NorCal Fun

Sacramento reminds me of where I used to live, except there's a few more bodies all around me. What I'm working on is multifaceted but in a nutshell I'm designing the new curriculum's layout to give my organization more information on less pages. What they have been working with is a word document without page breaks and I am creating an InDesign project file that when finished can be saved as a PDF file or sent to an outside print shop.

Additionally, I've already begun to help form new policies focused on best practices and will be revamping the employee handbook from mid October through mid December.

What has helped me are the resources that are in close proximity to me. Four people who I met recently are a curriculum designer, a PBS affiliate program manager, a local college's community outreach director and someone who works with California Child Labor law. There have been a couple of electronic resources I've found as well. Streaming Media Magazine is an Industry standard magazine that has produced white papers and other research material about streaming web content. A second and third resource has been the webinars available from Adobe and Apple's websites. Finally, IDEO's toolkit about Human Centered Design has been very helpful as a touchstone for design and can be found in PDF form on their website(as it's too big to attach here).

There are challenges though, the greatest of which is making everyone, especially the teen staff, feel like they are competent in their skills and letting them know its okay to make mistakes to grow.

I've included a cover design for the new curriculum.

Comment from Samantha Kimball on September 2, 2009 - 2:47pm

That cover looks great!

Comment from Dan Stangl on September 16, 2009 - 3:57pm

Rich,

That cover does look really good. Its great that you have been able to take advantage of local resources, there's nothing better than actual human contact! Glad to hear that Sacramento has been working out, though your first sentence makes it sound pretty rough. Let me know if you'll be down in the Bay Area soon.

Dan