help design the soul back into modern companies with design thinking.

Berger again explains how its all done with the principles of going deep to truly empathize with the people involved and understand the issues at hand, working the metaphor, and designing what you do.

Designing for People

Social design can combine doing what you love with truly helping people. The social section of Glimmer profiles a myriad of initiatives and organizations using design as a power for social good.

No one can deny breaking out of the office to design in the thick of life isn’t without its risks and difficulties which is why Glimmer tells us to face consequences for things we design and to embrace constraints in seemingly impossible situations and do more with less.

Your Own Life – Designed

The personal section of Glimmer hold’s some of the books most immediately relatable and engaging ideas for beginning the design thinking revolution on yourself. Think of your own life a design project – what needs to be re-designed?

Life is an enormous design challenge and Glimmer would say begin anywhere instead of constantly planning and design for emergence and for the things that haven’t happened yet with a flexible and adaptable life.

Just as Warren Berger will tell you when you pick up a copy of Glimmer, it’s about infinite possibilities and the exciting new era for design and designers.

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Mapping Istanbul

bryanconnor — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 15:54:30 +0000

I, as you may know, am a lover of information graphics and more recently a lover of Istanbul. My recent time in Istanbul has left me with lots of great experiences and lots to digest.

Mapping Istanbul has caught my interest as not only a beautiful series of information graphics but as a way to digest and process the city that has a massive history, a myriad of cultural influences, and a diverse life of its own.

The series of narrative information graphics from ProjectProjects catalogs travel routes, population density and demographics, economic factors and much more.

It looks like the only way to purchase the beauty outside turkey is to email the Ottoman Bank Archives and Research Center by email at archive@ottomanbank.com

All images via ProjectProjects.com

Herbert Matter Documentary and Work

bryanconnor — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 17:16:46 +0000

I don’t tend to re-blog things that are making the rounds on the internet because you don’t want to see the same thing twice but in this case I actually had to do a bit of hunting to get past the trailer and the logo progress clip to find images of the work of Herbert Matter.

The trailer is for a documentary coming out soon about his life and work. The man was a very influential graphic designer of Swiss birth from the 30′s through the 80′s. His overall mastery of photography, design, typography and in many cases art making put him in the position of great influence in the visual arts and design world. His life crossed paths with the lives of many other greats of the era including Jackson Polluck, Willem de Kooning, Alberto Giacometti, Charles & Ray Eams, and R. Buckminster Fuller.

The documentary looks excellent but I was more interested in seeing some images of his work:

Digging Through Duke Digital Collections

bryanconnor — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 21:46:34 +0000

I’ve been digging through the Duke Digital Collections site for a few months now and wanted to share some of the best galleries I’ve found.

Historic American Sheet Music

I first found my way to the Duke Digital Collections site by way of a link to this Historic American Sheet Music Collection. The collection features wild and beautiful examples of typography throughout the featured decades as well as some culturally interesting song titles and images.

Ad*Access

This collection features ads printed in Canada and the US between 1911 and 1955 in the areas of Radio, Television, Transportation, Beauty and Hygiene, and World War II. The imagery and copy writing in these ads are quintessential and really fun to browse through.

Emergence of Advertising in America

For more type goodness and political incorrectness dive into the Emergence of Advertising in America archive and see the enormous variety housed in the catalog spanning 1850-1920. My favorite three sections, exemplified above, are:

Tobacco Advertising (1872 – 1918)
Early Advertising Publications (1870 – 1925)
Advertising Ephemera (1853 – 1921)

Collected Writings of Torrence Harder

bryanconnor — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 21:11:54 +0000

Torrence Harder – Reflections houses the writings of Torrence Harder, Cornell Grad and founder of Harder Management Group. The site represents three years of inspirational writing with more to come.

Description

Torrence wanted a compendium of his written pieces that would look professional and be flexible enough to house many years worth of articles.

Goals

The site needed to be exceedingly easy to browse with text that would be highly readable. Articles were to be accompanied by an image and navigation to the oldest article was to be simple and straightforward. The content needed to be easy to update but have none of the trappings of a traditional blog. Visually there needed to be a professional and scholarly quality while presenting the articles in an engaging way.

Concept

Visually I wanted to draw metaphors from the print world in order to achieve some of the literary and scholarly tones. The layout is a representation of a table of contents and is exceeding easy to browse. Adding some interactivity to the page makes it less static and draws more interest to the articles. I also employed wordpress with a custom theme to make adding and editing easy and straightforward.

Solution

The site makes good use of javascript to house all the articles on one page with expanding sections that mimic a table of contents. Images enlarge over the article and relate to the pieces of content. Each article is intuitively expanded and the text within is readable and well formatted. The site is simple in terms of design and functionality but collectively does a lot of work to present the collected writings effectively and clearly.

CONDENSED Q’s

bryanconnor — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 13:51:34 +0000

Information Is Power.

At the outset of a new project I go through a short discovery phase to find out more about an individual or company and what they are looking to get from a project.

Six Big Questions

The questions are boiled down to their most essential elements but the more thoughtful and in depth answers lead to a better finished product.

To Respond:

Click to following email link to open your favorite mail client. The questions will be filled in to the body. Please respond thoughtfully and hit send.

Why are you making a new website?EXPAND QUESTION
Your mission statement, goals for the site, audiences you want to reach. Discuss the true core reasons for this project.
What are the sections / pages of this site going to be?EXPAND QUESTION
Your reasons for these sections, whether they will expand at a later date, what the function of each will be in supporting the goals of the site.
What specific functionality does the site need?EXPAND QUESTION
Your needs in terms the site’s capabilities – the ability to house blog, send contact inquiries to you, allow you to manage its contents, and any other specific features.
What existing branding / design elements are there?EXPAND QUESTION
Your existing look and feel, logo or color scheme, previous websites or business/ personal collateral, printed material. please notate if you will also require any degree of supporting branding work as a part of this project.
What is your budget for this project?
What is the deadline for this project?

Please list adjectives that should fit the new site and ones that should not describe it.
Please list pertinent visual examples (websites or otherwise) for layout, tone, or other design elements.
Please send along any other documents that might be helpful to understanding the project.

Fellow Freelancers:

What is your web discovery process? Is it more complex or less? What questions would you add to this list? Post your responses in the comments below.

Eye Magazine – A Printed Mag Worth Its Stuff

bryanconnor — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 16:52:11 +0000

I was in MICA’s library for a few minutes yesterday and browsed through Eye Magazine and was very much impressed.

Eye Magazin e is an international review of graphic design and I happened to pick up the typography special which was full of beautiful lettering, old type specimens and modern typographers. The articles were in-depth and graphic design focused. The magazine seemed a lot more serious and a lot more authentic than some of my other subscriptions (Print and Commarts).

The paper choice for the magazine also stood out to me. Not overly glossy, the pages felt great and had a wonderful quality and tint to them. Eye magazine is reminding me why I subscribe to printed magazines and has certainly got my hooked with its first issue. With a student price around $80 for a year (4 issues) it might be one to consider checking out of your local library until it convinces you to get it delivered to your house.

Vintage Type from Maine Maritime Museum

bryanconnor — Sun, 16 May 2010 04:09:47 +0000

I went up the coast today with the family to the Maine Maritime Museum and picked up some great old typography.

And some more below…