Amirah John's e-Portfolio

Overall, this was an interesting experience. I have volunteered at non-profit organizations and charitable causes before, but this was new insight working from the other side of this business. I discovered new aspects and got a better understanding of all the work that goes into the business operating successfully. I learned about what cause marketing is, effective outreach, how to use CRM software, and even though I did do some designing, I would have liked to a bit more. I used Adobe photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro, and Adobe Illustrator and learned to use Adobe Express to convert logos to SVG files to upload to the company database.

The knowledge I gained from this course’s work aided me in successfully managing all of my internship field work. In addition to that benefit, it also really equipped me with a wealth of information for my future career pursuits. I gained so much insight and new information that will prepare and protect me, whether I am working for a company or freelancing. Learning interview tips, design ethics and laws, companies and agencies that can assist me when needed, contracting and templates, and so much more. All things that now make me feel so much more confident for when I re-enter the workforce.

This course and the internship were great learning experiences into digital marketing, non-profit organizations and business as a whole. I am proud that I successfully completed all of the objectives set out for me at the start of the internship, and received rave reviews from my supervisor. I decided to stay on until the end of the month and continue my non-profit outreach and hopefully get a few campaigns going. I look forward to seeing these campaigns up and running and the success of the sweepstakes overall. My consistent and diligent work during the course was also acknowledged by the professor, and I cannot wait to put all of these new skills and learnings to use.

Internship Summary – Video Presentation

Self-evaluating my performance: I think I did an overall great job at this internship. I worked through personal and company challenges, and maneuvered through the unknown territories in public and company outreach. I gained a lot more knowledge into digital marketing. I learned a new CRM software, and all while juggling my other senior level courses. I can’t say I did it all with ease, and it became more of a challenge as midterms then finals came around, but I got it all done.

I did not get to use my design skills as much as I would have liked, to strengthen those with real world business experience, but I still learned a lot in the digital marketing space with this cause marketing non-profit agency. I did get practice with animating still objects, which is something I haven’t done in a while. By the end of this internship, I was happy I completed all of my tasks successfully.

I completed all of the objectives and assignments given to me at the start and during the course of the internship. It was tedious work, especially with everything else I had to do for this writing intensive course and my other senior classes. This all helped me learn how to better manage my time, which is essential in all areas of business and our lives. Overall, I believe I gained valuable experience and insight from this field work and course that will benefit me in my future career endeavors.

a) In the assigned readings some points that stood out to me are:

1. With copyrighting, I learned things like names, titles, ideas, and short phrases are not usually able to be copyrighted because they lack a sufficient amount of expression.

2. In the Illustration reading, I learned that price is directly related to use verses the source i.e. if it is an original illustration or stock image and also factors like its exclusivity. As someone that sometimes struggles with pricing my work that information will be very useful.

3. In the photography reading, I understood the different types of rights agreements a lot better and which ones would be ideal in specific situations and markets. I always thought of ethics more along the lines of social responsibility, but these readings reminded me of the very important factors that cover laws, copyrighting for the different types of design work, client rights and so much more. I did not understand design ethics to this level of detail, and I think it made me a much smarter designer, especially in regards to legally protecting myself when working with clients.

b) In the past, I have not always fully upheld design ethics and integrity. This was mainly because I wasn’t fully aware of them and being young, not understanding the importance of fully crediting a creator. I would use things like random google images never giving it a second thought that I am taking someone’s photograph or creation, especially if I knew it would look nothing like the original when I was finished altering it for my purposes.

As I learned more and matured, I understood the importance of upholding that integrity and the possible consequences legally. I also simply put myself in those shoes and know how I would feel if my work was taken and not properly credited. That’s even more true if the person is using it for monetary gain.

AIGA: Business and Ethics PDF

99designs.com: The Principles of Ethical Design (and How to Use Them)

c) The Fairey Copyright case was an eye-opening example of how essential ethics, copyrighting and contracts are. It also highlighted the lack of integrity that having all of those documents in place would have protected the photographer and the Associated Press from. The intellectual property would have been properly copyrighted, credited, and fully compensated. With the arguments in the case, I understood both sides, especially Fairey’s emphasis on how altered his work was from the original.

