COMD 4900 Internship

Looking at the Fairey Copyright case study, it’s hard to know how the courts would have handled it. I understand Fairly using the photograph as the basis or reference for his final poster, there were substantial changes made to it which made it it’s own work. It makes me wonder how many illustrators would be made to go to court over using reference photos of people. However, it should be noted that in the “Use of Photography” section of the AIGA Design and Business Ethics Handbook it states, “A client may want an all rights contract. Having all rights would mean the client could use the work in any conceivable way.” It’s clear that Fairey was not a client and did not have an all rights contract with Garcia, which makes Fairey lean more into the unethical side of things. On the other hand, in the “Guide to Copyright” section, it states, “Work must be original and creative to be copyrightable. Here, “originality” simply means that the designer created the work and did not copy it from someone else.” One could argue that Fairey took the inspiration of Garcia’s photograph and used it to create his original illustrated piece.

Personally, I think the two are completely separate pieces with opposing goals. It states, “Second, Fairey’s purpose in creating the poster was the same as Garcia’s purpose in making the photo — namely, to “capture the essence of Senator Obama.” However, I think Fairey and Garcia had two completely different things they were trying to communicate. Garcia simply wanted a nice photograph of Obama’s face, while Fairey was focusing on the other artistic aspects around the face, being the color palette and the meaning behind it, the typeface, the “correction” of body proportions to make Obama “more appealing.” Both are unique pieces of work, and I’m glad they settled and chose to collaborate in the end.

 Hope_Poster_Case_Study-1.pdf

 AIGA Business_Ethics 47556770-Use-of-photography-1-MB.pdf

 AIGA Business_Ethics 47556757-Guide-to-copyright-1-MB.pdf

Back in high school when I was first studying graphic design, I don’t remember taking the time to really credit artists’ work when I used it. I also had a mentality of “If it’s on the internet, it must be okay for me to use.” I never thought of the laws or unethical nature of crediting artists, as stated in the AIGA Business Ethics handbook. I wasn’t educated on copyright laws and didn’t go out of my way to look into them. It’s good that practicing this since high school, I’ve gotten the chance to correct that and be taught how to properly give credit if wanting to use someone else’s design. During college, I began crediting artists’ and giving attribution, but I began to get bored of it. This pushed me to practice using illustrator and translating my sketches into digital pieces on there. It took so much more time, but I felt more proud of my work. Working for my supervisors, sometimes my drawing style doesn’t fit the design we’re working on, which is when giving attribution comes back into play.

 AIGA Business_Ethics 47556770-Use-of-photography-1-MB.pdf

 AIGA Business_Ethics 47556757-Guide-to-copyright-1-MB.pdf

I reached the end of my internship and it was a sad last meeting. Before having our wrap up conversation, I gave any last deliverables and discussed last minute tweaks before my last day was up. The main deliverable was the welcome post for their first recruited Special Olympics athlete for their equestrian team. It was interesting to see who the organization has connections to and who they network with, along with how they do it. I got to learn how non-profits work and support themselves, while fueling the marketing to keep the word out. I was eager to be involved in how the organization worked behind the scenes. This actually helped me learn how to go about my senior project, being as how I decided to create a non-profit to help end period poverty. I’m grateful I gained knowledge on the process and can already apply the skills to my own project.

We discussed how the internship went overall; Our biggest takeaways and our critiques. I learned how it is to interact with your clients and know their personality to an extent. This can help you gauge the kind of work they would like and cater to their visions more. I also got to experiment with my design style outside of school projects while learning to blend it with what the client is looking for. It was a good learning experience for me socially as well, being as I’m usually even more reserved. I also think I managed my time better, meeting all due dates on time. One thing I could have worked on is taking a little more initiative in reaching out for help. My fear of being deemed unqualified and untalented resulted in me shying away from guidance when I really needed it. If I was to change anything about the internship, I would just rely on texting rather than emails due our communication being constant. It was sad to have it end already, but they have been working hard on writing grants to help get funds to hire me. It sounds like they’re making significant progress in receiving the grants, so my hopes are up.

