life's like this - avianto's journal

If you think my lack of update since my last entry was because I was relaxing after my defense then you were wrong. Dead wrong.

Here’s the situation: I am broke. I have more or less € 11.000 worth of education (not including living cost), a Master degree and a life to enjoy but all of this process left me with a minus bank account (a couple hundreds short), a late apartment’s bill and jobless. What a life.

The next logical step is of course looking for a job as I already did but no luck so far, that’s fine, I never thought this would be an easy trip. So to sustain my life, I have to do some freelance jobs and so far, I already finished two, which at least will provide me some finance to keep myself sustainable. However, as an “unofficial” design guy at my school I have a couple of tasks to do for the graduation day and believe me, those tasks taking my time more than ever. In addition, I could not complain because officially I am working as a research assistant and get a monthly salary. Nevertheless, it was okay since I am proud of the result.

Last Minute Order

Let’s see. We have more or less 30 students here but I always am the only choice if there are any tasks concerning design or graphics. Why is that? I have to admit that I have two major strength in this field, I work fast and the result is good. And no, I am not coming inexpensive (I have a theory that for a project there are three major aspects; time, quality and money. Pick two, you can’t have all three.). Because of that, most of my tasks and projects were always what I called “Last Minute Order”.

Here’s the fun story about it. Most of my clients always said that I am too expensive the first time I pitch for a project. Fine, I am ok with that. However, usually what happened then, they will come back a couple of days or weeks before the deadline and ask me to do their project with the same price I asked them before. Hah! Of course, I raise my price immediately, and they always agree, but still I wish I could have more time to do my work. Well, at least I get a nice sum of payment after that.

So?

What I need right now is a business partner or a company. Currently I am a one man company do everything from pitching to finalizing the project and what I need right now is somebody or a company to deal with the “business” side of the project and let me deal with the major issue, the project itself. As I said, I have two strenghts in my field: fast and good. I may not come cheap but I always make the money spent worthwhile, guarantee.

So if you are a company looking for an excellent user experience professional (information architecture, user interface design, human computer interaction, and usability and accessibility analyst) or if you are an individual looking for a business partner in user experience consultancy field (we are talking about a couple of thousand € kind of projects, hopefully with your help we could achieve more), please contact me and we’ll discuss the option. If you need instant resume, you can read it here but it would be better if we communicate directly.

Until then, I still have to work on a couple of posters and pamphlets. Let me know your offer.

Current OST of my life: Please Stand Up British Sea Power Take me somewhere quiet please These motorway exit gates Are calling to me dearly And I need a place to go And even numbers on a timetable Arrivals and departures and Those places, names Never seemed so strange before If there’s anyone asking, did you get a rush? There’s no point in asking, it wasn’t enough There’s nobody else here, so please stand up If there’s anyone asking, did you get a rush? There’s no point in asking, it wasn’t enough There’s nobody else here, so please stand up / Read more …

12 months of classes and projects, 4 months of research, 4 months of writing and 30 minutes of defence. It’s all done. The result? Master of Science in Digital Media. Thanks for all of your support! I am glad that I have a lot of people supporting me, even though I don’t know some of you personally. It is an honor to have so many people supporting me through out this process. I don’t know what to write now, I am still shaking a bit, I might go outside and enjoy the gloomy weather (It’s warm but cloudy). Again, thank / Read more …

Received just a minute ago: Dear Mr. Avianto Congratulations on finishing your written Master Thesis!! Now you must face the final part of the Masters Exam: the Defense (in German: Colloquium.) Yours will take place on Tuesday, June 21st at 11:00 in the conference room 2.3.07 on the second floor in the new office area next to Dr. Hasebrook’s office. Please be sure to arrive 10-15 minutes before the scheduled defense. The Colloquium will consist of a 10-15 minute presentation involving a PowerPoint or other external digital media sources of the Master Thesis followed by 15-20 minute question and answer / Read more …

Just want to let everybody know I am still alive. Been busy with The Thesis. June 10th is my thesis submission date and on June 17th or 21st (not quite set yet, I’ll let you know now it set.), I will have my defence. Wish me luck! / Read more …