Amberly Lima's ePortfolio

The internship has officially ended with the completion of hours and evaluation, I learned so much from this experience and was able to use past knowledge for certain projects. I’m proud of what I was able to do and achieve but I found it was often difficult at times due to trying to manage my time with projects and other assignments from my courses. I know now that I will need to be better at managing my time so I don’t miss deadlines and know my limits when trying to complete a project.

What I learned from this internship overall was that I’m capable of doing the work, I have the knowledge and skills to work in the field and I will always be learning more to be a better designer.

The event that I attended as part of my work at this internship was the college’s Graduate Fair on April 13^th, which was to help students have access to vendors selling and/or providing graduate services such as senior portraits, diploma frames, and class rings. I assisted my supervisor with his booth for the Commencement shout outs, which are video recordings of students sending a message to their loved ones that would play during Commencement. I helped set up my supervisor’s equipment; plugged in cables, set up the light pole, etc.; and assisted him with informing and signing up students for the shout outs and holding the transmitter for the lavalier microphone, also known as a body mic. My supervisor and I managed to have about eight people sign up to do the shout outs, most were confused at first thinking we were part of the senior portrait booth which was located next to us due to setup and equipment. I ended up directing most students who came by the booth towards the senior portrait booth as they only wanted to have their picture taken.

There wasn’t as much activity as a result but the whole experience reminded me of my last job of being a production assistant where I had to set up photo/video equipment and assist the photographer/videographer during event shoots. I felt my past training kind of “kicked in”; especially during setup, holding the transmitter for the mic and knowing what it was called; it was so familiar to me that I felt I was back at that old job. Most of what I experienced and learned from that position I have applied at this internship, especially during times when the work required to be hands on as with the fair and from past projects. It really makes me happy when I can use past knowledge for something else or for something new as it showcases my skills and ingenuity to apply it for a given situation.

Update on the commemorative masks, my supervisor informed me that the designs that I submitted were good but the college aren’t going to be able to actually produce the masks due to costs. The masks that the college will give out will be the standard black design with just the associated official school logos. I’m a bit sad, especially given the effort I made into the designs, but I understand that sometimes a budget is what determines what can be produced for a given project. It’s also the norm for most designers, sometimes work gets scrapped in favor of costs or sometimes in favor of a different art direction. This event reminded me of an article about Yuko Shimizu, an Illustrator who was hired to produce a TIME magazine cover for their cover story about Tiger moms but her work was scrapped in favor of having a photo-based cover instead. Shimizu ended up using the scrapped work and concepts to create a new illustrative piece which she then posted on her website. My work was scrapped but I could use the knowledge I gained from the project, the specs, and the overall design layout for a cloth mask and apply it for another mask design project in the future. Sometimes what you gain from a project is experience and knowledge which you can later use to become a better designer.

Link to Yuko Shimizu’s story

Based on my overall experience here at the internship, I believe I’m doing okay with what I have done both in work ethic and work submitted simply due to knowing I could have done better. There were a couple of times where I have made some mistakes; I have recently made an error of forgetting to share a Dropbox folder to my supervisor resulting in some work being submitted late. He reached out to me via text but I failed to answer in time due to being in class; I did not see the messages until hours later, messaged him immediately and shared folder access. I also sent the same files to my supervisor through email just in case if the sharing option did not go through. This whole event could have been avoided if I simply just checked to make sure the folder was properly shared, which I’ll now do from this point on.

From my previous work experiences, such mistakes can result in you getting fired. The first job I had was an Assistant Counselor position at a daycare/summer camp where there were thirty seasonal workers in total including myself. By the end of the summer, half of those workers were fired and replaced for mistakes made on the job. I wasn’t among those fired, but seeing it happen made me diligent in trying not to make mistakes and to not stress out my superiors. That first job experience taught me that I have to be aware of any mistakes I do and strive to be better for such errors can cost you. With this internship, I try to work as hard as I can and to always do better the next day for I know I can do better if I learn from my mistakes and improve.

