Work

Womens Cycling Camp

Womens Cycling Camp, originally uploaded by Jeff_Werner. I joined a cycling club in Vancouver this year and they asked me to design a poster for them. Womens Cycling Camp is a month long, bi-weekly set of lessons led by my friend and coach/racer Lisa Howard. It's for women ages 15-22 that want to learn some organized cycling skills (how...

Subtle forks

A tangential look at Canadians—who they are, what they like and how they got this way—though the lenses of their contemporary film narratives, settings and characters. A series of films I've curated for the Fall Screenings at the 221a Gallery in Vancouver.

Lower Vancouver

lower-vancouver-poster.pdf During low tide a 0.5m cubic hole is dug in the beach lowering the average elevation of the city by 0.00000000055 per cent. 114,670,000.0m2 Surface area of Vancouver* 2.0m Average elevation* 0.125m3 Volume of hole 114,670,000.0m2 × 2.0m = 229,340,000.0m3 Volume of Vancouver above sea level 229,340,000.0m3 - 000.125m3 = 229,339,999.875m3 Volume of Vancouver minus hole 229,339,999.875m3 ÷...

Essential Mac Web Design Apps

While working on a contract these are the applications and programs I have running on my MacBook Pro (with OSX 10.4) at basically all times while designing and constructing a website. I can't work without these. A lot of Command-Tab, Command-r going on. What do you use? Grab Native OSX app for taking screenshots. Good for grabing areas of an...

Design Project Hours and Budget

How much time and money does a 4th year design graduation project take? Nearly 1,000 hours and over $3,000....

Cycling BC Road Online Calendar

A quick and fun pro bono project for the organization I raced under for seven years. A kind of giving back to the community feel. I was in charge of the frontend design of their new race calendar and results website, working with the VP of Road as project manager and a racer/programmer who developed the backend. We built...

What to Measure?

A progress report given in-class for an Industrial Design graduation project about measurements for our time.

Measure 2009

Thoughts on a graduation project proposal for Industrial Design at the Emily Carr University, 2009.

Transcribed Inspiration

Passages from films I've found particular poignant / relevant / inspiring of late. Adaptation John Larouche's pollination monologue Note: skip to 3-minute mark "Point is what's so wonderful is that every one of these flowers has a specific relationship with the insect that pollinates it. There's a certain orchid looks exactly like a certain insect, so the insect is drawn...

Congregation Wallpaper

By popular request, desktop wallpaper of your favourite heads of Emily Carr. 1024 x 768 1280 x 800 1280 x 1024 1440 x 900...

Notes on Ira Glass' Notes on Storytelling

A textual summary and paraphrasing of some tips Ira Glass (of NPR's This American Life) has for people starting out in the broadcast business and want to know what makes a good story. Taken from a four-part series of little YouTube videos. Two building blocks of broadcast storytelling: The Anecdote A sequence of actions. Story in its purest form. A...

Future Perfect Career 1

The following email was written to a professor of mine in June, 2007. I'm reviewing it again to see if it still holds true: is my dream job still Jan Chipchase's job? This two part article will first look at my thoughts on the topic from one year ago and then re-evaluate them in conjunction with what I've learned about design, and myself, over the past year of internships in Asia and an exchange in Europe.

Interning With NGOs

A friend is about to embark on an internship with a South East Asian NGO and asked for some advice. I've been thinking about some general principles I learned during my time in the Philippines, in Bali, and with other non-profits and project-based organizations over the years. The following is my response, a sort of thinking-out-loud.

The Fit of Existenz

David Cronenberg's eXistenZ (1999) is a near-future noir of virtual reality gaming, genetic mutations and--like all Cronenberg films--a graphic discussion of the nature of the body and its relation to invasion and manipulation. Specifically, I'm interested in the designs of the organic game pods: mutated amphibian semi-creatures with synthetic DNA that port into the gamer's spine. The bioports are installed...

Eindhoven Idioms

A short assignment for Forum with instructor Danielle Arets at the Design Academy Eindhoven: Come up with a new slogan (or an anti-slogan) for Eindhoven: Try to think of a promotion campaign to embed this slogan in a series of activities Your slogan/ campaign has to be based on some research; what is the creatieve [sic] DNA of the...

Public Space Sustainable Exhibit Notes

Hi fellow assignment teammates, just some quick ideas regarding the exhibit we're doing for Public Space, Design Academy Eindhoven. So visiting-artist last week Max liked our idea of many variations on that theme of visualizing symbiotic relationships. I'm thinking that, in the interest of time and effort, some can be just that, visualizations, while others can be actual working...

