It was a great year

As we’re nearing an end to 2006 it’s definitely worth noting some of the awesome things our program has been up to this past year. I know you all are probably getting a bit anxious now that this site has become a bit stale due to the holiday break – so here’s my attempt to throw out just a tad bit more inspiration to see you through the remainder of the holiday break. So here’s to great 2006 and a few things to keep you busy until next semester:

• Our hats off to some of the exceptional work & accomplishments by our students – way to represent in 2006. This past year brought just a few ADDY’s to some of our students (okay a few is being modest – VCC won a large percentage of the student ADDY’s this year), to include a few district ADDY’s and a Best of Show winner. A number of our students brought home Florida Print Awards (count ’em – 11! Again, another Best of Show winner!) Awesome job to students who’s work was accepted into Valencia’s student show (and yes, the next one is right around the corner!). Oh, and we had a couple National Create Award winners. All I can say is – impressive! Don’t be surprised to see more impressive work in the upcoming year!
• After just five months of launching this blog we’ve seen a remarkable response. We’re finding that you guys are enjoying the nearly constant posts to keep you all updated. Who knows, before long this little spot on the web might just become a spot you can’t live without. I guess the evidence is in the numbers – where we’ve had about 26,500 hits since this little “idea” spawned this summer. In fact, this month we’ve been noted by WordPress as one of it’s top 100 growing blogs, as we made their “Blog of the Day” list. Yay!
• And we can’t resist sharing the success of our flickr account, which we’ve used primarily as a showcase of student work. I’m still in amazement seeing the response – nearly 28,000 views is impressive, right? Since starting yet another “idea” this past July we’ve found this to be a popular source of inspiration for creatives – not just locally, but worldwide! Kudos to flickr!
• Hopefully you didn’t miss our great event, with Cameron Moll. If you did perhaps you might want to check out his pdf of the presentation. It was nothing short of – awesome!
• This year also kept us busy with some great things that will actually not surface until 2007, but we might as well let the cat out of the bag to those that haven’t heard – in the January 2007 issue of Create Magazine, Kristy Pennino and I have co-authored an article titled, “The Truth About What the Creative Industry Expects from Graduates”, which will be be featured as an opener for their Learn Supplement which is distributed nationally. Though we’ve ranted about this topic previously, we’ve put a new spin on the topic and were certain you’ll find this to be a very useful article for both students and professionals. Don’t be surprised to see a lot more writing from us this next year!
• While we’re on the topic of Create Magazine, I’m excited to announce that Valencia’s school of arts and entertainment will have a full page ad in this January’s Learn Supplement. I’ve been informed that we’re the only Community College in this year’s issue. Thanks to our Dean, Aida Diaz, who was able to offer her support for this great exposure for Valencia’s creative programs. Kudos also goes to Jason Ellison who had a big hand in the creative design.
• Speaking of what the industry expects from graduates, our implementation of TVCA is now a year old. It’s been implemented into a number of our courses and regardless of whether or not it’ll affect your grade in any classes next semester, it’d definitely benefit you all to check out “How to improve your TVCA grade”. You’ll find that these skills will increase your chances of getting that killer creative gig that you’ve been striving for – oh and lets remind you they’ll help you keep that TVCA grade up!
• Looking for a job or internship? You might find the article on “Job Search Strategies for designers” that I posted in September useful.
• Speaking of 2007, get ready for Adobe CS3 sometime this coming year. In fact, you can go get your beta of Photoshop CS3 now. You’ll find a lot of news about it on the web. And speaking of writing, it’s gotten me keeping a close watch on the upcoming release of the new Flash – which apparently will be called Flash CS3 to keep in line with it’s inaugural release with the Creative Suite. Here is a glimpse of anticipated changes. And I’d have to agree with the consensus about the Creative Suite’s new icons, I’m going to miss those illustrative icons! I’m still amazed to see a periodic table concept for a “creative” suite – sure there’s a concept but I think most creatives would agree that they don’t quite relate to chemistry when their getting creative. If so we’d probably be doctors, and not designers, right!? Go check the icons out and then join the arsenal of creatives to give Adobe your feedback. Luckily we can create our own icons and change those that we don’t care for!
• And if all this isn’t enough to keep you busy over the break then you can always bury yourself in my bookmarks on blinklist. It’s a neverending heaping pile of resources that continues to grow daily. Be sure to view it by “my cloud” to navigate easily through all the tags.

So here’s to 2007 – may it be just as great as this past year has been! We hope you all enjoy the rest of your holiday break. Go get some rest before the semester starts – before we know it the break will be over, so have fun while it lasts!

Are you ready for 2007?