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Of all the projects I completed during my time at New York Classical Theatre, the one that I believe allowed me shine the most was the New Visions project. Looking back on my time working on the New Visions project, I found that I had grown quite a bit. I took on a leadership role fairly easily and challenged myself to go beyond what was expected of me. I found myself applying what learned from coursework towards my creative process for the project.

In my opinion, my most notable contribution towards the project besides design the whole project itself, was my foresight and decision to create process book in order to allow my supervisor, Hillary, and New York Classical Theatre’s artistic director to easily critique my work for the project. I remember emailing the process book  to Hillary and how it surprised and impressed her. I had actually learned about the concept of creating process books for projects from a previous internship experience. It is always a wonderful feeling when something you learned in the past comes full circle in the most rewarding and satisfying of ways. I believe that the design process was made very smooth and efficient for all parties involved due to the addition of the process books, especially since the internship was entirely remote.

As for my setbacks, I believe that I could have done a much better job at managing my time. Between my internship assignment, coursework, and ongoing personal matters, I found myself struggling and falling behind from time to time. It was not an ideal situation, however, it also was not intentional. I have tried my best to handle these situation with grace and transparent communication. I have first hand learned a valuable lesson about time management and steps I can take moving forward to avoid such undesirable situations.

Overall, I have found my internship at New York Classical Theatre as well as my time in the COMD4900 Internship course to be very valuable experiences.

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ENGLISH PDF: COMD4900_self-evaluation_bryanna-andrew

SPANISH PDF: COMD4900_self-evaluation_bryanna-andrew.en.espanol

ENGLISH PDF AUDIO:

SPANISH PDF AUDIO:

 

Translation and audio generated by software.

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A screenshot of my Pinterest board for the New Visions project. The board is private, so I am unable to share a link.

The creative process for the New Visions assignment can only be described as smooth, efficient, and rewarding. I was able to collaborate not only with my supervisor, Hillary, but also with Stephen Burdman, New York Classical Theatre’s Founder and Artistic Director.

I kicked off the creative process creating a mood board for the project on Pinterest. The primary function of the mood board was to explore possible compositions for the the designs. The designs were required to include four elements: The title of the play, the name of the playwright, a New Visions logo, and imagery. When curating my mood board, I was sure to include pieces of design that mimicked a similar elemental structure. After creating the mood board, I then had a meeting with Hillary to discuss what from the mood board could be explored further and what could be put to the wayside.

Based on on the insight gathered from the previous meeting regarding the mood board, I was able to then create six rough, black and white designs inspired by the most favorable elements we selected from the board. Since we had not have any imagery during this stage, I decided to use placeholder images for the creation of the roughs.

After another meeting with Hillary, I received more feedback on my work and began fleshing the roughs out to include color. From this point, I began creating a design process book to present to Stephen Burdman. The design process book was a 18 page PDF detailing my creative process for the New Visions project. The process book included a description of the general art direction for the project, my roughs, the New Visions logo I designed, typographic exploration, and color palette formulation. The document not only helped me streamline my creative process, but also allowed Stephen to easily give me feedback on my work being that he did not attend the weekly meetings I had with Hillary.

After receiving feedback on my first process book, I was able to then produce a revised process book by which Stephen and Hillary would both provide additional feedback.

 

New York Classical Theatre

While constructing the social media analytics chart, I also worked on a second assignment for New Visions, New York Classical Theatre’s inaugural playwright competition.

The New Visions assignment was quite design heavy and the goal of the project was to design eight pieces of visually pleasing social media content akin to that of a digital poster. The eight pieces of content would then be posted across New York Classical Theatre’s social media channels along with corresponding text as a means of announcing the shortlist for the New Visions competition. The designs would feature the names of the play, the playwright’s name, and some sort of accompanying imagery. Development of the content included mood-boarding, typographic exploration, layout exploration, logo design, color palette formulation, and image editing.

Before beginning work on the project was provided a document listing each of the eight shortlist plays along with their respective author’s name and a brief synopsis. In these early stages of the project, we were unsure of what sort of imagery would accompany the titles of the play and the playwright names in the design, so I was utilizing the document as a resource to brainstorm ideas for possible imagery.

After a day or so of conducting basic research for possible imagery,  I made the decision to pause on image research and move forward with the rest of creative process. I was confident that if I could work on and finalize the general art direction of the designs, the imagery would follow.

 

The very first project I worked on as a social media intern at New York Classical Theatre was the creation of the organization’s 2020-2021 social media analytics chart.

The chart was created in Google Sheets and functions as an organized count of views, likes, comments, and shares for every single posts across New York Classical Theatre’s social media channels ( Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn) from October 2020 to October 2021. In addition to these numerical counts, posts in the chart were also placed into one of three categories: HUB, HYGIENE, or HERO as a means of noting how different types of posts performed for the year.

The overall purpose in constructing the social media analytics chart was to collect data on the level of engagement for across NYCT’s multiple social media channels reporting to the organization’s Board of Directors. Based on my analysis of trends found in the chart combined with my own knowledge of design and social media, I would then make suggestions in a presentation to the Board on how the organization could improve their social media presence and impact.

Although working on the chart was a bit tedious at times, I was exposed to how social media fit into New York Classical Theatre’s larger Communications Plan for  the year.

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⋆ HUB Posts which focus on providing followers with resources for community information. (Ex. A virtual flyer for event taking place outside of NYCT or an informative article we’d like our followers to view)

⋆ HERO Posts which are primarily concerned with a call to action of sorts, such as getting followers to register for an event, attend a NYCT production, donate, or simply go out and vote in an upcoming election. (Ex. Announcing that reservations are open for an performance.)

⋆ HYGIENE Posts which are posts that function more as upkeep on the organizations social media presence to keep followers engaged when we aren’t advertising an event, seeking donations, or providing our followers with community resources. (Ex. A #FunFactFriday posts about a notable playwright)

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My eight months working at New York Classical Theatre were entirely virtual, and for that reason, there wasn’t much of workplace culture in a traditional sense.

I met virtually with my supervisor, every Tuesday at 10am for 30 minutes to an hour (via Zoom). Some weeks my supervisor would hold our virtual meetings from the office and other times she would hold our virtual meetings from her home. There was no set dress code for these meetings, so Hillary and I would both often wear casual tees while attending the meetings.

Beyond these weekly meetings, I was free to contact my supervisor via email as much as I pleased. My supervisor also provided me with much flexibility in that I had the ability to request additional meetings and reschedule our Tuesday meetings if I was unable to attend.

As for lunchtime, my supervisor wouldn’t be available to meet virtually or respond to emails from approximately 1-2pm Monday through Friday due to being on her lunch break.