Carlos Betances's ePortfolio

This is my last week Working on Etomon. I am putting all my files and projects all together for delivery. Honestly, while working here, it has been enjoyable because it did make me use all the techniques I learned in class as well as it helped me to improve my teamwork skills which I really needed.

This internship taught me many things. The first one is that being an intern is not an easy job because there are many things to learn in a short amount of time and sometimes expectations can sometimes be high and you have to realize that an employer is expecting for you to be ready for the working level position that you applied for.  The second one is that you can not get upset easily. ( be patient ) Moreover, have to be willing to put in the extra hours no matter how hard the project seems just to finish it and deliver it. Show that you are really passionate about what you are doing.

When landing an internship you need to understand that Everyone’s experience is going to be different, but keep your positive thoughts and do your best. Though not all surprises are pleasant, you will sometimes be amazed where you can end up.

 

 

 

 

During this past week nothing much really happened, I am still working on the blog pages. Our supervisor is very picky when it comes to the final layout for the web page, she wants it to be unique and perfect, but sometimes she gets carried away by icons and colors which make any progress on the page a little bit hard to achieve.

Sometimes I can tell when some of my coworkers even get frustrated because of the back and forth on the pages. However, this is the main reason why I am going with the flow and do anything she wants me to do or work on. At the end of the day, I see all this as a challenge, which eventually is giving me the experience that I need in order to succeed in this career. As for the blog pages, I am changing the sidebars and some of the icons with more illustrated ones.

 

While being an intern at Etomon each day I get to work on a variety of projects, sometimes designing by myself or collaborating in other Design ideas with my co-workers which is something I was hoping to experience during my internship. I like the fact that from hour to hour I am getting feedback from my superiors and get to see how each one have a different approach to a similar design which means that I am always learning something new.

This week I was assigned to design the blog pages for the professors. This pages consisted of 2 one being the settings were the professors were to input and published any desired information and the second one being the display page. While working on this page I had much fun because with came up with a lot of different ideas, but each one had a different approach. We spent around 2 hours just brainstorming and debating which concept was the best one to go with. At the end one, the developers wanted something simple, clean and straightforward, something similar to the blog form MEDIUM.COM, but different. After sketching different layouts, we took my co-worker suggestion and came out with the design shown above.

It has been a few weeks since I last shared about my internship experience, but honestly, in those few weeks, it seems like a lot has happened. I remember that when I last wrote, I mentioned that we were working on updating all the design elements for the web-pages with the new graphics that we developed before launching the website’s demo.

Our supervisor was rushing us because she wanted all the updates done for the week previous to the launching and on top up that she kept adding changes and new layouts. However, we did our best and finished everything on time. The launching went together really smoothly, and for the most part, the visual assets cooperated nicely, which made the event a huge success.

 

 

 

  

During this week nothing much has happened, the design team is working together updating all the design elements to the same graphics style. At first, I found this to be a little bit annoying because now I have to go back to all my layouts and update them with new colors, icons, footer, and header. Although it does not seems to be that much it is very time-consuming, plus on top of that our supervisor is pressuring us to get everything done by the upcoming week. The reason behind this is because she wants to know where we stand at when it comes to production. So far we only got 25-30 functional pages that are meant to be preview next week.

  

During my last post, I mentioned that I was assigned to design the layout of the Payment transaction records. I finished designing this three pages design within the week and delivered them to my supervisor by Friday. This week when I came it they informed me that I have to re-design everything because our principal designer is no longer working with us and because of this all the layouts are going to be re-design under a new style and approach. She asked me if it was okay for me to work on them again, and of course, I committed to it, at the end of the day this is my job, and I’m here to gain experience. Therefore, I was more than glad to start over again. For this new layout, we got rid of some settings such as payment methods, and lessons, since we concluded it didn’t have to do with these pages.

Every week I find myself designing a new layout, but this week is different since I was assigned to work on transaction page. At first, I thought I was a simple transaction page, but after Asking my supervisor for the function of the page, I realize it was more to it. As she explained to me a little bit more, she made it clear that this page It’s just the first of 3, completed transaction, future transaction and Gross Earning each one with a different function. As always I was given a sketch and the description from my supervisor. However, in this case, I just received the information regarding the first page, then the rest was for me to come up with a Design and solution. I did a lot of research looking for inspiration and ideas to help me out in creating these layouts. After a while, I felt ready to start sketching my concepts.

This week I did most of the work from home, its good to know that in this internship they are very flexible with the time as long as you deliver the requested work within the deadline. Before this my supervisor had given me a few new pages to work on, once again she was very specific in what she wanted me to design. She gave me few more sketches alongside with the instructions for it. She wanted me to create the layout for an inbox page and all the assets that come with it. I brainstormed a few different ideas and layouts aside from the one that she gave me. In the end, she decided to follow my approach because it was cleaner and easier to understand.

The first week, especially the first week at any job is harrowing. You get the feeling that everybody is watching you or talking about you. You don’t really know anyone, you don’t know the process, and you feel pressure to deliver a great performance (work) or at least that was how I was feeling at the moment. During this first week, I was more focus on figuring out the company workflow and protocols. However, my supervisor asked me to work on web layout for the company (Etomon), she went ahead and gave the instructions and description of the page that I was instructed to design as well as a small sketch of was she was expecting for me to create. She gave me a deadline of 5 hours, which at first took my anxiety levels to the top, but after few minutes talking to the design leader I found myself in photoshop working on the page, he was helping me by giving me advice as well as feedbacks. I ended up delivering the page on time. She gave the page to the front-end developers for then to revise and code. After a while she can back and told me I did great and that she wants to push me to do better and better as she handed me a few more instructions and sketches for a different page for me to create. I was happy because I felt that was being productive and because I was learning from people who are already in the field of graphic design.

Not too long ago I was able to land my first job experience in my career field of graphic design. I wanted to live this experience. Therefore I started poking around indeed and monsters.com for any graphic design internships. I remember filling out around 20 application per week as well as sending emails which let me ending up scoring an interview. While going to the interview, I was nervous because this was my first time putting together a graphic designer resume and a portfolio and besides that, I wasn’t sure if it was going to be good enough. However, that didn’t stop me from feeling confident. Once I got the interview I was well received by the secretary who introduced me to my supervisor, she was really nice and laid back, and after the first 3-5 questions my nerves began to fade. Then the supervisor added me to the head of the design team, who asked me for my resume and portfolio, we talked about my past experiences and what I had learned in school as follow by what I was expecting to gain from this opportunity. Then he took me around and gave me a tour around the workplace and introduced me to the rest of the team. In the end, he gave me a project with a two days deadline order to test my creativity which I gladly accepted and sent back to him and within two days I received an email notifying me that I was hired for the internship. I was commited to work 3 days a week with the flexibility of working from home.