This page is a 10-minute read

RESOURCES

Materials + MakerSpace

The studio is designed to minimize or even eliminate the need for material expenses. No textbook is required because we have an Open Education Resource in the newMediaWiki linked below. And we provide free material for assigned projects, available at Abington MakerSpace, where you will do all your fabrication work. Find out more and visit:

 

Sketching and Drawing Materials

What? I need to draw??

Isn’t this a digital class?

Yes, but we don’t depend on a computer for our ideas. Computers are really bad at coming up with ideas — they really aren’t as smart as you!

Your most important studio objective is to create original works of art. As such, projects require a demonstration of original conceptual development through preliminary sketching.

You might get anxious about the term “sketching” if you assume I mean you need a high degree of pre-existing artistic skill. However, sketching is a test of an idea and not its final expression. It doesn’t require a “beautiful” or “finished” state. In fact, better sketches are tentative, random, and “ugly.” If you really hate to draw, you can use images, putting them together like a designer’s inspiration or mood board. It doesn’t matter how you do it, just as long as you document your concept. You can deliver your sketches in one or more of the following ways.

 

Physical book

You may draw with a physical sketchbook, and then turn the physical drawing into a digital image using one of the options below. You may use any kind of unlined, blank paper to draw with, but we recommend the following:

	Moleskine Classic Hard Cover Notebook 5” x 8” | A classic sketchbook with no lines! Pair it with a…
	Sharpie Twin-Tip Permanent Marker | Two tips, one wide and one thin!
	4×4 Grid Quadrille Paper – Graph paper for creating orthographic projection sketches. For orthographic sketches MakerSpace will supply you with 2 sheets, but if you need more: If purchasing, we recommend similar to this 11” x 17” pad, under $10 in cost If printing at home or at MakerSpace, choose a size you can print and tape as per our in-class demonstration. Download: 1/4″ Inch Graph Paper You can also make a grid background in a Jamboard (see below).
	Isometric Grid Paper – Graph paper for creating isometric projection sketches. We can supply printouts at the MakerSpace. If purchasing, we recommend similar to this 8.5” x 11” pad, under $10 in cost If printing at home or at MakerSpace, download: Isometric Graph Paper You can also make an isometric background in a Google Drawing (see below).

Digitizing paper

You’ll need to turn pen-and-paper work into digital images to submit them. Don’t use your phone camera, use a scanner or scanner app. There are a few ways to do this:

	A high-quality flat-bed Epson scanner in the Abington∞MakerSpace.
	Genius Scan: a free, awesome scanner for iOS.
	Microsoft Lens: an equally good scanner for Android.

If you are on your phone right now, you can click your preferred app and install it right away! But if you’d rather avoid paper, you can sketch digitally.

 

Sketching software

Yes, you can use a software solution if you prefer, either using a computer or a mobile app. Many of these are no- or low-cost. Most allow easy export of a JPG or PNG. There are many but here are a few worthy of mention:

	Moleskine Flow: the app version of the famous sketchbook. Free with in-app purchases.
	Autodesk Sketchbook: another free sketching app.
	Google Drawings: browser-based sketching, diagramming, mind-mapping, and inspiration boarding.

 

Digital Resources + Free Software

The icons below are links to course materials, presentation platforms, and free software licenses and downloads!

 

newMedia Blog	fabbing OER Wiki	Sites@PSU WordPress
LinkedIn Learning	OneDrive Archiving	Zoom Meeting
Canvas Learning	Autodesk EDU License	Adobe CC FREE apps

Additional software not listed above is available below:

Note: the link above leads to a OneDrive folder. If you should have any problem opening it, try logging into PSU OneDrive first, then click the link.

 

Using Digital Tools

Some of you come to the studio with advanced digital skills, while others arrive with no experience. The studio is designed for all skill levels.

Digital tools are complex and evolve rapidly. Even for advanced practitioners, keeping up is a never-ending task. Therefore, the most important technical skills you can learn are not software skills, but rather these soft skills: 

• How to teach yourself what you need to know in order to realize your ideas; 
• How to realize ideas within the limits of skills and resources you can reasonably acquire; 
• How to collaborate with others who have skills you don’t necessarily need to acquire; 
• How to learn by doing, rather than applying skills learned by rote;  
• How to seek out opportunities to learn new skills and apply them to real situations or problems while maintaining an experimental attitude toward the technologies you use.

My teaching methods aim for proficiency in these soft skills.

 

Backing Up Work

There’s an old saying that there are three kinds of people:

• People who have lost work…
• People who will lose work…
• People who don’t lose work because they back up their work.

How can you be that third person?

