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My wife and I are considering moving to either Portland or Seattle (decision will probably be made by where I can find work) and I would be curious to hear from anyone who does live or has lived there. Some categories I would love to hear about are: good neighborhoods, good places to look for work (full-time or freelance), why either city would be the best to move to (but please be respectful of your neighbors), etc.
And yes, I know about the lack of sun in the winter. That won't be a problem for us. We currently live in Kansas and are both tired of the high heat in the summer and snow in the winter.
Thanks for any advice you all have.
-monster.
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I don't know what to tell you, depends on what you like.
I lived in the Seattle area for about 12 years,
it's ok... I relocated to the Bay Area last year, and I'm not looking back.
I've been to Portland a few times, I thought it was pretty boring, but I'm mainly a city type. If you are looking for IT work, good luck. All the designers and programmers I know from Seattle are happy to have anything right now, they say it's not getting better (It's been just over a year since I left) and that I was wise to leave.
You might be into Flash (which is why you are posting at Flashkit I assume) and to that I say [edit]no swearing even if you use '*'s[edit] finding anything creative in Seattle.
I worked professionally as an animator for Atari when I was 20, my first 'real job'... while in Seattle. Atari was down here in Milpitas, I was an offsite contractor. I did find ok work after that from 93-94 working on CD-ROM Games in the Bellevue/Redmond Area. But, I was hard pressed to find much after CD-ROM games went away in favor of PC FPS games and couldn't get work in consoles (BOSS opened a game house in Redmond) cause I didn't know 3D at the time. But there is nothing for Flash in Seattle... nada.
Most my creative work in Seattle after CD-ROM was illustration for apparal lines, real boring stuff, make looney toons rip-offs and skater wear.
There's a couple large sized sportwear shops, one in Redmond
called SeaBell, and one in Federal Way, whose name I can't recall cause I never worked with them. There is a skater wear place on Pike street in Seattle called Pig-Pen, but's a small shop and it's all by the piece, and you know how that goes.
If you are a decent fantasy/sci-fi illustrator, you can try to make the cut for Wizards for the Coast. That's one company I should have worked for and knew a couple of the artists, but never did, strange that I didn't even apply... but oh well.
And I know other friends of mine who moved to LA and SF as well so they could work in creative, as there isn't much to be had in Seattle. You'll more than likely end up working customer service at Amazon just to pay the rent, then you'll know you're washed up :)
Hate to be doomy and gloomy, but man...
I cannot tell you how thrilled I was after moving down here and finding so much creativity a happening.
My Advice, move to SF it's expensive, but well worth it.
[Edited by aversion on 07-14-2002 at 01:26 AM]
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Hmmm...thanks for the advice loungeboy. Fortunately, we aren't moving for at least a year, so there isn't any pressure or anything.
Good food for thought. Anyone else?
-monster.
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for all the reasons loungeboy listed, I'm not moving the northwest. seriously, I thought that the southeast was bad, and coming from out west, and originally from the northeast, things just look bleak. I've been looking for something.
but, it all looks slow at the moment :(
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i lived in san francisco and new york for 4 years, i visited seattle for a while and wasn't that impressed with the city. It was ok, everything a city is supposed to have, but it lacked that special character that would bring it up to the level of SF or NYC or Sydney. That's just my opinion, i know a lot of people living there that love it, especially if you're into the outdoors, it's a stunningly beautiful state.
i visited portland briefly from SF and liked it a lot, it's a friendly place with a good feel to it, but it doesn't have that big city thing, which may or may not be a good thing for you. I thought that i would like to return there when i'm older :)
oregon is a beautiful state too, though i mostly saw the coastline.
i coudl see you having a good lifgestyle in either place but i agree with loungeboy, SF is the best city on the west coast, especially for design/creative lifestyle stuff.
:)
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Thanks for the opinions guys!
-monster.
