Alex Quinn’s Post

What?! Two updates in one week? Someone check this man for circuits because he may be a robot 🤖 Probably the last update for a bit while I design and code some longer projects. This was a full-ish stack project that the information services team at OU's grad college started last year. The goal was to help smooth the onboarding process, provide new graduate students with meaningful information and tasks, and establish the purpose of the graduate college in relation to the student's journey. I designed the project in Figma and built it out using HTML and CSS as the software we were building in, Slate, didn't allow for Javascript. This was a wonderful and unique opportunity to create meaningful change and develop my skills, but also helped me learn how to teach HTML and CSS to my peers as well as learn how to use the backend of Slate to manage calls within a database and create join statements; it even resulted in the skyline drawing being turned into an official t-shirt of the college after the project was completed. Portfolio: www.alexquinn.design

I'm back! Had to take a break for a little R&R in South Carolina (and tackle the flu the following week) as well as rework some page design in Figma. The first project page is done*, with the second page not too far behind. Last summer I fell in love with a wonderful local vinyl bar in OKC and was given the opportunity to help them rebrand into "The SOUNDBAR". I got to create a new set of logos, build a brand guide, and establish a web presence using Wordpress and Elementor. While I'm still very new to using Wordpress in general, I'm happy with the progress this past year. As more and more is done with this brand, I'll continue to update this page, but for now, please enjoy! https://lnkd.in/dydGFP5S Thanks, and I hope to have another update soon! *done as in it's not quite mobile friendly yet, and there are some finishing touches to put on, but for the most part it's good to go :)

Another one bites the dust! Probably what I'm most proud of outside of working hours is my photography and I finally have a spot to showcase it. Building this page taught me how to create intersection observers in JavaScript to give the photos a "fade-in" animation once enough of them were intersecting the viewport by appending an existing CSS class with a new one! I'm still new to JavaScript, so even the smallest molehills feel like mountains 😅 Once I've made this first pass over every page, I'll be coming back to this to break things down into categories, add a few more photos, and add an e-shop to order prints to try and get some exposure to connecting my website to a third-party storefront. Hoping to have another update regarding the final page before moving onto individual projects 🎉 #LockedIn

PORTFOLIO UPDATE Recently I've been really inspired by other portfolios and something I stumbled across was a networking page. I kind of went on a design and coding blitz to get this out, but I'm really happy with how it turned out. Our portfolios should not only show what we've done, but who we've met and my "Friends of Mine" page intends to connect those who visit my portfolio with those who's skills I can personally vouch for. If you know me and you'd like to be on my friends page, DM me and let's expand our networks 🙌

Marcomm has officially finished centralizing and I have moved positions to now serve as a Web Manager & UX Designer at University of Oklahoma!

I am excited to announce that the OU Graduate College managed to bring home two (2) excellence awards this year at the Oklahoma College Public Relations Association (OCPRA) annual design competition 🥂 . I want to give a huge shout-out to my team, Lindsey Johnston and Emily Jeffries, who helped with the design of the new OU Graduate College website and “Keep Striving” postcard. We’ve really tried to modernize the Graduate College’s image and background processes, and these are just a few examples of what’s been going on. We’ve also got another service design project and a new application project in the works 👀 👀

Improvement never stops, even on vacation 😤 Slowly getting better at composition and capturing feeling rather than just something that looks pretty. Black and white really helps you focus on contrast and lighting while color provides that pure nostalgia and emotion. There were many aspects of Japanese culture that are so different from American culture in beautiful ways, and I tried to capture the duality between overwhelming complexity and the subtle momentary loneliness in these images.

There’s just something about film that can capture what digital just can’t. Took my Pentax K1000 out for a memorial day trip to Eureka Springs and got some really nice shots. I’m still learning the ropes of balancing everything properly and I’m hoping to move to color negative soon. If anyone’s got any tips, feel free to drop them in the comments! I’m always looking to learn more :)

That's a wrap! Had the wonderful opportunity to spearhead the modernization of the application process here at the Graduate College and got to work with such an amazing team. Hosting workshops and building this service design framework here has been a goal of mine since I started back in 2022 and it's exciting to finally see the first steps fully taken. This project began last August and has been a long time coming, but the team put in so many hours building this service design blueprint, discovering pain points, and finding solutions to our biggest problems; I think their hard work is really reflected in this massive 42-page slide deck!! A big thank you to everyone at the Graduate College for the opportunity to show how Service Design Blueprints can really change how we do things here for both students and faculty, and to be able to take service designing to other colleges here at the University of Oklahoma. I'd also like to thank the University of North Texas and Brian Sullivan for equipping me with the tools to evangelize the power of service design 😎 If there are any designers out there, especially those in the OKC metro area, who'd like to know more about service designing/service design blueprints, I'd love to chat and collaborate in the future! #uxdesign #servicedesign