Portfolio

Making A Simple Voiceover Portfolio

November 9, 2015 By Jackie Van Nice 6 Comments

This week’s Articulate challenge is to put together an e-learning voiceover (VO) portfolio. I don’t do voiceover-only work, but I’ll do VO if a client asks me as part of a design and development project. Can’t hurt to have a few samples!

Voiceover Samples

E-Learning Demo: Game Voiceover

My favorite sample is the Kid vs Cop Spelling Bee I created for a challenge, and it’s what I sound like late at night when I can barely stop laughing long enough to record – in case you have a need for that.

Cop vs Kid Spelling Bee: Select Image to Launch Demo

E-Learning Demo: Sales Voiceover

This intro is the start of a product sales training course to debut a new product line and get staff excited about learning more.

Product Sales Training: Select Image to Launch Demo

E-Learning Demo: Compliance Voiceover

This in the intro to my favorite sexual harassment course.

Sexual Harassment Compliance Training: Select Image to Launch Demo

Audio-Only Demo: Podcasts

Here are a couple of audio-only podcast challenges I completed. They’d give you the best idea of what my voice usually sounds like.

Select Image to See Tracks

David Anderson’s Questions:

1. How would you describe your voice?

The workplace-approved descriptions I can pass along are “expressive”, “reassuring”, and “professional” – and I even got a “velvet voice” not long ago. I’m good at capturing and conveying mood and tone.

2. What’s your recording setup like?

I use an Audio-Technica AT2020 desktop USB mic – seen in this post where I describe my setup and offer some recording tips. I either record directly into Storyline or Audacity – it just depends on what I need.

3. What types of audio editing do you offer?

I remove distracting breaths and ambient noise – but I’ve recorded and edited my voice for a long time and know that if I use too much of a noise gate or overdo post-recording noise removal that I can quickly lose the qualities in my voice that give it the character that people (including me) want. If the end product just ends up sounding like a computer-generated voice, there’s no point in me recording. So I take it easy on noise removal.

Show Your Work: Creating Portfolio Images to Share

August 10, 2014 By Jackie Van Nice 4 Comments

This week’s Articulate challenge is about creating images to showcase your work. After going through the process of producing new work it’s tempting to just move on, but creating shareable images helps build a more visual portfolio and show your peers what you’ve been up to, too.

Main Portfolio Image

First, David Anderson wanted us to create a main portfolio image he could use to link from the challenge to our online portfolios.

Since my website pretty much says it all (who I am, what I do, and what my work looks like), I adapted the basic layout of my site and captures of my work into an image David could use. I also like the idea that anyone clicking on the image will land on exactly what they’d expect to see. Truth in advertising.

Portfolio Image for the Challenge: Look familiar?

Use this free template! I shared the template I used to create this image with another community member, and they found it so useful I thought I’d offer it as a free download. It’s in PowerPoint, and you’re welcome to grab it right here.

Images for Social Media

The next step was to create the same type of image to share on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest. Since each handles images differently, the challenge is to try to get your image to display as you’d like it to. The images I shared on those sites are below.

This will be an ongoing challenge. Between the ever-changing demos I create and the ever-changing sites to share them on, this can only be a work in progress. But the value of figuring it out and doing it well is enormous. Thanks for the challenge, David!

Portfolio Image Posted to Facebook

Portfolio Image Posted to Twitter

Portfolio Image I Pinned on Pinterest

Step Graphics to Success as an E-Learning Designer

May 30, 2014 By Jackie Van Nice 19 Comments

Select Image to Launch Demo

This week’s challenge was to create a step graphic to tell a story or explain a process. It came at the end of a week where I kept hearing concerns from e-learning designers who felt stuck due to lack of skills, experience, usable portfolio pieces, visibility in the field, and/or confidence. So when the challenge hit, that was my topic.

Step Graphic Main Screen

Design

I wanted it to be fresh, direct, and maybe a bit inspiring – so I chose the character, the approach, and the background based on that.

The layout bothered me for a full week. Still does, but I have to let it go. I tried countless ideas with different graphics, colors, fonts, animations, and audio. It started out with more depth (links to resources, etc.) but it was taking too long, so I stripped it down and kept it simple. My concern was keeping the user’s attention focused on an already-busy screen. It seems to work, based on the little bit of user testing I did, so I’m going with it.

The step navigation is simple. I chose buttons with a full set of states, including a clear selected state so it’s easy to see where you are.