 

The 3-2-1 Strategy

Back-up is essential in any digital practice to protect from loss. Lost work is like the digital dog eating your homework, so it won’t get you off the hook for a project due date in a professional context. A standard best practice is the classic 3-2-1 backup strategy:

• Keep 3 independent copies of any important file.
• Keep 2 different media types for storage.
• Keep 1 copy off-site (outside of your home or studio).

A combination of cloud-based and physical options makes this variation on the 3-2-1 backup strategy a snap:

BACK-UP 1	OneDrive as our primary back-up will be the only required platform. The archive you create here will be evaluated as part of coursework. Your studio archive folder should be set to share for Anyone with the link. Visit this link to learn how. Sharing the archive folder will allow any files or sub-folders to be seen, so only one share is required.
BACK-UP 2	Secondary back-up cloud options include but are not limited to services like Google Drive, DropBox, or Box. These options will not be evaluated.
BACK-UP 3	Physical drives can also count as tertiary back-up, and options include but are not limited to laptops, external hard drives, or flash drives.
PRO TIP: It’s important to remember that flash or external drives are storage solutions and NOT working drives like the computer’s internal drive. Do not work on a file directly on an external drive as this can create file corruption and directory problems. Instead, copy materials to your computer’s drive, work on them there, then copy completed work back to the backup drive. PRO TIP: DON’T Save to Adobe Creative Cloud! The name is misleading: Adobe Creative Cloud isn’t really a cloud. It’s a marketing brand, a term that disguises the terrible subscription-based software model Adobe adopted about a decade ago. There are a few online services and a couple of browser-based applications, but you still download apps to use on your personal device. When prompted to save a file to the “Cloud” DO NOT DO SO. File storage is limited, your files are assigned wonky extensions native only to Adobe CC, externally referenced files are a problem, and you have to eventually extract your work from a proprietary system if you don’t keep an active subscription. Instead, always save to your local hard drive, then back up as described above. PRO TIP: DO Save to the Fusion 360 Data Panel. Unlike CC, this is integral to the software. However, this is NOT a back-up! This model does make it difficult to back up your work. And I don’t trust Autodesk to be infallible. You will learn how to export a Fusion 360 file to back up in your own ecosystem.

 

Technical Support

I AM a geek, but I’m NOT a nerd! That is, I’m qualified to teach you about creating digital artwork, but I’m not qualified to assist you with technical issues. Select the link below that best describes where you need help:

Abington IT Help	Passwords, network, hardware, software
Canvas Help	Helper website
LionPath Help	Helper website

When sending a request for technical assistance via email, it’s important to be detailed and precise. In this example, John can’t post a submission to a Canvas module:

Information needed:		Good example:
Name and ID Course, Sect # Module Browser/version Specific description (including any error messages)		John R Doe, jrd123 ART 102, Sect 001 Project 1.1 Chrome v. 87.0.4280.88 * When I try to post a submission to the Canvas page I get the error message “Unable to upload content at this time.”

*How do I find the browser version? Look in About in the browser’s menu to get version information.

 

BYOD Tech Specs

If you wish to use your own laptop or computer, use the free access you have to PSU’s institutional subscription for the Adobe Creative Cloud.

We exclusively use desktop applications. Do not use mobile versions of these apps, which have the same names as their more robust, professional-grade desktop cousins. Find free Creative Cloud applications at Adobe at PSU.

We also use some browser-based applications commonly available to author content on the Web, which you don’t need to download.

Technical Requirements  For the software and learning systems involved with the studio, we recommend the following:
Operating System:	macOS 10.15 (Catalina) or higher. Version 11 or 12.0 is recommended. Windows 10 (64-bit) versions V21H1, V20H2, V1909, and V2004.
CPU:	Multicore Intel processor with 64-bit support with SSE 4.2 or later.
RAM:	8 GB of RAM (16 GB recommended).
Hard Drive Install:	3 GB of available hard disk space for installation; additional free space required during installation; SSD (solid-state drive) recommended.
Monitor Resolution:	1024 x 768 (1920 x 1080 recommended).
GPU:	OpenGL 4.x  |  For Optional GPU Performance: minimum of 1 GB of VRAM (4 GB recommended), and your computer must support OpenGL version 4.0 or greater.
Browsers:	Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera. Edge and Internet Explorer are NOT supported.
PDF Reader:	Adobe Reader (free download) or PDF extension/plug-in for your browser.
Other:	Cookies, Java, and JavaScript must be enabled. Pop-ups or ad blockers should be configured to permit new windows from many PSU website resources.
Internet Connection:	Minimum 3.0 Mbps, use Speed Test to test your connection.