Design Academy First Impressions

Hi David, Jeff Werner here. How's things? Me: I'm in Eindhoven. Been here over a month now. Got a decent room in a townhouse with three flatmates, themselves from all corners of the globe and masters students at the Academy. My days (and nights) are filled with studies in the Public Space department and the Atelier module course, which is...

High Five Session 1

high-five session #1 from Jonathan Igharas on Vimeo. With friend and classmate Jon Igharis. The goal of our sessions: learn something new, fun and creative in a few hours with available tools to produce something worth showing. Tonight: an Arduino, some LEDs, a Sony HVR-A1U HD camera, a couple MacBook Pros, and Final Cut Pro. We messed around with...

Farm Bent

Farm Bent from Jeffrey Werner on Vimeo. First circuit bending. I watched this Make Magazine circuit bending video blog entry about it. Then I bought an old childrens toy for €0.80 at a used store in the Netherlands. I unscrewed the back, put in three AA batteries and started messing around for the first time in front of the...

Design Academy Unit Phase 1

First assignment, Atelier, Module 3, Spring 2008: Make a 'unit' that you can fit inside of. Use any cheap / free material. Minimum size of one cubic metre and no larger than an elevator. Think of aesthetics, decoration, sensitivity. Keep it simple. Make it personal, something you like. Read it as an empty book. On the other hand, don't think....

Nine Months of Sent Mail

These sent emails cover the period since I left Canada on April 23, 2007, and leaving Bali on January 26, 2008, i.e. nine months of sent mail.

Temporary Public Objects

First assignment, Modules 1-2-3, Man and Public Space, Design Academy Eindhoven: Investigate temporary objects used in public space (or objects used temporarily). A collection of initial photos.

Fax Not

This is excellent [that you sent me an email with a PDF form to apply for Emily Carr Institute Bursaries], I am ready to apply right away. One lengthy note...er, rant, however: Is it possible to submit this via email? I'm confused as to the benefit and perceived extra legality of faxing a form that requires me to find a...

Why Flickr?

As the person responsible for taking the small organization I work for in Bali into as progressive an online realm as I can take it, one of the many recommendations--and one of the few that has required any spending--is that we purchase a Flickr Pro account. The question my boss asked: Can you give a quick explanation as to...

Internship Transition

Video prepared as a component of a presentation given at the Emily Carr Institute in Vancouver, Canada concerning a student design internship in the Philippines, May and June, 2007. Created in two days during late October, 2007 in Bali, Indonesia, with a Sony MiniDV Handycam, MacBook Pro, Final Cut Pro. Filming by Amanda Huynh. Editing by Jeff Werner. Uploaded to...

Theft is the sincerest form of...

Update November 2, 2007: After filing a registered complaint with the AMS, a series of cordial emails with the AMS Ombudsperson, a flood of comments from all sorts of concerned students and instructors and family (including an apology from AMS Communications below) a resolution has been reached. The official response that the AMS provided for reposting here: From what I...

Bali Intern Day 2

Building a compost toilet, learning to manage a project. To manage multiple projects. Smoking. And zip lines across the Ayung River.

'La Lang (Just for the heck of it)

Context In an evening, at the request of their parents, show a handful of already computer-savy Filipino kids aged 9-16 a couple digital tools on the computer and the internet that they may have never thought of or are curious enough to ask about. These two are non-linear digital video editing for the first time. Premise The computer is...

Some Rules of Improv

Don't refuse an offer Also known as: Yes, and...; Don't Block; Don't Deny. Accept and build on what others suggest during a scene. Support others Trust others in the scene and help them look good and you'll look good. Save your fellow actor first. Enter a scene when and where you're needed. Don't try to be funny Make the scene...

Bali Intern Day

A typical day during my first two weeks of a design internship with John Hardy, the bamboo company and Kul-Kul School near Ubud in Bali, Indonesia, August 1-14, 2007. Wake up with the sunrise around 6am, get out of tent. Make my way down to John Button (Australian permaculturalist living on-site for five weeks)'s place to take advantage of his...

Two Day Garbage

The amount of 'garbage' I directly created in two days here in Bali. In quotes because it's important to start distinguishing between waste, which is an endpoint and not usefull to anyone, and a potential resource, such as compostable material. The amount pictured is actually less than I would have created in Canada in two days because most of...

