We are very close to the end of the semester and internship, aka the finish line. I think I’ve come a long way and learned a lot about what I enjoy doing and what I wanna do in the future. Like I said in my previous post I’ll be graduating this semester and I plan to stay with the organization I’m interning with. I’ll also be starting my own art business online after I graduate. I’ll be selling stickers, prints, and pins just to start off with. Being so close to the end can be super scary because everything is uncertain but you just have to remind yourself to take things day by day and that always helps me.
I also think, even though slightly scary, that it can be exciting getting so close to the end. You’ll get to look back on what you’ve accomplished and be proud of yourself, while also seeing what you can approve upon. Working with this organization made me realize I enjoy designing a lot more than I thought I did and I’m pretty okay at it too. Almost everything I designed for the company I will be putting into my graphic design portfolio. I’ll also be making sure it’s mostly book layouts and magazine pages so that if I ever do get a chance to show it to someone they’ll know what they can hire me for.
I have reached 120 hours of my internship this week and I’ll be staying with them until the end of the semester because I enjoy working there and the people are nice. I think this semester was a bit of a challenge at first but I found my footing and I’ll be able to cross that finish line soon!
I think it’s really important, as the semester and internship is coming to an end, to prepare yourself for the future. I think that after graduation it can be really scary since you are now on your own with the knowledge you have. This is my last semester at Citytech and I’ve learned a lot of all different types of designs and am really proud that I can consider myself a well rounded designer. I think this is a good skill to have after graduation and when preparing yourself for the future.
In my internship at the organization I’ve been thinking about staying to get more experience under my belt and maybe even a job as a designer there. But I’m not 100% certain if that will even happen but it’s good to stay positive I think. I enjoy working there and after designing so many articles I just learned that I really enjoy designing. I think it’s fun figuring out layouts of magazines and articles especially. Doing logos or making something look super graphic aren’t really my strengths. It’s good to know what your strengths and weaknesses are so that you can understand your limits as a designer. This knowledge will help you prepare yourself for the future, working with clients, signing contracts, getting offers or deals and more.
1B)For my internship I did not have to sign a nondisclosure agreement. The only thing I had to sign was a student internship form that my boss and professor had to sign as well. Even though I did not sign a nondisclosure agreement I try not to give too much information about the people who work there, their names, or specific details about what is happening or planning to happen. I only mention things that specifically pertain to me and what Iâm doing for the organization. I think because this is a non-profit organization a nondisclosure agreement is not really that necessary but my knowledge on that is very limited. If this were a company like Apple or Nike Iâm sure you would have to sign something especially if you are designing for the company. It also happens in other professional careers as well such as actors and people who design and produce films. If you are, for example, an actor that just got casted in a new Marvel film then you are definitely not allowed to say anything because they most likely signed an NDA and it states something in the actorâs contracts that they are not allowed to discuss or reveal anything about the films, script and characters.
In reading the Ethical Issues in the Graphic Design Business it states that, âFor example, a graphic designer could be offered to produce an ad, but then he or she could find out that the information in the ad was a product of false advertising. False advertising means to promote a feature or characteristic in a product that is in fact not true. In this case, the designer would also have the choice to produce the ad or simply walk awayâ. I believe this to be extremely unethical and irresponsible on the companyâs part. If you are giving your designers misleading information that could potentially ruin their career. If you are a designer and have noticed that information about a product or design isnât accurate then you shouldnât be designing for that company or brand because the blame will fall on you if you designed something that was false. Itâs important to do your own research and fact check everything before accepting a job offer especially if you are a freelance graphic designer. It further states that, âJust like writers have âwriterâs blockâ, graphic designers sometimes also have phases in which they are not particularly creative. This could lead to using someone elseâs work and ârevampingâ it to seem as though you created the whole thing. This is an illegal practice called piracy. Graphic Designers should definitely avoid doing this unless they give full credit to the copyright owner, ask for their permission, or use copyright free imagesâ. Just recently I saw a video game artwork from Fortnite had stolen artwork from the game Overwatch. The work was clearly traced and just recolored slightly. Many people had noticed and called the artist who was working with Fortnite out on this. Eventually they changed the design of the artwork but it is still incredibly noticeable that artwork and design elements were stolen and traced.
Another reading was from A Clientâs Guide to Design: How to get the most out of the process. I think this book was incredibly interesting and informative. There are many different categories talking about how to find a designer and the standards of professional practice but what I thought was interesting was the last category called Business Expectations for a Professional Designer. Itâs always good to learn about what expectations you as a designer should uphold. Your job is to be creative but respectful and responsible too. For example it states that, âA professional designer applies his or her knowledge about physical, cognitive, social and cultural human factors to communication planning and the creation of an appropriate form that interprets, informs, instructs or persuadesâ. It is important to know who you are designing for and to bring your own knowledge and educational background to the forefront. This really is talking about how a designer needs to know their target audience and using all these different tools to understand that.
