The Rural Design Collective had our first Hacker Wednesday this week! We spent most of our time setting up our workstations at RDC Headquarters and getting everyone virtually connected.

We also reviewed our schedule for the summer, and everyone got a copy of “Reading and Leading with Sugar” to read by next week. Anyone can read the book in progress at FLOSS Manuals … James Simmons gave us our first official task of brainstorming some ideas for a title and coming up with designs for a cover! We have a very strong visual design team this year, so this is right up our alley.

Next week when we regroup, we will test several of the technical examples in the book, as well as contribute a few of our own. We haven’t had the opportunity to build our own scanner yet (although it is definitely on our Extra Credit list of things we want to do), but we do have 1TB of raw book page scans at our disposal so we can hit the ground running on the PDF-generation side of things in the RDC Lab. We also have some materials earmarked for scanning that provide an opportunity to work with the details surrounding determination of copyright, which is important if you are interested in contributing scanned materials to the public domain.

We do have a few production details to iron out – the goal is to make this book available in as many formats as possible for download on the web, and making it aesthetically pleasing in the process. Fortunately, we love a challenge at #rdcHQ!

The Rural Design Collective is delighted to announce their mentees for the 2010 Mentoring Season. Oceana Rain Fields and Christopher Garcia will join the rest of the team at RDC Headquarters this summer (Christopher will be joining us in July). This year we are making an eBook on how to make eBooks! The book is entitled “Reading and Leading with Sugar” and it is already taking shape at FLOSS Manuals. The RDC officially begins work on the project on June 16th and there will be LOTS of activity surrounding eBook technology this summer at our headquarters. Folks in the area can stop by Point.B Studio on 246 6th Street to see what we are up to. We will also feature our work in progress on our site, so keep checking back to watch our project take shape.

We also have a Kickstarter fundraising page where anyone (even you!) can contribute to help make our project happen. We hope you will consider making a contribution as our project is of interest to anyone creating digital books, and is designed with teachers in mind to make the creation of these books very easy so the content can be used as learning material in the classroom. Every little bit helps, so please back the Rural Design Collective!

The Rural Design Collective is delighted to be participating remotely in the Libre Graphics 2010 Conference in Brussels, Belgium this year! Friend of the RDC Dave Wilhite of The PortOrford.TV Project created a wonderful video of the team at RDC Headquarters which is available for download at the Internet Archive (we highly recommend downloading the high resolution MPEG4). In the video, we announce our 2010 Summer Project: Working with eBooks! We also created a presentation to accompany the video which explains the Rural Design Collective mentoring program in greater detail:

You can also check out our talk along with the full program at River-Valley.TV (no longer online). They did a spectacular job covering the event – impeccable production values and the video was up as the event was taking place. Thanks to technology, anyone can attend Libre Graphics 2010!

Preparing and participating in this international conference was a great experience for us, helping all of us at the RDC explain our vision as we prepare for the future. Next week we kick off the summer mentoring season by announcing our 2010 mentees!

Are you interested in the field of web development and/or digital design? Are you taking or have you completed classes in a related field? Are you a creative individual with an exemplary portfolio of work? Do you want to work with experienced professionals in these fields and learn while doing, build a resume, work on real projects, and earn a little money? Then check out the Rural Design Collective Summer 2010 Mentoring Program!

The Rural Design Collective (RDC) is a not-for-profit professional mentoring organization which furthers the education and experience of residents of rural Southern Coastal Oregon who are interested in working with web and/or media technology by involving them in real development projects. Check out our projects to get a feel for some of the things that we do. We focus on work that advances important social causes or helps make a difference in our local community.

We are looking for accomplished and self-motivated individuals with proven skills development in one or more of the following areas: graphic design using Illustrator, Photoshop, Inkscape, Gimp or similar software product with an emphasis on creativity, inventiveness, and communication (exceptional creative applicants with minimal computer experience may be considered). Web design using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc. to create useful web pages with friendly navigation, clean design, well-organized and creatively presented content. Web application development such as CGI (Perl, etc), PHP, Ruby (Python) and/or Java server-side technology with SQL database integration.

We are focused on teaching and using Open Source technologies such as the ones above rather than proprietary technologies. If you are a proactive, self-directed, communicative team player – The Rural Design Collective Wants YOU! To apply, submit your resume, cover letter and/or digital creative portfolio stating what areas you are interested in learning about or working in by email to webchick@invisible.net no later than May 8, 2010. Non-digital portfolios can be submitted for consideration at Rural Design Collective Headquarters located at Point.B Studio, 351 6th Street, Port Orford, Oregon.

We will begin interviewing our summer projects team in May, with final selection taking place the first week of June 2010. If you are chosen, you will be paired with a professional mentor to work with our team on a meaningful “real” project, learning on the job about your chosen area of focus and receiving help in building successful work and technical skills that will round out your resume or college application. Chosen applicants will be eligible for RDC scholarships of $1000, $750, and $250 to be awarded in the Fall of 2010. Applicants under 18 years of age must have written parental permission to participate in the program.

Area teachers and educators are encouraged to put promising candidates in touch with us and to assign projects developing the skills discussed above for work portfolios. Early mentoring to assist in these projects is available on a limited basis by contacting RDC. We look forward to our next RDC Summer Mentoring projects and helping to educate and train the next generation of exceptional designers and developers of web and computer technologies!