PDF (English): Self-Evaluation – Amberly Lima’s ePortfolio (English)

PDF (Spanish): Self-Evaluation – Amberly Lima’s ePortfolio (Spanish)

Audio (English):

Translation & audio generated by software

As graduation approaches, the work is getting more intensive with more promotional materials being made for the event. I’m still working on the commemorative masks for commencement and working on creating presentation files to send to my supervisor. I have also been told I’ll be given more work in the approaching weeks, especially during week of the Graduate Fair so I’ll need to plan ahead to get assignments done for this internship as well for my other classes.

Due to the increasing workload, I have recently met another intern who happened to be an old classmate from past semesters before COVID happened. It was actually nice to see them again, and learn what they have been working on at the internship. We’ve never crossed paths at the internship until now due to conflicts in schedule; they mainly come into the office on Tuesdays and Fridays while I come in mainly on Wednesdays and for some weeks on Friday. Our supervisor had given us the same tasks to complete, so I expect to see more of my old classmate in the coming weeks and collaborate with them on the task at hand.

The work at this internship has been relatively quiet and slow, the last work I’ve completed was creating layer masks for some student photos to be used for an ad campaign. The campaign itself is to promote students to follow the college’s social media with some of the imagery having students holding their phones. Doing this task was a bit time consuming but not hard to do, it was done completely in Photoshop with the end result of the students being set against a colored background in one of the college’s associated colors.

The work I’m doing now is to design some commemorative masks for the college’s Commencement ceremony. The requirements for the design was to have the official school logos but to also possibly incorporate iconography related to the location of this year’s event, Coney Island Seaside Park due to COVID-19. I made some thumbnails, which my supervisor approved four of them, and to have those designs be made in Illustrator. This new task is the most design work I have done so far at the internship and I now feel I’m in my element doing visual and graphic design. I hope one of the designs can be made into masks and it would be great for graduates to have as a nice memento of the ceremony and of their time at the college.

An example of a collaborative project I have done so far at the internship would be the Hospitality Management ad campaign. The project is to help promote the department and encourage students interested in the field to apply for the respective courses. My task was to shoot photos of a culinary class with students in their element, doing their work in baking pastries and bread in this case. I worked alongside my supervisor, with him capturing the class in video and performing one-on-one interviews with culinary students. I was told to be a “fly on the wall”, to capture what I could and to make sure I had variety in the shots taken. Only a couple times was I explicitly told to take certain camera shots, specifically of the class board with the name of the class and section and of students actively baking, the rest was up to me to decide. I was mainly on my own as my supervisor and I were often moving around to capture good shots of the students and trying to be quiet as it was an active on-going class. I had to be mindful of where my supervisor was so I wouldn’t get into his shots and he into mine.

The overall work was successful; I managed to generate a large collection of photos with variety which I then was tasked with organizing them by quality in Lightroom. After selecting the best ones and creating a smaller collection, I sent them to my supervisor for review. What was unsuccessful about the whole experience was that I’ve forgotten to change my camera settings to capture raw camera shots for editing purposes. Raw images allow for complex editing in Photoshop and/or Lightroom for better overall quality of the photo. The images I took were the type where only so much editing can be applied to it, affecting the end quality result. This experience has taught me to always double check the camera settings when shooting for you never know when you will need to produce high quality photos for a given project.

Most of what I’m learning here at the internship is mainly how to apply my design skills and knowledge in real-world applications. The work I have done so far have mainly been creating thumbnails for design projects, photo editing and curation. This aligns with the work I have done for class assignments; none of the tasks that I’ve been doing is new to me, they’re all familiar. I haven’t done anything as of now that have been different to what I learned from my courses, the main difference being the time given to complete each task for a project as they’re more short and quick. I’m also using certain design programs more such as Photoshop and learning how to use it more for photo editing, expanding my previous knowledge of the application.

A typical day in the internship is coming into the office and working on the assigned task until it’s time to leave. I bring the materials I need every time I come in and set everything up at my desk; from turning on my laptop, taking out my sketchbook and pencils, finding reference images and creating Pinterest boards for inspiration, etc. I don’t interact with anyone else, there aren’t that many people at the office to interact with and they have their own projects to work on. The only person I interact with the most is my supervisor, and I don’t really mind this as my previous work experiences I mainly interacted with my boss/supervisor than a co-worker. Looking back, there were also not that many people working at those jobs either so there were few co-workers to begin with. Most of what I have experienced so far at this internship mainly aligns with what I have experienced before from past jobs in terms of social relations. I closely work alongside 1-2 people and given a task that I need to complete quick, once done I report back and given a new task to complete, the cycle then repeats. This might change further down the internship as told by my supervisor when things start picking up, so who knows what might be in store as the semester continues on.

