Have a question you’d like me to answer? Just send me an email at andrew@andrewjharmon.com.
Who are you?
“I’m just a simple man trying to make my way in the universe.”
―Jango Fett
Ah, nothing like a good Star Wars reference to get things started.
I’m a graphic designer who has had a hand in a wide range of areas which include; web design, print design, 3D, audio/video production, comic book inking/coloring and developing corporate and military multimedia training programs.
How much experience do you have in the developing training programs?
I have about eight and a half years experience in developing training programs dealing with subjects such as railroad communications systems, comparative healthcare insurance choices, forensic dental investigation, policies and procedures dealing with a robbery, exploratory air craft simulations and medical procedures .
What is your greatest accomplishment?
One of my greatest accomplishments was being Creative Lead on Visual Symphony’s Robbery: BDA program which won the Macromedia’s People Choice Award in 1999. I was tasked in developing the creative treatment, script, storyboards, and overall flow of the program in addition to the regular visual and audio production tasks. It was during this time that I revamped the company’s scripting process and brought together designers and programmers to generate efficient communications and promote collaboration. This allowed everyone involved to have direct input on the creation of the project rather than be simply told what to do and when. The experiences and insights people brought to the table enriched the program’s treatment.
This experience carried over years later when I joined MountainTop Technologies. I noticed they too had an assembly line production model similar to Visual Symphony’s early years. I applied the same concept I introduced at Visual Symphony and helped instructional designers, artists and programmers communicate by involving them in the creative process, making sure that everyone involved in the project knew what was going on at all times. Through this,and with my ability to create efficient and effective production workflows, I was able to take certain tasks that could take sometimes up to a month to complete and whittle them down to a mere couple of minutes. Also, being able to talk with programmers and understand certain methods they use in production helped my 3D and programming research when developing our Aeromedical Evacuation project.
What is your greatest weakness?
Pringles chips.
Why don’t you have more examples of your corporate professional work?
The reason why you see few examples of programs I worked on at Visual Symphony was simply due to early inexperience in not capturing screenshots for portfolios. When you’re young you really don’t think you’ll ever lose your job, especially when you enjoy doing it and things seem to be looking up. Also, especially multimedia, I had a lot of impact in the behind-the-scenes research and development that isn’t easy to capture sometimes. While I may not have done the graphics of a particular scene, there was a lot of directing, brainstorming and planning that I led. Another thing to consider is that the programs would sometimes take a year or more to develop leaving little time to work on different projects.
With all the experience you have with multimedia training, what’s with all the comic related artwork?
I didn’t really start doing comic related art until around March of 2009. I attended both the Pittsburgh Comicon and Steel City Con previously and one day decided to pass out business cards to artists at the show. Through the encouragement of friends and family with permission of other artists to use their line work, I began attending shows, displaying some of my cartoon designs along with prints that showcased my coloring skills.
Have a question you’d like me to answer? Just send me an email at andrew@andrewjharmon.com.