Content

I added the intro screen to make it clear that you should probably be (a) an e-learning designer who (b) has these goals, if the content is going to apply to you.

After that, it’s what I do each week for the challenges combined with a little bit of advice based on personal experience.

The Result

Ready to give it a try? Take a look! And if you’re an e-learning designer who feels stuck or wants to learn more and improve your skills, you might want to give the challenges a try. They’ve worked for me!

Select Image to Launch Demo

7 Lessons Learned Going to WordPress.org

May 17, 2014 By Jackie Van Nice 9 Comments

I’d been keeping my e-learning samples on a hosted site and my blog on wordpress.com, which WordPress hosts for free. I didn’t like the jagged user experience of following links between the two sites, so I opted to move my blog over to my hosted site, where wordpress.org must be used, to join my e-learning samples. This is the tale of that move.

After an eventful 3 weeks taking my site from WordPress.com to WordPress.org, I thought I should leave some lessons-learned breadcrumbs behind to help others through the not-always-enchanted forest between the two.

1. Find the Right Host

Can Their Servers Handle WordPress? I already had a hosted site without WP installed. This is what it took to get it going:
1. When their quick WP install failed for me, support installed it and it ran like glue. Their server couldn’t save down the latest PHP script on their Windows servers and they said I’d have to move to a Linux server.
2. Linux has been OK, but as I sat down to write this, my site was loading so slowly I had to call support because I couldn’t even load the dashboard to write a new post.
3. My host said today they released a WP-specific package with WP-dedicated servers and support, and that the transition would be seamless. I’m giving them one last try, and I’ll let you know how it goes.
  All hosts and servers aren’t the same. They have to be WordPress-savvy.

Can Their People Handle WordPress? Once I reached the permalink redirect debacle (#7 below) this happened:
1. The host couldn’t figure out where its own 404 redirect was pointing and desperate tech people started throwing random HTML files into the root of my directory that just made it worse.
2. After many calls I finally stumbled across a support person who looked at the primary .htaccess file and realized it didn’t have the 8 simple lines of code it needed to make WP work. That was a breakthrough.
3. Then the host randomly wiped it a few days later. I figured out how to fix it myself, but now I check several times a day to be sure my 301 redirects are still working. It’s kind of ridiculous.
  Make sure your host has people who are skilled at WordPress.
Ask Others Which Hosts They Use & Like: As things were looking bad during my test phase, I posted this thread in the Articulate forums and got lots of good recommendations for hosting options and much more. If you’re going to do this, check it out.

2. Set Up & Test Your New Site Before Redirecting from WordPress.com

Export your content from the old site using Dashboard >Tools > Export.
Install a plug-in so you can import your content. I used the WordPress.com Importer plug-in.
Choose a theme. Even if you paid for a premium one on WordPress.com, you can’t take it with you. Look for a free or premium one via Themes > Dashboard, or shop elsewhere. Be sure it’s got the features you want. I wanted a lot of control over fonts, colors, layout, and images – plus access to the CSS and a responsive design for mobile devices. If you’re buying a theme, don’t assume it has everything you want. Find out before you spend the money.
Set up your theme. Make it look and act the way you want using the theme options provided.
Customize your theme, if needed. For mine, I changed the fonts to Google Fonts by adding some code to the CSS. My theme designer had good documentation about how to do that. The only thing I hated about my theme was the ugly gray background added to captioned images. I got lucky and my brilliant instructional designer colleague Ashley Chiasson was kind enough to figure out some CSS to fix it, but normally you’d be heading back to your theme designer to do a custom fix, which means more money.

3. Have Your Security Options in Place

On WordPress.com, they handled the security. Now it’s up to you, so be sure you and/or your host have some protection in place. I tried out a recommended security plug-in, but uninstalled it while troubleshooting all of the other issues. Instead of mucking up my WP install any further with more plug-ins, I opted for back-end security from my host.

4. Have Your Back-Up Plan in Place

On WordPress.com, they backed it up. (Though if you deleted your own content, you were on your own.) There are lots of options. Again, I went with a full back-up service provided by my host, but I also make sure I export a back-up of my content every time I post or make similar changes.

5. Redirect Your Site from WordPress.com

After you’re really sure the site looks and feels and acts the way you want, you’re ready to redirect from WordPress.com. It costs $30 per year, but works well. Just be aware of my final tip at the end of #7 below.