I’m getting to the end of my internship and it’s a little sad because I’ve been having such a good experience with my supervisors. The work has been fun, exciting, and a great practice for what I see myself doing in the future. This week, I worked on a few different things for my supervisors. They received a horse to help with their hosting for the Special Olympics training, who’s name is Moonlight. I designed a post announcing Moonlight’s arrival and a little bit of his backstory and personality. Being as his name is Moonlight, I designed the post in a way where it’s like Moonlight is casting an actual beam of moonlight. Along with this, I’ve been sketching ideas for a new logo for them and creating some digitally. I’m still working on it because I really want to encapsulate the main mission of this organization in their logo, and we all think their current logo doesn’t truly hit the nail on the head. I’m hoping to create something they love, even if it takes me working on it after the internship is over.

I also continued working on a volunteer advertisement post to put on their socials and Facebook groups for more exposure. Besides these, I took about 2 hours to complete a non-profit marketing workshop online to help my knowledge on strategies and how these things function. I love this non-profit and what they do, so I think that is why my drive for success with them is so high. I’ve been learning a lot on different websites/what they use for their newsletters, website management, etc. It was my first time using GoDaddy and Meta. I also got practice simple networking; I’m very introverted so it tends to be hard for me to go out of my way to interact with others outside of a forced setting. I am planning on continuing this by taking an opportunity to go up during the Summer and in October to help be a volunteer for them. Networking is such an important aspect in this industry, so I want to make sure I push my boundaries a little bit to help myself grow in that area.

With all the tasks given and deadline changes, I believe I managed my time well during the course of the internship. Other than planning my weekly tasks, I didn’t really have to think about my interactions with my supervisors; Working with them just felt so easy. The weekly meetings were always very helpful and productive, along with emailing throughout the week. They were always considerate of all the other things I have going on, being 4 classes and a part-time retail job. Even with this, I never want to give excuses, so I pushed myself to really use all the time I had. I would bring my laptop and sketchbooks with me to work and continue working on what I could during my lunch breaks there. I’m exhausted, but the feeling of not being able to complete something is worth than the fatigue.

Being in a remote internship for the semester, Zoom meetings and emails were the main sources of communication for us. One of the main things I had to do was schedule emails to send during office hours, as mentioned in “The Remote Worker’s Guide to Office Etiquette.” Working remotely with so many other priorities, the time I needed to be scheduled to work my 12 hours during the work were sometimes the complete opposite from from supervisors. Although one of my supervisors typically liked to work late and the other being an early bird, I usually went with scheduling my emails to send sometime during the morning hours, giving both a chance to get to it without possibly interrupting their sleep.

It’s been a bit hectic for me this week with my internship tasks. This is due to me needing to create a graphic to post on Saturday, but only having 2 days to conceptualize and execute. This was a strain because I worked my retail job for 8 hours during those 2 days, so I really had no breathing room between the 2 jobs this week. Although it was stressful for me, I managed to create the graphic and post with all corrections on time on Saturday. This post was focused on the first athlete to join their local Special Olympics equestrian team, which is very exciting news! This means they are all set to continue preparing for the event now that they have at least one athlete.
I received a few photos of the athlete we were given the consent to use and I chose one where she is wearing three of her earned medals from previous Olympic events. While focusing on the layout for fast communication, I allowed her photo and “Welcoming ____” to be the largest elements.

My supervisors were happy with the end result, so I’m relieved the hard work didn’t go to waste. Besides spending time on this post, I’ve been doing some research on SEOs and how we can use them to benefit our non-profit. The organization I work for is small, so getting their name known is one of the top priorities for us. We are still working on getting things ready for the Special Olympics; I’m editing social media posts for seeking 2 horses and also some volunteers.

I’ve been very busy working for my supervisors this week. With the load of my school projects and my other job, I’ve been stretched very thin this week. For my internship, I was asked to reach out to an equestrian trainer for a collaboration via email. She wishes to help us get ready for the Special Olympics, along with helping us strengthen our Facebook growth approach. I appreciated this because although I’ve been helping the company consistently grow on Instagram since I started, Facebook has been stubborn and has not budged in likes and followers.

