About

Posted on 10.26.2010

About Carmen

As a young girl who just finished sixth grade, Carmen started Photoshop during the summer, because she didn’t want to go to the other summer school. She loved the new HTML language, and the ease of using a mouse to create art on Photoshop (especially since she was never any good at drawing).

Carmen took all the digital art classes she could in high school, but it was really in college that she perfected her style and craft. At Hofstra University, she majored in Fine Arts with a concentration in Graphic Design while taking classes she enjoyed, such as Japanese, Mandarin, and Creative Writing.

Carmen has always wanted to own her own webspace, so this is a dream itself, just having a stake in some internet soil instead of a blog or a website on another server.

Hard At Work

At Hofstra University, Carmen took many classes for her major, including:

• Graphic Design I through IV, making:
• Posters
• Logos
• Branding (Stationary, letterheads, business cards, etc)
• Book covers
• Short book layouts
• Magazine covers and magazine layouts
• Flyers
• Typographic art
• Packages (Package design)
• New Media I through IV, making:
• Websites
• Sound clips
• Short movies
• Powerpoint presentations
• Handheld devices (Programmed in Macromedia Director)

Also at Hofstra University, Carmen participated in these clubs:

• Hofstra Association of Graphic Arts (HAGA) – at HAGA, Carmen was the Secretary, where, in addition to making graphic art, she:
• Helped members who weren’t as proficient in Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign
• Planned workshops designed to teach Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign
• Worked to increase membership, which has tripled since it’s start
• Helped plan the Second Annual Fine Arts Career Night
• Golden Key Internation Honor Society (GKI) – at GKI, Carmen was the Webmaster, where she:
• Collaborated with executive board to plan events to give back to the community, donate to various clubs on campus, and support philanthropic speakers to come to Hofstra
• Maintained the Hofstra Chapter website at Golden Key home page
• Started and maintained the Hofstra Chapter group on Facebook
• Helped plan and run the 2009 Golden Key Induction Ceremony

Carmen has also interned at:

• ALearn – a non-profit organization based in Los Altos, CA. ALearn focuses on education and uses funds to help students go to college. At ALearn, Carmen:
• Worked directly under the co-founder and president, Kathryn Hanson
• Re-designed ALearn brochure using stock photos and written information
• Re-designed layout for ALearn website (currently in use)
• Edited existing ALearn flyers
• Silicon Valley Education Foundation (SVEF) – a non-profit organization based in San Jose, CA. SVEF helps prepare students for college and careers by supporting educators and school districts. At SVEF, Carmen:
• Re-designed Pioneers & Purpose program
• Designed Pioneers & Purpose dinner menus
• Designed Stepping Up To Algebra T-shirts
• Created and edited flyers, certificates, templates, save-the-dates, invites, and brochures

You can see more of Carmen’s resume here in PDF form, thanks to Google Docs. You can also download it here.

In Her Free Time

Carmen enjoys watching television, her favorite of all time being Stargate: Atlantis. Other favorites include The Glades, Mythbusters, Supernatural, The Office, Burn Notice, Fringe, and Modern Family. If you can name it, she probably watches it. (Except Glee, Grey’s Anatomy, and Lost.) She will watch most genres, except for thriller/suspense, reality TV, and musicals.

Carmen also enjoys movies; in no particular order, her top five are Tonari no Totoro / My Neighbor Totoro, Sherlock Holmes (2009), Inception, The Italian Job (2003) and V For Vendetta. Like with TV, she stays clear of thriller/suspense and musicals.

In fact, Carmen enjoys movies so much that she has created two blogs for movies. One is a movie review site called Real on Reels. At RoR, along with several other authors, she posts movie discussions where visitors can read the reviews and post their opinions. The other blog is a movie site called Don’t Spoil Me Bro, where she and other editors post general endings to movies, such as “Happy” or “Cliffhanger.” She hopes that one day, this will become a movie resource used by many.

Carmen also thoroughly enjoys playing video games, but her attention span wanders, and usually doesn’t finish the game. Her current games include Harvest Moon: Grand Bazaar and SimCity Creator (both on NDS). She really likes the Harvest Moon series as well as the Final Fantasy and Luminous Arc series.

Carmen loves animals and sometimes watches animal documentaries. She recently got two pet Chinchillas, lovingly named Bruce and Peter (or Batman and Spiderman) and would love to own everything from cats and guinea pigs to iguanas and pythons. Her family also has several aquatic animals: goldfish, Ender Guppies and Cherry Shrimp.