I don’t know if a settlement would have been made with me knowing he also intentionally destroyed evidence to cover his tracts, but he was already fined for that tampering. Plus, he made a smart move stating it was long after the creation of the image in question, so that retroactive act shouldn’t be applied to the actual creation the case is based on. With how long and drawn out the case was, and with both sides standing their ground with strong defendable points, I think ultimately, that settlement did make the most sense. I don’t know if it was the right resolution or the most just, but it certainly was the most time saving and cost effective for everyone involved. Overall, the solution seems to justly benefit both sides, especially with them sharing the rights moving forward.

NY Times Article: Hope Poster Case

Wikipedia: Barack Obama “Hope” Poster (source of slideshow images)

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a) Ethics in design is based on the integrity of your work and/or business, protecting the rights of content creators, and your integrity and awareness as a designer when creating. Ultimately, they are the guidelines that keep designers accountable and responsible for what they create and how. The designer is respectful of how they source, credit and use design work they did not create. Signed contracts and agreements usually make this seamless and foolproof. They also help in the unfortunate cases where the law has to get involved. Ethics also involves keeping designers socially conscious and considerate of an inclusive audience when designing content.

One example in copyrighting and design accountability is the Rogers vs Koons case, where Jeff Koons recreated and used the photograph of Art Rogers. He created statues that were somewhat a caricature of the people and pets in the photograph and even claimed as much as his defense in court using “Fair Use by Parody”. This was dismissed by the court stating the two things still looked too similar and Jeff Koons had to pay a settlement to Art Rogers. I agree with that judgment. Yes, Koons changed a few things to make it his own, but it is very clear he sourced this photographer’s work for huge monetary gain without at least crediting him, much less fairly paying him for the rights to use it.

Ethics for Designers

99 Designs: 5 Famous Copyright Case (and what you can learn)

b) At my internship I had to sign a general agreement outlaying pretty standard issue guidelines and laws that protect all parties involved. I did not have to sign a non-disclosure agreement. When sourcing images the company seeks royalty free content. They expect the same from their interns. When working with their logo and branding guidelines I only use it in a way that upholds the integrity of the design. I use high quality images and do not distort their branding in anyway. If it does come up where I may have to use creative that is not my own, I am expected to properly source and credit the creator. When it comes to handling the company’s information while blogging, I stick to the professor’s advice of not disclosing full details, names or any in-house or sensitive information.

Employmentcontacts.com: Design Non-Disclosure Agreement Template

Legaltemplates.net: Free Non-Disclosure Agreement Template

I am happy that the moment has finally arrived, I got a graphic design assignment! There will be more when the data collection is complete with the Alaska Non-Profits project, but for now I am happy for this side task. I mentioned this very briefly in my last post as I waited for more details. One of my classmates in the internship with me was tasked with creating a graphic arrow creative. It is a beautifully done colorful looping arrow. My task now is to animate that arrow. The idea is for it to be an interesting animation that is part of a small company branded graphic. It will be used during their “Giving Forward” campaign and possibly for other things companywide. The direction or desire for the creative is for the arrow to swirl and loop into position, then the company’s logo will appear and some of the interview questions we will be asking will appear in a sequence as well.

I already created one version, got some good feedback from my supervisor to improve it, and currently working on the new iteration of it. I am doing the entire graphic starting with the arrow animation then adding the company logo and the questions. I am cycling through which software would work best. Adobe After Effects and/or Adobe Animate would make the most sense to me, but I may also use Adobe Photoshop Timeline, which is giving me good results. Trial an error at the moment, but this is what I love to do, so I am enjoying the process. My supervisor gave me creative freedom after explaining his general idea, and so far, he likes the direction I am going with.

One collaborative project I am now starting to work on is a “Giving Forward” campaign that will launch around Thanksgiving. It is similar to campaigns like “Giving Tuesday”, the first Tuesday after Black Friday, that promotes a day encouraging people to give back in any way they can. Many companies participate in this as well, so naturally it made sense that this would be important to a non-profit company like this one, who’s entire business model is about all the ways they can support charities and non-profit organizations.

The main part of this campaign is going out and asking people in the public, essentially, how do they pay if forward, give to charity, do good deeds etc. We’re aiming for clips of about 30 seconds or longer from known influencers and everyday people on the street. That content will be used on all of the company platforms, but mainly social media. At the moment I am working with about a group of 5-6 people. A few of us, including myself will go out and get these interview clips, some will be the video editors, social media manager and other roles as they come up. One incentive we will be giving the people we interview are entries into the $10K sweepstakes. I will be doing graphic design for it as well and will be getting more information on that soon. I am passionate about all meaning things like this, so I am excited and looking forward to how this turns out.

