Lara L. Schenck

Computing researcher, maker of monsters

Category: Monsters

One of my favorite past times is drawing friendly monsters.

My medium of choice is the iPad / Apple pencil combo in Keynote for easy use in slides and printing in stickers, but monsters are not picky about where and how they appear.

  • From the vaults [lnfnmo][NODOI]

    Since the relatively recent renewal of my artistic/conceptual energy, I’ve been looking through some old projects and writing a bunch (won’t be posting that though). I am at last reintroducing NODOI and lnfnmo. It’s been about a 1.5 year break. I totally forgot how far I had gotten with both of these – the biggest…

  • The Saxifrage School

    From their website: The Saxifrage School is redesigning higher education by lowering costs, re-thinking the campus, and reconciling theory and practice. We teach students to make what is valuable and to question the value of what is made. Watch this: One of the most inspiring projects I’ve seen in the past year (or ever). I…

  • Some definitions of games & Game

    There are many many definitions of a game, most of which differ only subtly. Some are dependent on the definition of play, but that’s a whole other discussion. Maybe I should have written about that first, oh well. Anyways, here are a few ways to define a game, accompanied by thoughts: Katie Salen and Eric…

  • Raph Koster on how to become a game designer

    Be sure to check out the links he lists at the bottom, exceptionally useful.

  • to dos over the next year

    Grad school is on the horizon. Well, I’ll apply next December, but it’s time to start preparing and pick up where I left off after school. Which is where? My ultimate goal (in life I think) is to design games for college curricula, ergo I will go to grad school for game design. In undergrad,…

  • Site Redesign Preview

    Only the blog so far. The header still needs work, but I’ve got some baller post formats in there. I’d like to post about them in more detail because until this point I’ve thought post formats were a little useless, but with some work they can be great. Of course there’s a nice responsive deal…

  • Bones has made me like WordPress again

    That’s right, I didn’t like it for a while. Had a pretty scarring experience with a WordPress/BuddyPress site running on 20+ heavy duty plugins, and I fully realized why people say it’s messy on the backend. I had been doing a lot of custom coding, and dealing with WP hooks and filters, misc filepaths, and…

  • Freelance project: Cast Partner

    Recently launched a portfolio site for Castpartner, a Hollywood casting company. The site design is by Nate Harrison and hand coded by yours truly. I have to say it was a relief to not be responsible for the design – it’s nice to just be told what to do every now and then. Also, custom…

  • Digital Placemaking logo

    Here is a logo draft for Digital Placemaking, a spin-off philosophy/blog about using digital tools in (guess what) placemaking for local communities. Read more about Digital Placemaking here.

  • What I’ve been doing the past 6 months

    It’s been a crazy few months. Working 60hrs a week at times, but I guess that comes with the territory when you’re talking about startups. The startup in question here is Scenable, the app for local communities. There is an active startup and co-working scene here in Pittsburgh, definitely loving this city. Read about Scenable’s…

  • Book recommendation: Designing for Emotion

    I’ve been reading Designing for Emotion by Aarron Walter, the lead designer for MailChimp. It’s a quick read, very engaging, and infinitely useful. I’d been in a bit of a creative slump, focusing on navigation patterns, getting inspiration from great work other people are doing, and generally avoiding the being creative part. This book has…