happy cog

Dan is a husband, dad, teacher, creative director, designer, founder, and entrepreneur from Philadelphia. During the start of his career, Dan found himself amongst the people at the forefront of the web standards movement. In our conversation we talked about his career, the people who influenced him, the various eras of his design firm SuperFriendly, and his personal mission to create better opportunities for those who wouldn't have them otherwise.

Chris Cashdollar, Principal of Cashdollar Design, joins Gary Rozanc to discuss a wide array of topics. The conversation starts off with a discussion on ways to better prepare students for careers as freelance designers such as working with popular CMS templates, the ubiquitous need for writing skills to persuasively promote your work, and the need for internships to augment classroom learning. Along the way, Chris also discusses where designing Micro Interactions fits into the overall design process and the fundamental differences between solo designer software programs like Illustrator and Photoshop and collaboration based programs like InVision and Sketch that reflect how the industry operates today.

Dana Pavlichko, Designer at Happy Cog, joins Gary Rozanc to discuss the ins and outs of content strategy from the graphic design perspective. This includes where content strategy fits into the overall design process, how it identifies the voice of the client, and how that voice should be driving the visual design. We also briefly discuss ways to safely get students into better drawing habits.

Amanda Buck Designer at Happy Cog joins Gary Rozanc to discuss the need for interactive designers to design in the different context user will view your work in. We also discuss the differences in designing in groups at a digital agency versus students designing for themselves in a class project. Finally, Amanda talks about designers fresh out of school needing to have a much better understanding of how typography works on the web.

Courtney Sabo Designer at Happy Cog joins Gary Rozanc to discuss why HTML and CSS needs to be taught in the very early stages of a graphic design students education to empower them to find their passions within design early on and encourage self-training. Courtney also shares how students can be better prepared for the industry be seeding interactive design principles alongside print design principles instead of separating them into individual courses. Finally, Courtney describes the contents of a good portfolio for both internships and a student’s first job.

Joe Rinaldi President of Happy Cog joins Gary Rozanc to discuss what it is like being a team player at an interactive design agency including how visual designers, front-end and back-end developers work together. Joe shares some tips on how students can better prepare their portfolios to demonstrate process to get a foothold in the industry. Joe also discusses the different methods of user research used to start a new client project.