John Hardy Bali

My Philippines Internship ended in mid-July. I then flew to Jakarta and rode my bicycle across Java to start a second internship on August 1st near Ubud, Bali, Indonesia. I am working, observing and learning with a company that designs and builds bamboo buildings and sustainable communities, among other things. I am working with the architects, artists, craftspeople and administrators...

Philippines Internship Part II

A recap of input and output from the second month--Part II--of a two-month, two-part design internship in the Philippines. Locations include Baguio City; dates span May 28 (arrive in Baguio) to July 12, 2007.

I plug away in Baguio

On prompting, an update of my daily activities. The past two weeks have been pretty much like many other summer spent 18 hours a day on the computer HTMLin', CSSin', Flickrin', Blogin', Surfin'. Except I'm doing it in an office alone in a small weaving factory in Baguio City, Philippines. My meals are fairly regularly prepared by Malene, the on-call...

Ifugao Hunter Backpack

Remember the picture I posted of Aklay (aka Philippe) the French Baker in Sagada wearing one of those water-proofed traditional backpacks? I found it (well, both Aklay and the backpack) interesting and posted a photo of them on my Flickr. I'd actually secured a standard variety model without the covering a week earlier, but when Roman Izdebski, a professor of...

Philippines General Design Observations B

Part two of two of a collection of general considerations from a design internship in the Philippines. We know packaging can speak to contents, but how do these conventions shift from culture to culture? Generally utilitarian isopropyl alcohol in more 'designer' green, contoured bottles; jumbo 'banana catsup' bottles. If you could only change one aspect of an existing design (colour,...

Philippines General Design Observations A

A two-part collection of general considerations from a design internship in the Philippines. Bridging the gap: traditional basket weaving with contemporary hardware. Souvenier shop, Baguio City. Variety based on geographic, climate, use and/or tradition? Woven pasikings (backpacks) from the Cordillera Mountain Region, for sale in Baguio City. The French baker of Sagada, Aklay, wearing a pasiking. When is practical too...

Philippines Internship Part I

A recap of input and output from the first month--Part I--of a two-month, two-part design internship in the Philippines. Locations include Manila and Puerto Princesa; dates span April 25 (leave Vancouver, Canada) to May 27, 2007.

Tools and Modification

How far can we modify an object before it becomes unrecognizable or permanently altered? How many mistakes must be made to determine that limit? At what point do modifications become useful enough to become adopted as the norm? When a modification doesn't quite meet needs, how much time and investment and additions must be made for them to function...

Philippines Nagtabon

Recorded May 13, 2007. 0:25 video created with a Fuji F30, MacBook Pro 2.0 and Final Cut Pro....

Philippines Underground River

Recorded May 9, 2007, Sabang, Palawan, Philippines. 2:40 video created with a Fuji F30, MacBook Pro 2.0, Final Cut Pro and QuickTime Pro. Text from the video: The Underground River Palawan, Philippines A protected national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site At 8.2 km under a mountain It's the second longest in the world Home to 50,000 bats And drains...

Security, Use and Packaging

Security and indications thereof: cashiers bag and then tie your groceries closed before exiting the store. SM Hypermart, Mall of Asia, Manila, Philippines. Security and legitimacy: a cashier rings you through while another employee bags and then seals your purchase shut, then the cashier affixes your receipt before exiting the line. A floor security guard checks your purchase and...

Philippines Mall

Video from Manila, April 28, 2007. Or download the higher quality QuickTime version, 00:56 sec., 13.5MB. Created with a Fuji F30, MacBook Pro and Final Cut Pro. Text from video: Henry "Retail King" Sy a taipan (tycoon) of Asia richest man in the Philippines and head of SM Prime Holdings, Inc started the Philippine "malling" phenomenon in 1985 now operates...

Philippines Traffic

Video from Manila, Philippines, April 27, 2007. - or - Download the better quality QuickTime video, 00:39 at 5MB. Created with a Fuji F30 camera, a MacBook Pro 15" computer and Final Cut Pro video editing software. Incidently, this was my first time in FCP and it is hella complicated. How do I take two 640x480 .avi clips from my...

Out of / In Place

Why a chair, sideways, at the head of the bed? Answer above: the AC without remote. Accommodating legacy hardware systems. Choice and needs according to environment. Not accommodating legacy hardware systems. Expectation, aesthetics and... Purpose. Observations of a guest room at a family home in Manila, Philippines....