I’ve been feeling a bit deflated because of this and it began to make me question my abilities as a whole. Referring to last week and the talk of confidence in your skills as a designer, I know it’s important to remind myself of all the other things I’m good at and what I’ve helped the company accomplish so far. Waiting on a reply from the trainer, I finished editing and scheduled another Instagram to post today.

I was also emailed and asked to start another Instagram post to speak of the equestrian trainer, so that will be my focus for this week, including the other tasks of updating the social media data chart, and researching how to get the company on the Facebook marketplace. It’s been a lot for me this past week, but I’m hoping I can better manage things this week, at least mentally.

Going into the internship, I was lucky to find they already had a plethora of photos for me to use. The company has a logo they emailed to me, but they aren’t completely happy with it so I will be working on creating a new one for them over the next few weeks. Other than the logo they use now, they don’t really have any other company trademark’s. My supervisors have been very open with me and trusting without having me sign a confidentiality or non-disclosure agreement.

For my internship, I use some pngs from online and some I create on my own. I’m not the best at illustrating, so sometimes I may get an illustration from online to incorporate in my design. When I do, I make sure to include the attribution if using a png where it is required. Pixabay, however, has free pngs with no attribution needed. Although this is the case, the pngs are very limited on the site due to this. Over the years while being in school, I’ve worked towards using my own illustrations created through illustrator by constantly looking at references. Sometimes my skills simply aren’t up-to-par. As stated in the AIGA guide, when a designer picks an illustration to use, they are also taking the years of development of the individual style of the illustrator. Due to this, I always try to push my illustration skills because I rather develop and use my own individual style.
When it comes to photography, I tend to rely solely on my supervisors for what they capture on sight due to it being a remote internship. I will do my best to direct the kind of photo I’m looking to be captured to make sure it goes with what I’ve mapped out in my head and in sketches. As mentioned in the AIGA guide, the collaboration between the photographer and designer can help create amazing final creations. If photos of someone they are collaborating with, they will wait for the consent to use before giving to me to use.

 AIGA Business_Ethics 47556770-Use-of-photography-1-MB.pdf

https://www.aiga.org/sites/default/files/2021-03/Design-Business-and-Ethics.pdf

This week, I spent time on a few different deliverables. I continued edits on a Special Olympics announcement post, which we decided to hold off on posting until further information was gathered. I decided to add post times to the social media chart to keep track of which posting times brings in more likes. So far, I’ve noticed that 4pm on weekdays brings in more traffic than posting at 12pm, so I’ll be using this information to help boost their social media.

Instagram has been consistently gaining followers and likes, but Facebook has been very stubborn. I was recommended a free online workshop to attend since my supervisor will be away during our normal meeting time. I took the offer in hopes that it will give incite on how I can get their Facebook growing. I’ve also been spending some time working on their February newsletter layout to spread the word of their one year anniversary being this month.

For the newsletter, I created 3 graphics to enhance the layout and make it special to the organization and their branding. I also needed to research if the Equestrian Special Olympics will be held at the Paris 2024 games, which I believe they will not. We’re looking for volunteers to help move forward in our Special Olympics endeavor, so I created an animated post to help seek for volunteers, which I also created graphics for. Lastly, I began working on an infographic for them to place on their website in hopes of looking even better for grants.

I had many tasks to get done this week. My supervisors and I have been making progress on the graphics and posts for their one year anniversary. I’m also close to finishing the graphic for their newsletter and their Instagram carousel post. We’re mainly tweaking the wording and reviewing the copywriting in each piece.

Along with this, I am working on separate posts to show what has been going on at their site normally, which can be showing what their trainees are helping build or how their animals have been doing. Using Google Sheets, I’ve continued keeping track of their social media data. So far, we’ve had consistent growth in followers on Instagram since the start of my internship, but Facebook has not made any progress.

The next things on my to-do list is design graphics for their website to help appeal to donors that will view their website. I will be trying to design a visual of “Vincent Van Goat” as a playful graphic. For the newsletter, I have to use GoDaddy, which has been a learning experience for me.

Although I have been teaching my supervisors a lot when it comes to social media, they still guide me on what they use to operate and how it is beneficial for them. I appreciate how patient they are as well.