My experience here at the internship is very different compared to my previous work experiences, especially in workplace culture. The worksite itself is a standard office with cubicles and other various rooms, very different compared to my last job of mainly working on location for an event. I have my own cubicle/desk where I would bring my laptop, my camera, and other materials on days that I come into the office and work on the assigned task. The cubicle itself is very big, at least to me being a small person, I have so much open space to organize and space out my materials evenly. There’s no official uniform when coming in-person, the dress code follows a business casual look in order to be comfortable but professional while working. Due to my long hair, I personally tie it back into a ponytail regardless of not being officially told to do so simply because having loose long hair can be a hazard while doing a task. I often feel very professional every time I come into the office simply due to my contrasting work experiences and actually working in an office environment.

The office overall is often quiet and slow, it’s not a fast-paced environment with projects back to back as with my last job. Due to this previous experience, I’m often waiting in anticipation out of habit even when I know nothing will happen. I’m trying to relax and take my time with tasks but not for too long because there’s still work to do that needs to get done. The one aspect that is similar to my last job is the work hours, officially working 4-5 hours in a day and being a full-time student this is beneficial for me as I have to manage my time with classes and assignments.

The readings on ethics in business and design changed my perspective a bit on how licensing and process of using other works function in practice. I knew most on how the process worked; the agreement to use another’s content for a project, the acknowledgement that the designer who created a piece owns the right to it as in the credit and the ethical stance to use the work for its intended purposes. What I didn’t know was how extensive the process can be, especially in terms of copyright on an artist’s work. From AIGA’s Use of Illustration, I learned that any work an artist creates the moment it’s created is automatically copyrighted to that artist but they can officially have it on record by submitting forms to the Copyright Office. Other extensive parts that I learned is the signing and use of a non-disclosure agreement form for designer and client, done to acknowledge and disclose fair use of a given work and content. Even though this is an extensive process, it’s done for the sole purpose of legal protections and rights for the designer’s work to ensure ethical transactions in business between the designer and client.

My thoughts on the Fairey Copyright Case are a bit conflicted due to the two works in question and the overall outcome. The poster itself is an artistic rendition of an existing photograph of Obama, it does not actually use the photo itself in direct copy but it does clearly reference it. Learning more about the case, Fairey did use the photo in his design as the base and added the colored layers through Adobe programs creating the unique aesthetic and look but the overall result is two different products entirely. Most of the issues that resulted in the case were mainly human error; Fairey did not fully check to see if he could actually use the photo and incorrectly credited his source and reference. This then led to him being defiant when accusations were raised against him which then escalated into the full court case. I personally feel that the whole issue could have been easily resolved with Fairey simply acknowledging his mistake and paying compensation or taking down the work entirely.

Looking back to when I used others’ content for graphic design work, I mainly used free stock photos provided by online sites such as Pixabay. This was done as a starting point back when I was just learning how to design ads, and I didn’t have that much experience in photography and illustration to create my own visuals nor had the funds to purchase quality stock photos. As time went on and I grew in experience, I started to use my own content and would only use stock photos if I was unable to produce the visuals I needed for a specific project. Every time I did use stock photos, I would mainly source the site where I acquired the images as there’s often no name credited or are just hard to find on the site itself. Most of the work I produced using stock photos were for class assignments, not commercial use and I personally wouldn’t want to use stock images for content I wish to sell and/or commission. To develop my skills as a graphic designer, it would be better to produce and sell my own content rather than use stock photos that tend to be generic and to also avoid any issues.

Citations:

Crawford, Tad. “Guide to Copyright”. AIGA Business Ethics. AIGA, 2009.

Comport, Allan; Holland, Brad; Rogers, Glenda; Shannon, Tammy. “Use of Illustration”. AIGA Business Ethics. AIGA, 2009.

Kennedy, Randy. “Shepard Fairey Is Fined and Sentenced to Probation in ‘Hope’ Poster Case.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 7 Sept. 2012, https://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/07/shephard-fairey-is-fined-and-sentenced-to-probation-in-hope-poster-case/.