Design Barrier: Canadian Tire Website Entry

A self-imposed barrier to success by the web team at Canadian Tire: force customers to input information to access even the first page. If you haven't been to canadiantire.ca before or recently, you'll get this off the bat: A friend sent me a link over MSN last night to a crock pot that's on sale at Canadian Tire and I...

You Comfy? Interview at the Gallery

Thinking about my presentation a couple hours later, I'm not surprised to realize I was definitely the gushing fool in a few too many areas. I mean, lying on the floor with one elbow propping me up and saying "come hither"* in front of all-educated, all-female audience (one half my peers, the other half evaluating me for the job) may have gone too far.

In The Works

I haven't been getting out much lately. There are rumours brewing. So a sampling of some ongoing and near-completed projects (some pay me, some vice-versa) I've been working on.

Use a Favicon

Favicons are important because they give a more immediate indication of what website an address or bookmark is associated with. They reinforce a visual identity with a site. Pictures speak faster than words.

Recent Ideas, Thoughts, Observations

Correlate iTunes track ratings with play counts, play count acceleration, and time. As in, for ex. as a song's play count increases, and the durations between play cycles decreases, over time a predication could be made by the software as to that track's star rating, for ex. A rapidly-increasing play count may indicate I like this song a lot...

T-shirt Designs

A variety of t-shirt design ideas I mocked up last night for the NoArt Collective t-shirt design competition. Mock-ups created in Photoshop and Illustrator. Model images stolen from American Apparel...

Timeline (process)

Self-directed project in progress, inspired/spurred by a friend who made a similar timeline of her life for my clarity and memory (sick of repeating herself). Interesting exercise in info-design, self-centredness and figuring out just what's been important over the past 26 years. Notes on a piece of scrap paper of significant events. Simple linear timeline made in Illustrator, with text...

Power Supply

National electricity, privatization and giant moths on this week's E is for Effort podcast. Download Episode 3 - Power Supply 3.3MB mp3 / 3:29...

Poster Design Process

Update (Feb. 8): Want your own copy of the Valentine's Cabaret poster? Download high-res tabloid-size PDF [10.9MB] Download lo-res PDF [165KB] Download jpeg [790KB] Problem Volunteer to design a poster for the Valentine's Cabaret, a pub night and fundraiser organized by first-year students at the Emily Carr Institute. Timeline was about two weeks, budget around $0. Concept My first idea...

E is for Effort - Demystifying Technology

This week we explore behind the veil of technology and discover what's really inside a hard drive. Download Episode 2 - Demystifying Technology 4.8MB mp3 / 5:02...

E is for Effort Podcast

E is for Effort is the name of the podcast I recently created with Andreas (a podcast is like a self-published radio show that you can download online as an mp3 file). This means we have also launched a new website at http://eisforeffort.ca. Being two young guys attending an art and design school, our motive is to produce and distribute...

Short Films

Messing around with cameras and ideas, some old, some new. A series of still shots arranged. This happens to tie into a current project for Visual Communication, sort of.

Popular Entries

A list of some of the more popular entries (past and present) on this website that keep popping up in the comments, stats and searches.

Card Size Standards, People!

It's fun looking for ways to improve existing designs, critique them, look at solutions and drawbacks, etc. Then there're the designs that warrant an immediate reaction. I want to start cataloguing instances that illicit a teeth grinding "What the Hell People!?". First up this week: The Vancouver Art Gallery membership card, which I recently purchased and received in the mail...

Email Habits

I often wonder what I do all day in front of the computer. For now I'll just take a quick look at my email habits. I spend a lot time writing them. My sent folder tells me I've fired off over 1,000 emails since Jan. 1, 2005, half of which are recreational: planning rides with friends, swapping links, catching up...

Which design school: ECIAD or Cap College?

As of today I've been accepted to begin studies at two design schools in Vancouver: Cap College's three-year Illustration and Design diploma and Emily Carr's four-year Foundation and Communication Design degree. I've got to decide on one and I'm looking for advice from alumni, established designers, anyone. For those not familiar with one or both of the institutions, what...

IDEA Program Interview

My interview and exam for the IDEA program at Capilano College went as well as I could hope for. I'll likely know this week if I'm accepted.

IDEA Program Information Sheet

The completed form I must submit with my portfolio to the Capilano College Illustration / Design: Elements & Applications (IDEA) Program in Vancouver. Includes four contemporary artists / designers I admire, plus why I want to go to Cap.

