Michael Erwin

My work experience in the areas I teach at Art Institute span 25 years. I started as a layout and design specialist (Graphic Designer) in the printing industry in 1985 working for the tenth largest printing company in the United States at the time. Worked with Photoshop as well as Quark Express and PageMaker to create layouts for a variety of businesses for print media. Over the following few years I worked as a production manager in the same firm overseeing the production of prepress and print production, training and supporting others in the design and production areas. In 1992 after graduating from college in Computer Aided Design with specialization in Virtual Reality, I began to work as a 3D Designer responsible for constructing 3D Architectural Animations/Visuals from blueprints, sketches and swatches to create a photo real visual of the design before it is built. Tools included Photoshop, 3dsmax, video equipment, ACAD and flash. I maintained the corporate web site as well using HTML. In 1994 I began working in the web design area for NetizenIslands.com. Here I worked with a team of designers and constructed three dimensional web e-commerce destination pages for “NetizenIslands.com”. This was one of the first visual e-malls ever built. Worked as a team member constructing various game elements as well for web pages games. The process consisted of making very detailed renderings of locations and using photoshop to cut up the images into smaller parts and then used HTML to rebuild the images so it looked like on picture again. Animated elements where inserted using flash and animated gifs. In 1996 I took my skills to a new company with a similar idea as netizenislands and began to work with FuturePace technologies as a Design Leader for a small team of artist and programmers in designing, prototyping, and implementing game concepts and 3d web destinations for various corporate entities and e –commerce sites. Heavy Photoshop and hand code HTML. Award Recipient for “Innovation” and teaching excellence in April 2005. Award Recipient for “Experience” and teaching excellence in April 2006. Award Recipient for “Knowledge” and teaching excellence in April 2007. National Teaching nomination in Who’s Who Among Americas Teachers in 2006.