The CV was a tough task for me. I'm not the most graphically-minded guy so putting together a set of graphics that make me not look like a cigarette in someone's perfect birthday cake was going to take a lot of effort.
My first attempt was the very obvious 'go into InDesign and try and make something' approach. It didn't get too far before I realised I actually needed an idea to make it look effective rather than just blind optimism. What I had made until then was a fairly nice-looking setup in retrospect. The orange looks really nice and the type is a long way from awful. I can imagine the round formatting being awkward later on though. I might use it for if I make a fore regular CV at some point.
So I thought for all of five seconds and decided I wanted to have it look like a machine to try and capture that robot spirit I'm known for. So I jumped back into InDesign and tried to put it together. I did quite a bit of it before deciding that this wasn't working out, and that it was going to be far too much work.
I also entertained the thought of drawing one by hand but I didn't like the idea of having such a constrained CV that I wouldn't be able to tweak much.
So in a move crazier than Spencer's lecture schedule, I decided to jump headfirst in and build a CV in Cinema 4D. Yes I'm a madman. Of course. From my perspective at the start, I wanted a CV I could easily edit that would really capture the robot spirit of my hand artwork. And I wanted to have fun making it. C4D was also a good idea in that it taught me a bit more about the software.
Somewhere along that line I forgot that Cinema 4D takes a really long time. But ignoring that, building this thing was a blast. Plus I learned a massive amount. I wouldn't have been able to make the torso nearly as good if it weren't for this.
I put together the first take based on my plans for the InDesign version. It's mostly based around a set of monitors with a ring I initially envisioned as a car speedo tracking my skill levels in each piece of software. I also added some sidebars about my history and education and such. It's a pretty simplistic build bit I like the glow effects I've used and there are some really cool ideas in there. I stuck with this design for a while too. I mean I never sent it to anyone but I still totally kept it. It was only when I was about to message people that I took another look at it that I decided it needed one more take.
For the third case I came in with a far clearer plan in mind which would economise on space far better and put the important stuff at the forefront. I also took the chance to tone down on some of the less useful information. Sadly this meant losing the really madcap camera angles but I think it's a worthy sacrifice. I was able to keep a lot of the elements I liked from the previous design. The glowy screens are back and look even better now. I've kept the awesome spotlight backdrop. But the big change was essentially basing the entire design around the speedometer idea, and placing the rest of the text inside that console. I'm so glad I did this. Other changes include separating the skill graphs into clear segments so they're easier to differentiate as well as making the skill levels more defined. The metal texture was also updated to the one from the robot torso, and I added the lighting pods from that thing as well, because sharing is caring.
The final big change that was half the reason for the update, was the incorporation of some of my actual artwork into it, which was the single biggest weakness of the last one. It did a really bad job of showcasing what I can do as an artist and I wasn't really ok with that. So now it shows my artwork in the panel where it shows which medium I'm talking about.
So to conclude, the CV process was mind-bogglingly mad but it's wound me up with a really unique looking CV and kicked my C4D skills up a notch. I'm pretty happy with this.
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