Leading up to the Visual Storytelling Conference, we’re putting the spotlight on some of the instructors! Meet them and find out what you can learn from them at the conference, plus some pre-conference insights.
Don’t have your free ticket yet? Register today and join us for free, March 10-13, 2022!
Chris Converse
Chris Converse has over 25 years experience in graphic, animation, and interactive design, with a unique focus on both design and development. He earned his BFA in Graphic Design at the Rochester Institute of Technology (R•I•T), and has continued to study the landscape of design and its crossroads with various technologies. In addition to design and development, Chris has been a featured speaker in over 275 industry-related events, conferences and webinars, including NAB, Adobe MAX, Post Production World, How Design Live, AIGA, CreativePro Week and PHOTOPLUS. Find more of Chris’ events at codifydesign.com/events.
Can you tell us a little about what you’ll be teaching for the Visual Storytelling Conference?
“I’ll be showing how you leverage Express (part of your Creative Cloud subscription) to create engaging, interactive and responsive (adapts to any screen size) webpages without writing any code. Incorporate video, slideshows text and graphics into a seamless user experience in just a matter of minutes.”
How did you get started in photography?
“I majored in Graphic Design at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and quickly became interested in Photography as a minor. We had gotten Photoshop 2.0 in our computer lab, and I quickly became enthralled with manipulating photos and combining then in my design work using only digital tools. Video became part of my toolbox during the early 2000s with Flash and the advent of video on the web.”
What makes you push the envelope in terms of your creativity?
“I like to create interactive animated content. The thought process, deciding what happens when a used does something, and creating the motion and animations that responds to user feedback.”
What’s one piece of advice you can give related to your courses?
“Don’t be intimidated. Creating webpages that help tell your story is getting much easier with some of these modern applications — and in the case of Express — it runs completely in a web browser. Nothing to install, and you can edit your content anywhere.”
What’s one challenge you’ve had in your career, and how have you overcome it?
“It is hard to keep up with the rate of change in any industry. But at the heart of it all, the core fundamentals of each industry don’t change much — it is really just the tools and the workflows that change. So I try to watch videos and tutorials as much as possible, even if I think I already know the material. Seeing how others approach a problem is where the real growth comes in your own skill set.”
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
“I think the creative fields posses a real fluid opportunity to try new things. Though my degree is in Graphic Design, I have been able to accept jobs/projects where I have been a photographer, illustrator, animator, video and audio editor and a web developer — and in each case, these were all used to augment my core graphic design skill set. I think anyone in these creative fields can combine many disciplines together — which not only keeps your skills sharp, but keeps you in demand for a much broader range of work.”