2B)After reading Shepard Fairey is Fined and Sentenced to Probation in âHopeâ Poster Case Iâve learned that it is easy to get yourself into difficult situations. In the article it states that, âThe artist Shepard FaireyâŚwas sentenced in federal court in Manhattan on Friday to two years of probation and fined $25,000 for tampering with evidence in the caseâ. This is incredibly scary as a designer and artist. It later states that Fairey had pleaded guilty but itâs worth noting the psychological damage this can do to someone and affect his career. He admitted to forging documents to conceal his misuse of a photo of Barack Obama and then went to jail for it. If he understood the ethical guidelines maybe this wouldnât have happened. This is why itâs so important for artists to protect themselves and make sure whatever imagery they are using is credited, sourced, or copyright free. As an artist myself we are always using references when illustrating but never directly using the source material and claiming it as our own. If that were to happen then it probably would end poorly.
It is important to remain honest with oneself and with others. It is admirable that he pleaded guilty to the charges that he faced and was probably the best thing he couldâve done for himself. Plagiarism is never okay, and it is especially noticeable in the art world. Tracing and plagiarism is considered copyright infringement and can be very serious as weâve seen. This is why Fairey is a controversial artist because he has been sent to court over this poster and has been accused of plagiarizing other artists in the past. According to Shepard Fairey: The Controversial Street Artist it states that, âIn some cases, even casual examination of these claims shows almost verbatim copying with little transformation. While some of the older, political propaganda works are in the public domain, others are not. The real issue seems to be that Fairey copyrights these appropriations, enforces his copyrights and profits from themâ. So he is making profit from these works and is controversial for a reason. As an artist myself it is a tough position to be in. Sometimes creativity doesnât come so easily and being super original is difficult. However, it is no excuse to not be ethical in design. Itâs important to be transparent about everything you do, so that you donât need to be taken to court and potentially ruin your career.
My most recent project has been designing the March Magazine cover and an article about video games. I am grateful to have the opportunity to design the cover of the magazine and was really excited to do this one. For the March magazine the focus is on Woman’s History Month. I didn’t know what to do at first and what pictures or programs to use so what I did first was start sketching. I really like simple and clean designs and even though they may not look like much in the end they still take as much effort as something very detailed would. This is because it is about negative space and sometimes placing things can get awkward if there is too much or too little negative space.
Usually for tasks I create multiple different versions of one things and give options to my supervisor. I think it is good to have options because you don’t want to be tied down to one thing and I enjoyed working on different versions. When designing I always use the company’s font and colors. However, for this design I didn’t use any of their colors because I felt that it did not fit the cover design I had planned. I won’t say the name of the typeface but as you can see it is a sans serif typeface that is modern and easy to read. With the typeface in mind I want the visuals to reflect that. I wasn’t sure which woman of history I should feature on the cover so I went with illustrations on Canva. I think I would’ve liked to use an actual photograph of someone but didn’t get a response in time about who that should be. So I would like to revisit this in the future and hope that I am asked to create the April Magazine cover. Please do not download this file or use it anywhere else. Thank you.
As far as my knowledge the company has not had any meetings or events in person. I’m not sure if designers would even go to said event if that even existed. Since the position is not in person we do not have any events to attend. However, I’m thinking of staying with the company even after this internship course has ended. I think it will be a good learning experience for me and it could possibly lead to a paid position in the org, which would be nice. My supervisor had asked me if I had any plans after college and I discussed how I want to become an illustrator and open up my own art shop in the future. Even though those are my plans I think it’s good to stay with the org for a little while longer to gain experience. Not only that but the work environment and the people there are great and very nice.
Looking on their website they have had events such as Diwali Celebrations in 2022, and they went out and did a COVID19 face mask distribution. As I mentioned in an earlier post the founder of the organization, went to Turkey and Syria to help people in need there. I don’t think that is an event that everyone can afford to attend to though. I imagine that the goal down the line would be to have donations sites set up to help those in need.
I think so far in my internship I’m doing really well. I am getting along with my supervisor and people in the org. As far as my work I am really proud of myself thus far. What I am most proud of is the article I designed about Climate Change. It is really simple yet effective and I love the layout of it. I think that I have been really consistent with handing in assignments on time and making sure I put my all into these assignments. So far I have completed six assignments and even though I liked some more than others I would say that each one has the same amount of time and care into it.
Like I mentioned before the Climate Change article is the design I am most proud of so far. I think I took a lot of time into this one because Climate Change is a topic that I am very passionate about and spend time reading and learning about how environment’s current state. I am donating to the WWF and constantly sharing the word about how important climate change is and how we have to act on it soon. The article was about designers who have used climate change as a subject of their design. The article discussed four different designers and they are as follows, Chris Jordan, Nils Udo, Aida Sulova, and Olafur Eliasson. I thought their works were each so different and beautiful. The only designer I knew of before designing this article was Chris Jordan. In his work he had photographed dead animals with plastic inside their systems. This was to basically show that there is so much plastic pollution in our world that animals are digesting so much plastic. The photos are not as graphic as they sound but they are disturbing. I would still suggest looking into his work though because those photos are a huge eyeopener. Another designer was Nils Udo, who showed how beautiful nature can be. I enjoyed looking at his photographs and even made a cover design using his photograph.