This internship, so far, is not what I expected. It is way more clerical, and soon will be way more marketing and public relations than I anticipated. I didn’t expect it, but I am happy about it. In my past careers working in customer service training others as well as working in Corporate America, I am overall confident in my communication skills. This internship allows me to find a unique balance between that and my design skills. Communication Design is just that, a blend of those two very important factors, Communication and Design. To me, one of the key elements of design and being a good designer is being able to effectively communicate your ideas visually, so that combined with all of this verbal communication is strengthening multiple of my skills at once.

I work remotely, so many of my interactions with my supervisor, the CEO and a few other team members are via Google Chat meetings. Our personalities mesh well and the meetings always go well with us covering a lot and getting everyone up to speed on what others are working on. We have weekly group meetings and I also have a 1 to 1 meeting with my supervisor each week. What I like the most so far is my supervisor does not micro-manage me at all. I set my own hours and I update him on any key learnings or reach out if I need help or more information on anything. He is also very helpful with all aspects of what I may need to complete my tasks successfully. He gives great insight, may send helpful videos and tutorials he thinks may benefit me an so on. It is an overall great internship experience so far. It’s a lot of work, but not overwhelming. At the moment, I think that’s the most important part for me.

My first assignment is preparing for the next “Sweepstakes for a Cause”. This one will be a $10K sweepstakes for Alaska based non-profit organizations. Two other students in my class and one other student from another school in California will be virtually working together to create a database of 200 Alaska based charities each. We also have to create a list of potential influencers to get involved as well. When our list is completed, we will reach out to the key contacts at these organizations and hopefully get them to participate in the sweepstakes. 

The other interns and I work on a unified google spreadsheet, so we don’t overlap on the charities we select. Some of the information required are the company’s names, EIN business numbers, website, key contacts, social media handles and how many people are following them on each social platform. We also have to upload all of that to their CRM database. Lastly, we have to get their logos and covert them to SVG files to upload to the sweepstakes site. The idea is when someone selects the charity they are going to donate to, that company’s logo will pop up. At the moment, the data collection is a very tedious task and I look forward to when we start the next phase, designing the campaign. That will be used to promote the sweepstakes to the charities to get them involved, and to share on social media. We also have promotional video from Miss USA 2022, who is also from Alaska, and I am hoping that will be a highlight to get more of the non-profits and influencers involved.

The company I now work with is a non-profit cause marketing agency, which in simplified terms is a public non-profit organization that works and supports other non-profit organizations of all types all over the world. The parent company was founded in 2007 generating $8.3 million for non-profit organizations before its collaboration with Amazon Smile in 2013, where, as of 2020, together they are estimated to have raised over $190 million for non-profits through cause marketing. Their listed business profile says their employee count is a broad generalized number between 20-80 employees. They have an official office in Manhattan, New York, but most of the employees and interns work remotely. I didn’t realize it at the time of interviewing, but even my supervisor is located in Florida. He is a general manager and I work with him under design and marketing. The onboarding process was seamless and I am excited for my first task.

One of their cause marketing models is putting together and promoting sweepstakes to raise money for various charities and causes. Anyone can enter the sweepstakes. You can enter for free and entering with donations betters your chances because they are equal to more entries. The winner gets the monetary value that particular sweepstakes prize is and $1,000 goes to the charity they chose at the time of their entry. Also, 50% of all proceeds donated during the sweepstakes goes directly to the charities involved.

I am excited and intrigued by this internship class and opportunity. Securing an internship before the semester started was a challenge, but with the guidance of my professor, I made a few tweaks to my resume and applied to the current non-profit organization I now work with. They replied to me ironically on the first day of class. Luckily our availabilities aligned and I was able to interview with them later that evening virtually via Google Chat. I interviewed and secured the internship all in the same day of them replying. Having previous experience working with Citytech students, I didn’t receive too many questions from my interviewer. It felt more like a conversation for them to gauge my personality, design skill set and other strengths. By the end I even got a quick scope of my first potential project. I started the semester being anxious and wondering if I would have to drop the course if I did not get an internship in time and ended the first day of classes securing my internship.

Before this opportunity, I was close to securing a paid internship over the Summer before the semester began. They were affiliated and promoted by the school. I applied and was accepted to move forward to the next round of interviews. When the second round, Group interviews, came around they informed us that it was a one-year commitment. Since I graduate this semester, I would not be enrolled for both the Fall and Spring semester as required and was no longer eligible to continue with the hiring process. That was the closest I got to securing an internship before the semester began.