ABOUT ME
SO WHAT'S MY STORY?
A PROJECT MANAGER AT HEART
I love making visions come to life & I have the obsessive organizational skills to make them happen.
PUZZLES EXCITE ME
I love being presented with a challenge because an ambitious end goal is what drives me to make magic.
LEARNING IS POWER
I love digital design because in a field of constant innovation, there are always new ways to expand my tool belt.
Graduated with Bachelor of
GLOBAL BUSINESS AND
DIGITAL ARTS
from the University of Waterloo
A PASSION FOR FINE ARTS
is what kickstarted my love of design.
I paint and draw in my spare time.
I HAVE A DIVERSE SKILL SET
which includes design, video
editing, animation, and more.
HI, I'M ALEX MILLS
A digital content creator that will bring your story to life.
Check out my most recent work!
The Challenge
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One of the most important parts of creating a character is ensuring they have memorable qualities that make them unique. This challenge was to develop a character whose personality leaps off the page and animate a short video to showcase it.
Crafting a Character
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When tasked with this fun challenge I began by researching popular animated characters and jotting down exactly what was so intriguing about them. After brainstorming a whole list of characters and their animated styles, I highlighted the qualities that I found the most interesting and combined my favourites. From these qualities I came up with about five different characters and narrowed my choice down from there. Since the challenge was to come up with a character that was packed full of personality, I created my final character using extreme characteristics.
Enter Wilmo
Once I narrowed down my character's design, I developed a character turnaround and devised a storyboard as my reference tools for future animation. When crafting the storyboard, I quickly realized that my character, Wilmo, would be much better represented if he were paired with a contrasting character in the video.
Animating
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While animating in Adobe Animate, I experimented with shape tweens, motion tweens, and frame-by-frame animation. I sourced voice actors, recorded audio, and edited this audio in Adobe Audition. Once all of this preparation was complete, I finished the short by syncing character mouths with voices and adding sound effects to the timeline. This was my first experience exploring character animation and as Wilmo debuted his quirky personality, I was extremely proud of the resulting creation.
WILMO'S BIG DEBUT
AN ENGAGING CHARACTER ANIMATION
Designer Animator
A NEW YEARS TO REMEMBER
A WEDDING HIGHLIGHT VIDEO
The Challenge
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When the bride works as a bridal consultant, no detail of their special day will be left to chance. The videographer captured a combination of shots throughout the day; my job was to find the most special moments and compile a captivating story of this remarkable day in 4 minutes and 5 seconds. My goal was to provide an emotional flashback to relive those special moments for years to come.
A Fairytale Story
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After liaising with the videographer to confirm customer requests and style considerations, I organized and prepped 12 hours of video clips for consistency and ease of transfer. I imported all files into Premiere, adjusting the frame rate, analyzing each clip and culling the clips. I selected music based on the character and energy level of the affair, with a reflective touch. In cutting the video, I struck a balance of big picture establishing shots and personal, intimate moments like excerpts of their vows, all while respecting the chronology of the day. One rule: if the shot is mediocre – do not include it. Only the most special moments live on.
Video Editor
The Challenge
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Thanks to technology, the amount of data being created is increasing tremendously. Because of the way our brains process information, data visualization is an easier way consume information than pouring over spreadsheets and reports. You can quickly convey concepts, show relationships and patterns hiding in the data, and experiment with different scenarios by making slight adjustments. The end result can range from a business analysis revelation to a dynamic art piece. For this project, I was tasked with coding a visualization (to be shown on a three-story digital wall) related to climate change and presenting it in an abstract manner.
DATA VISUALIZATION
AN ABSTRACT DEPICTION OF CLIMATE CHANGE OVER TIME
Designer Developer
The Design
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I began by researching long-term weather data and I acquired data sets on average temperature change as well as average global CO2 emissions over the past 150+ years. When analyzing these data sets, I realized that the numbers were skyrocketing over time; I wanted to ensure that this be represented in the final visualization.
After overviewing the results of the research, I determined the main characteristics I wanted to portray in the final design. From the data set, I wanted to show the increase of temperature change and worldwide emissions over time. From a visual standpoint, I wanted the design to have motion and act in the form of a wave to represent the fact that these issues are constant and always progressing.
Once I noted my vision, I had to design exactly how it should be represented. I decided that each variable should have its own wave so that their marginal changes can be seen individually, but the viewer can also recognize their synchronized growth.
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The inner waveform, measured in parts per million, widens depending on the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere in each given year. This waveform begins as a mint green and gradually develops into a warmer chartreuse tone as the CO2 concentration rises. Mean global temperature, measured in average degrees Celsius above or below a standard value that has been averaged from 30+ years of climate data is shown as an outer waveform, which widens depending on the deviation from the average global temperature reference. This changes colour from a cool lilac (representing negative anomalies) to varying shades of pink (representing positive anomalies).
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Also included are two bars on the sides of the visualization – one representing each data set – which each rise in the form of incremental strips correlating to the colour of each year’s waveform. This allows the viewer to understand the context of the data being shown on the screen as the years progress.
The Development
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After designing the visualization, my next goal was to take the vision and data set and combine them into a final product. I coded the final program in Processing while utilizing arrays, objects, functions, and comments to keep the content as clean as possible. The main pieces of the program are the data set, the corresponding variable waves, and the sidebars which track the wave progression over time.
The end result is a representation of global warming through an abstract depiction of skyrocketing atmospheric CO2 concentrations and exponentially widening positive temperature anomalies. As the visualization develops, it invokes an increasing hectic and chaotic feeling as the colours warm up and the waves grow off the screen. This is how I want the user to feel. The data visualization represents a growing issue that needs to be seen as a problem.
The Challenge
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Telegram is a cloud-based messaging application with a claim to focus on security and privacy. Our team’s task was to figure out how accurate this claim really was and to create an infographic that analyzes Canada’s information privacy policies and position Telegram’s efforts in this area.
A Snapshot of Trust
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To analyze Telegram’s compliance to Canada’s privacy policies, my team* and I thoroughly researched both the company and Canada’s policies then devised a condensed list of the most interesting outcomes from our research.
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We found that, with only a few minor considerations, the company strongly complied and merited their claims. As the team’s visual designer, I began drafts of an infographic to demonstrate our findings. Because the final product was to be displayed on the three-story Christie Digital wall at the University of Waterloo’s Stratford Campus, I knew the reader would be consuming information from top to bottom so I started the information flow at the top of the layout. Because most viewers would not be familiar with the Telegram application, the infographic starts with an overview of what Telegram is, before getting into the details of the privacy policy comparison. From there, all information is grouped into categories to organize the different points, punctuated with appropriate images to draw the eye. As the message reinforced the brands claims, I also chose to align the design with Telegram’s visual identity, using solid shapes and their company colour palette.
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*Aseel Attar, Katarina Wex, Sophie Whitcomb, Tiana Eghdam
TELEGRAM PRIVACY ANALYSIS
AN INFOGRAPHIC ANALYZING TELEGRAM'S PRIVACY POLICY
Designer