6. Install the JetPack Plug-In & Choose Options Carefully

JetPack adds some helpful features. For me, it made it easy to bring over followers/subscribers and I like their stats display better. There are a lot of options, but I’d suggest only activating what you need. JetPack features are the number one things that tend to interfere with my theme’s features, and the Photon one resulted in very poor-quality images.

7. Coddle Your Permalinks

I always say (and mean) that everything is a gift. Once I realized that not one link from my old site could possibly forward to my new one without going to a host-supplied 404 page that made it look like my site no longer existed (#1 above), I knew I had a real gift on my hands. My host’s lack of WP knowledge was half of it, but permalink issues were the other half.

My permalinks completely lost their minds on WordPress.org. After troubleshooting (could have been several causes), I ended up having to go back to the default permalink format, which then changed all of my permalinks yet again.
I found the Quick Page/Post Redirect Plug-In that let me set up 301 (permanent, individual URL) redirects for every page and post. It still failed until my host figured out that they hadn’t set up my .htaccess file properly, but once that was resolved, this plug-in worked beautifully and was a lifesaver.
Pay attention to your permalinks when you redirect from WordPress.com. The redirect will only go to the exact URL you want if the permalinks are identical, and if you experience any permalink insanity like I did, you’ll want to use a good 301 redirect plug-in.

The Stuff That Résumés Are Made Of

April 22, 2014 By Jackie Van Nice 10 Comments

Select Image to Launch Demo

I’d recently been admiring some examples of graphic résumés, but couldn’t imagine how I could ever do one. Turns out Articulate’s resident nudger, David Anderson, keeps an eye out for that sort of thing and his challenge this week is to come up with an interactive résumé or portfolio. So time for me to figure it out.

I haven’t had much call for a résumé since I’ve been independent, but creating an interactive graphic where I could play with the idea of a résumé sounded like fun, so off I went.

Inspiration

My friend and talented freelance e-learning designer Donna Carson gave me edits for a bio I submitted with my DevLearn speaking proposals on Friday. The phrases she used made me want to both laugh and go conquer the world at the same time. Her description of my “fearless flair” in designing training inspired me to come up with “Fearless Designs!” “Bold Voiceovers!” and “Daring Development!” to describe what I do. For graphic inspiration I turned to old movie posters. They had the expressive graphics and cool details I wanted, plus they could handle the dramatic phrases I had in mind.

My Graphic Inspiration

Design

Graphics: To start, I pinned old movie posters I liked and chose a color scheme that resonated with me. You can clearly see I used the colors and rough layout of the Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum poster. For text callouts and credits I used elements based on other posters including The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms.

Theme: I chose a detective theme because I was drawn to the idea of Humphrey Bogart’s Sam Spade. He’s on the right side of the law, but still seems a little shady. (His line that the Maltese Falcon is “the stuff that dreams are made of” inspired this post’s title.)

More Graphic Inspiration

The Theater: I wanted an entry screen so that, once clicked, the user’s full attention is on the initial visuals, music, and animation when they hit the main screen – and having them click a ticket to get inside made sense.

The way the overall flow works is based on the little theater I practically lived at as an undergrad at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California. The Minor, off the little town square, was an old art house movie theater that changed its double or triple features at least three times a week. I spent a few thousand of the happiest hours I’ve ever spent in my life there, and got to see a gabillion classic movies like the ones that inspired this piece.

The Minor Theater

When it was cold out, you’d come off the street through a thick red curtain, get popcorn and admire the old movie posters in the lobby, then go through another red curtain to enter the theater. So I was seeing my résumé as one of those old posters in the lobby.

Audio: I wanted to bring it to life with sound. There are effects for audience buzz, curtains being pulled aside, cheers, applause, police whistles, sirens, screams, breaking glass, etc., but I wanted a theme song. The whole time I was working on this I kept hearing a driving theme somewhere between Peter Gunn and James Bond. Lucky for me I’ve got an “in” with talented songwriter, musician, and freelance e-learning guy Dan Sweigert who was able to write and produce the theme song in no time flat.

Content

Résumé Elements: I kept it simple and included my (boldly-phrased) skill set, education, experience, and the main software I use. The sections for education and experience were by far the biggest creative challenges, but in the end I was happy to find a quick way to blow through them that still maintains the tone and theme.

Brevity: I find it endlessly entertaining that each of the links from the main screen shows just one screen of content (at best) that makes the audience go wild. I wanted to get in, show a glimpse of just a morsel of my work, and get out.

See It In Action!

Enjoy the vintage-inspired goodness right here.