Avatar photoSteven Savage

Way With Worlds: Panderdammerung #1: Pandering To Your Audience

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Many Worlds

[Way With Worlds appears at Seventh Sanctum, MuseHack, and Ongoing Worlds]

Let’s talk pandering and worldbuilding.

You want the game to sell, you want the book to be read, you want the game to be exciting. But you also want to build an interesting world and a consistent setting. However, if you did just a few things you might just sell more, just a little fan service or . . .

Don’t. Don’t do it.

If you’re really serous about worldbuildingg, don’t go pandering. Don’t sex up your world for no reason, don’t go throw in something that doesn’t fit. Don’t go breaking your hard work for the vague promise someone will like it. Don’t wreck what you built.

I’m not saying you can’t focus on a reader’s needs or a gamer’s interests – I’ll address that in a bit. Instead I want to note that pandering is destructive to worldbuilding.

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50 Shades Of Resume #18: The Character Sheet

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Resume 18

Taylor Smith is a bit of a character, and her resume is literally a character sheet. She’s got a cartoon-esque picture of herself, skill bars out of an RPG, and iconics indicating the technology she uses. You want a resume that gives you a sense of someone’s character, she’s got it, with a whimsical sense instead of the usually dead-serious resume.

Only this is also a full resume as well! Let’s take a look at what makes it work

  • First, let’s take a look at the cartoon-like character picture. This picture gives a sense of character, makes the resume seem human, and gives an idea of her artistic ability.
  • The use of icons and skill bars to show abilities is a nice touch. It saves the need for wordy descriptions and gives a visual reference.
  • The “tools of the trade” section is odd, but interesting, as it’s both skills and not. Not sure it’s a good idea, but the idea of breaking up and showing skill/talent sections differently is intriguing.
  • The Doctor Who quote at the top is a great idea, adds to the whimsy of the piece, shows character, and further humanizes the resume.
  • The “Fun Facts” section is interesting and humanizing as well – I always say show your hobbies.
  • The use of icons, of course, is great shorthand. She has a consistent style of using rounded icons that works well.
  • The use of the icons and the “skill levels” actually tells me the person wants to connect and communicate – paired with the humanizing image, that’s very powerful.
  • I like the color scheme. It’s friendly and professional at the same time.

Of course this is an ambitious redesign, and there are a few issues:

  • The lack of contact information. I’d probably put that below the picture.
  • The picture is nice, but uses a lot of real estate. It might be better about 75% of it’s current size.
  • I’d use a thicker Sans Serif font for the text, especially the section headers.
  • I’m not sure using offset boxes with rounded edges works with the corner boxes that display only one rounded edge as they’re partially “offscreen”
  • The skill section should be expanded to show more skills and abilities. It might combine well with the “Tools-of-the-Trade” section, though that is an interesting offset on its own.
  • The resume uses large icon and sections and thus may not be suited for finer details or expanded skills. It might need to have its sizing and layout changed to show more details.

I’m fond of this resume for it’s whimsy and use of multiple clever artistic ideas. If you try such a resume, here’s some thoughts:

  • In a resume like this, I’d update it constantly – and update the picture every 6 months to show improved skill. However, keep it facing the reader as that “eye contact” is effective.
  • Maintain consistency of icon design as we see here – maybe even make new ones as needed.
  • However you theme the resume, if there’s a portfolio attached, it should have similar themes.

Steve’s Summary: I’d love to see a resume like this come across my desk. I feel the person is really trying to make contact – and it tells me a lot about them.

[“50 Shades of Resume” is an analysis of various interesting resumes to celebrate the launch of the second edition of my book “Fan To Pro” and to give our readers inspiration for their own unique creations.]

– Steven Savage

50 Shades Of Resume #17: The Evolutionary Metaphor

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Resume 17

Jimmy More is a producer who’s had a lot of growth in his career. He decided one day that he really need to show how he evolved . . . by showing how he evolved.

Jimmy’s resume is a take on the classic “March Of Progress” evolutionary pictures we’re all too familiar with. In his case, it describes his journey from student to commercial producer as a kind of evolution. Sure we know all our careers evolve, but he just got out there and showed it.

So of course I wanted to analyze it.

Looking at the Ascent of Jimmy, this stands out

  • An extremely clever use of a classic image. Instantly you look at this and get what he’s talking about and how he’s grown, and the metaphor helps.
  • The imagery is very detailed and witty- notice how each character has the trappings of that stage of his evolution. There’s a lot of wit here and it says a lot about him.
  • It’s a variant from the use of standard graphs to use a different metaphor for growth – which can get attention.
  • There’s detail at each stage of his growth, providing more information. He’s not just using this to be funny – though it actually is pretty funny.

Now evolution has a few bumps in the road, and there are a few here:

  • Despite the detail this doesn’t feel to be a “total” resume. I’m not sure it should be, and maybe it needs to be paired with a more standard resume. But it’s not entirely complete.
  • This metaphor may go good as a smaller part of a larger resume.
  • The choice of italic font may not be appropriate, it gets a bit hard to read.
  • The starkness of the resume is nice, but I wanted more detail.
  • Design-wise, I actually feel it needs a border.

One of the things that stands out here is using a clever metaphor for job growth. This may be something for creative resume-makers to look into because there are doubtlessly others we can find and use. Maybe they’re the whole resume -or a part of it – but there has to be other imagery you can use to up communications and show your design skill.

Also I wonder if this may go well with another style – like the aforementioned book resume, or part of a portfolio (which Jimmy does).

Get to it. Start evolving.

Steve’s Summary: I’d get a laugh out of this resume if it came across my desk, because it’s funny – and clearly the product of a talented person. I’d definitely want to see a full resume or more detail though.

[“50 Shades of Resume” is an analysis of various interesting resumes to celebrate the launch of the second edition of my book “Fan To Pro” and to give our readers inspiration for their own unique creations.]

– Steven Savage