Art Trading Cards

Four art trading cards I created Thursday night for a Friday afternoon exchange with some students at UVic.

Sketchbook Scans: Japan Illustrations

For a current project, five initial drawings directly referencing existing woodblock prints. Eventually to be tweaked, vectorized and coloured.

Sketchbook Scans: Life Drawings

Exercises in life drawing created in conjuction with a Portfolio Development course I am attending at Capilano College.

Sketchbook Scans: Collage

An exercise in colour composition using pasted magazine and newspaper collage, inspired by work I saw at a local exhibit.

Double Take

Inspired by this photoset. Two shots taken with remote capture using a Canon d-Rebel, layered in Photoshop.

Sketchbook Scans

The first installment of scanned images from my sketchbook, a recent and ongoing exercise in learning to draw in preparation for design school.

Spalding Design Draft

I've prepared a draft design for an exhibit website I've been hired to create and I'm looking for constructive feedback. Check out my notes on it, view the template and let me know what you think.

End of an employment chapter

Just coded my last tag, fired off my last email, wrapped up four months as a contract employee with the local web design firm zero one design inc. A really valuable experience. So in the light of a great sunset tonight, some music on the winamp and a nice cold beer, alone I toast the next bright and limitless step...

Current Projects

Current web projects I have in production, both as an employee of zero one and on my own:Museum-affiliated resource on shipwreck history; An arts organization summer event; Local athletic trainer; Northwest chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians....

Tired

Seven straight days of non-stop CSS website construction. Immersed in a world of W3C specifications, cross-browser and cross-platform testing, debugging, retesting. A labyrinth of glitches, discussion boards, tips, tutorials. Holly Hacks and Tantek Hacks, box models and stray floats. Three Pixel Jogs. Peek-a-boo bugs. IE 5.x, IE 6.x, NN, Safari! I have six hour stretches of entirely focused concentration. Building...

Update: CSS, Exhibits, Journals

CSS website formating on the mind this week. Have taken my basic knowledge of W3C-validated CSS2 and kicked it up a major notch for a current zero one project to be launched in a few weeks. Will also soon implement complete CSS control over this, my personal website. Bye-bye hacked tables and gif spacers and Netscape 4.x. Other recent work:...

Ware gets Graphic

The UVic student newspaper, the Martlet, published my review of Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth (Chris Ware, Random House, 2000). (Link active April 1-7)....

UVic Tutoring

Spent Monday morning tutoring the Writing 216 class at the University of Victoria. 216 is a four-month magazine journalism class I've been called in to regularly over the past year in order to orient students with designing, directing and printing a final-project magazine with Quark and now InDesign. I outline the major issues they can expect to encounter, how to...

Week Two With zero one

A challenging and educational week. Constructed an actual working draft site under deadline in less than 24 hours. Still assigned with multiple design tasks, but this time the real difficulty lies in having to incorporate rough-but-pre-approved templates and � what turns out to be harder than designing from scratch � basing a complete site template on them. When certain elements...

Week one with zero one

Assist-ed/ing in the design of three web templates for two of zero one's clients. The challenges are great and just what I hope to excel in: incorporating client requests, defining a site's role, balancing aesthetics with usability, working with a team, etc.. On Wednesday attended all-day meetings where zero one took us, the web developers, and new clients through the...

New Job: zero one design

I have officially been hired as a web developer with zero one design inc., a local firm that specializes in the fields of arts and culture....

Poster: Night of the Guitar

Poster for guitar performance at the Victoria Conservatory of Music.

Graphic: Yo La Tengo

A graphic design for a Yo La Tengo music album.

Logos: Photo Club and First Year Guide

Mock-ups for UVic Photo Club logo and a cover for a first year student guide.

Logo: Transit Coalition

First attempt at creating a mock-up logo, this one for a hypothetical public transit coalition.

Portfolio: Williams in Vancouver

Launched the Williams in Vancouver web site today, a three week project I undertook for the University of Victoria Alumni Association. See its entry under Web Design for more information....

Portfolio: Retro Site and Writing

New portfolio entries: In Web Design, the previous version of this website; created a new section for Writing samples....

Google standing

Search for "Jeff Werner" on Google and I come up no. 2 in the list now, compared to 200th place over the last month. Took a while for jeffwerner.ca to get trolled by googlebot. The old site, which was titled "Jeffrey Werner" still comes up in spot no.2 as well....

v2.2 of jeffwerner.ca

This week saw the launch of v2.2 of the website.

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