Ever wonder how you can make your own instant animated classic? Wired Magazine is giving you a cheat sheet. Their newest issue details the painstaking process that Pixar’s artists go through to make favorites like Toy Story and Up.

It turns out the key to creating a film (other than undying patience) is a truly creative process. The journey begins with scriptwriters in a cabin called ‘The Poet’s Loft’ and ends with animators in a rendering room with beer on tap. If you’re going to work on the same project for 3 years, you need to be inspired. Check out the article to see their process, from Day 1 to Day 1,084.

Kiersten

So, I’m a little biased. I love to check out artists’ portfolios but it’s extra fun when they are from people I know. Here are some of my friends’ portfolios and I think they’re amazing. Enjoy.

Amber Freeland / Furniture Design

Our families were close before we were born so Amber and I grew up watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and eating mac and cheese together. I haven’t seen Amber a lot since she moved to Savannah to study furniture design at SCAD, so I was blown away when I saw her portfolio.

Michelle Barrie / Publication Design

After being The Ithacan’s award-winning design editor and interning in Cosmo’s art department last summer, Michelle’s pretty much a pro. She’s a genius at InDesign and knows how to own white space.

Luke Elmers / Graphic Design

I met Luke when I was a freshman at Ithaca College. He’s an endearing ad geek and all-around nice guy. He’s also the kid who got hired to freelance for clients after we helped them in classroom campaigns. He’s that good.

Ben Corda / Photography

Ben’s the kind of person who can make your life look cooler just by taking pictures of it. He studies journalism at Louisiana Tech where he’s been published in print and online.

Alli Hoover / Art Direction

Alli was a huge help for our creative team when Ithaca College entered AAF’s National Student Advertising Competition. She has a great eye for editing and has real-world experience from interning at G2 with clients like Latisse and Earthtone.

As I was checking out their sites, I noticed that my friends each use a different approach to hosting their work. Amber uses Google’s free site builder, while Luke has his own domain. Michelle, Ben and Alli use JAlbum, Wix and SquareSpace. As you can see, there are a lot of options.

Kiersten

Gamblers All

sometimes you climb out of bed
in the morning and you think,
I’m not going to make it,
but you laugh inside
remembering all the times
you’ve felt that way, and
you walk to the bathroom, do your toilet,
see that face
in the mirror, oh my oh my oh my,
but you comb your hair anyway,
get into your street clothes,
feed the cats, fetch the
newspaper of horror,
place it on the coffee table, kiss your
wife goodbye, and then you are backing
the car out into life itself,
like millions of others you enter the arena
once more.

you are on the freeway
threading through traffic now,
moving both towards something and
towards nothing at all as you punch
the radio on and get Mozart, which is something,
and you will somehow
get through the slow days and
the busy days and the dull
days and the hateful days and the rare days,
all both so delightful
and so disappointing because
we are all so alike and so different.

you find the turn-off, drive through
the most dangerous
part of town, feel momentarily wonderful as Mozart works
his way into your brain and
slides down along your bones and
out through your shoes.

it’s been a tough fight worth fighting
as we all drive along
betting on another day.

- Charles Bukowski

Would you switch from Google or Bing if somebody paid you? Turns out this isn’t a hypothetical question anymore. Swagbucks, an online portal, lets you earn points by searching the web and trade them in for prizes. Sounds too good to be true. Is it?

How do you get Swagbucks?

The main way you earn points is by searching the web. Randomly, while you’re searching, an alert will pop up that you’ve won Swagbucks. When I use it I usually earn 20-25 a day. You can also get Swagbucks for recycling old cell phones, filling out surveys and finding special codes.

Once you collect enough, you can cash them in for prizes like gift cards, iTunes downloads and movie posters. Since June I’ve gotten $40 in Amazon gift cards, $20 for Starbucks and a few song downloads. (Right now I’m about 200 Swagbucks away from another $10 Starbucks card.)

How do they make money?

The search engine ranks pages from their sponsors first, just like Google. By selling their own sponsorships, Swagbucks is able to afford gift cards and gear to give away to their users.

Swagbucks also teams up with partners, like Atlantic Records, to give away merch and sell advertisements.

How can I sign up?

You can click here and make an account. They give you 30 points to start and let you earn the rest. If you sign up through this link I’ll earn points for the first 1,000 you earn. You can test out the search or sign up here:

In general, I will never promote a site or product unless I’ve used it and know that it’s worth your time. Aside from being a cool idea, it’s an interesting web business concept. Have any of you used the site? Would you be willing to switch from Google or Bing for something like this?

Kiersten