This project I was really passionate about and I think it shows in the final product. My work ethic and attitude towards the org remains the same and I’m very happy interning here. I think I’m doing well and that is shown through my work and the feedback I received. Here are the designers I was referring to earlier.
We have not had any collaborative assignments. However, everyone in the Communications and Marketing department did have to create T-shirt mockups and designs for the organization. Prior to this we each have had our own individual assignments. I think it was interesting to assign us all the same thing to see what everyone created for the shirts. I’m not sure if these will actually be made into shirts or not but nonetheless they were fun to design.
I am not very creative when it comes to clothing designs and pushed myself to do something different for the t-shirts. I figured everyone was going to use the organization’s logo on the designs, which I also did, but made sure to keep it interesting and not just a logo on a shirt. I didn’t want anything to be too trendy, the organization is made up of a number of people of different ages and wanted something everyone can wear. By this I mean I didn’t put anything on the sleeve or went too crazy with the colors or pattern because if this is a shirt that everyone has to wear, you want people to actually want to wear it. So the balance of creating a professional and age appropriate t-shirt that wasn’t boring was kind of a challenge. Designing clothes is not my forte but I tried my best anyways. For one design I created I modeled it after a baseball tee, which used one of their colors from the company. It was the dark blue on the sleeves and the collar and the logo was small and off to the side. The second design was a colorblock t-shirt. I wanted to be more creative than just putting a logo on a shirt and so I decided to use the colors of the company to create colorblocking. So the dark blue was the torso of the shirt, the cyan was on the left sleeve, the pink on the right sleeve, and the green as the collar of the shirt. The logo contains a lot of colors so I decided to use all of them in one shirt without any logos or text. For the final design I did another colorblock shirt. This time the torso was white, the left sleeve pink, the right sleeve cyan and the collar yellow. I put the logo on the front and the year the org was established underneath.
I thought those were pretty good but decided to do more simple ones. I created mockups on photoshop by downloading some from freepik, which is really helpful and has great mockups. For those designs I kept it very simple because I didn’t know how to manipulate the mockups very well. All the t-shirt designs are white and all except one have a yellow collar. One design just has the logo on the front, the other has it in the corner, and the last one has information on the back of the shirt like a phone number and the name of the org.
I thought this sort of project was successful because I was able to try and learn something new. I’ve never done any clothing mockups before and it was exciting to see everyone else’s designs. I’m not sure if these will be made into actual t-shirts though because we are only the designers and in my experience don’t see where the things we design go or where they exist. I’m still wondering if the magazine article I did was actually printed or not. I think for now it might still be a digital magazine. Anyways, I thought it was an interesting week and look forward to the next assignment.
I am learning a lot as I’m interning here at the organization. This is my first ever time working for anyone and I was very nervous when I first started. In my experience, since it isn’t paid, there isn’t so much pressure put onto me as there would be if this was a paid position. I’m learning how to deal with images that are copyrighted and teaching myself to do different things with magazine layouts. I use a variety of programs when making content for the org. I mostly use Adobe Indesign because I am most experienced in that program but if I need something to be done slightly quicker I will use Canva, which was a program recommended by my supervisor. Canva is really helpful, especially when it comes to elements like images. On Canva, images are mostly free so you don’t have to worry about possibly getting the company sued.
I’m learning a lot about myself as a designer as well. I didn’t really think that I had a specific style when it comes to designing but I’m learning that I like using rounded shapes, simple fonts, and like the look of a lot of negative space. I like things that are simple and easy to read and not flooded with a lot of information or different typefaces. Everything I’ve created so far has been consistent within the same style I think.
I am not doing any clerical work because I think that is up to people in other departments to work with papers and documentation. I am solely a design associate and design things for the company. I have gotten a lot of good feedback on my designs so far from my supervisor, which is a good motivator to me and shows I’m moving in the right direction.
The workplace environment is hard to describe since the internship is asynchronous so we don’t actually go to a location to work. However, as far as work attire it is definitely business casual. I say this because I was asked to take a photo of myself for the website and was asked to dress business formal and if I had a blazer or something that would be ideal. I do not own a blazer so I decided to wear a button down shirt with a turtleneck underneath for the photo. If I were to actually go somewhere to work I would dress casual. Not necessarily very businessy if that makes sense. I don’t really own that kind of attire. I would obviously want to look professional though around the organization and by my coworkers.
I can describe a typical workweek even though it’s an asynchronous position. Every Monday my supervisor will be giving out assignments that pertain to the organization and we have until Friday afternoon to complete them. Since we have to meet 120 hours and 15 work weeks I try my best to spread out my work hours. On Monday when the assignment is assigned I’ll usually start sketching for an hour or so and then Tuesday I will work for 3 hours , on Wednesdays I work at night because I have class during the day and Thursday and Friday I make sure to work enough to meet the 15 hours. Sometimes it goes over by a couple minutes. I also time myself when working on the assignment as it keeps me organized and on track. It also helps to look at to see how long I’ve been working and when I should take a break from working on the assignment.
On all days except Wednesday I don’t work at night because those are times to relax and work on other things that I have. I try my best to balance all the work I have to do for college and outside of college. So far, this system I have is working well.
