Daniel Sosanya

Fall 2020

Blog Post 9

New Program

Hey guys what’s up, it’s been a really rough week trying to balance all my working but somehow I’m finding a way to manage. On this week’s episode of the internship my boss Lisa emailed me. Whenever she emailed me I get scared, not sure why but I always feel like she’s going to drop something huge on me. Today when I read Lisa’s email she asked me about animation. She asked if I know how to use animation through After Effects or through Photoshop animation. To be honest I only used both very little. I used

Photoshop animation about two years ago for my communication design and it was for an awareness advertisement. It didn’t really go so really, I didn’t like the end product and we ended up getting an average grade. Although I have used After effects once. It was for my motion design class. It was for the final project, but after effects is a very confusing program. In my opinion it’s worse than Photoshop and Illustrator combined. The program has so many buttons and things that you can edit that it makes the user scared and feel overwhelmed. Somehow by the grace of god I passed my motion class, but I can remember the long hours I put in at the time to learn the program. It was hard, believe me.

I told Lisa my scenario. I explained to her that I’ve used after effects before and how I only took one class in it. I wanted to inform her of the exact level I was at within the program, due to not knowing what she needed. She replied fast saying thanks for being honest and she proceeded with the assignment. I just hoped she wasn’t expecting a Mona Lisa animation because that’s beyond me. The assignment was to create an animation with the various photos she provided. The photos she provided were of Brooklyn Colleges campus. There were various photos that showed the construction of the university over time. She wanted me to conduct an animation that shows the progress of the completed campus of Brooklyn College. She wanted me to go by the time period of each photo to show the start and end. I had to read the assignment multiple times to understand it, due to the fact of being a low level user of After Effects. I have no idea how I’m going to show this with animation but it looks like I’m going to have to take some time to think. I went into my old book bag to hopefully find notes from my old motion design class that could help me complete this assignment. I hope I didn’t throw them out. Worse comes to worst I’ll use YouTube, as a designer I have to make do without and figure out a way to complete this assignment.  I hope this programs didn’t update uh oh that would make me stress more than I already am and, I don’t think that’s possible.

On this fine day, I was able to watch the “What’s New in Photoshop – October 2020 Adobe Max Release”. I wasn’t able to attend the live show but was able to catch the aftermath on Youtube. The speaker Terry White, the Adobe Evangelist shows tus the newest update. To create patterns in the past you draw your pattern and add it to the pattern panel. Now there’s a panel preview in the view menu that brings an interactive preview of how your pattern will look rather than you having to make a whole pattern swatch. You’re able to transform one of the patterns and it would affect the whole pattern and you’re able to see how everything will look, rather than remaking the whole pattern swatch, Photoshop gives you more of a free ability to work with the pattern before you actually save it as a pattern. It’s a cool update, i’d rather take my  pattern creations onto illustrator because i feel as if illustrator deals more with vectors well. Terry speaks of the discovery panel that provides hands on tutorials to look for stock, photos, fonts, what’s new, quick actions which are known to be very helpful. For an example you can enter a quick action to change the photo to black or white, you can make the images blurred against the background and check this, this is just crazy to me within the new update photoshop allows a quick action that allows the user to be able to remove the background with just a click of a button. Usually this process is done with the magic selection tool, to select the parts that are unwanted and then that area is deleted. Now photoshop has the ability to detect what you are trying to silhouette so that a new user, ( not like myself ) has an easier time being able to get the job done.

Terry also introduced the sky replacement tool in which you are able to work with the skies within a photograph. Majority of the time the photos aren’t the way we want them to be especially when it comes to outdoor shooting and capturing the sky, so as designers we have to work with what we have. Photoshop now has a sky replacement within the edit tab. The skies can be replaced in order to acquire the look you want. You can use stock images that are photoshop or you can import your own photo so that photoshop has something to work with. Photoshop is now able to detect the sky through various objects and now change the background being the sky. This is a task that would usually take the user’s hour for the user to complete having to separate everything but, now this is a task that can be done with a single button. It would also save a lot of time if they are trying to change the time of the day, the sky can easily be replaced without having to delete the whole background. Terry is a very informative instructor, he needs to speak louder although. His last video went very well to me. It was on indesign and he spoke about all the new updates and changes coming to indesign just like how he’s doing with photoshop.

Today I was unable to make the adobe max event, I was so mad. Oh my lord !  I had to catch up on it on youtube, thank god there’s still a way to review the content because i had to babysit my niece, it was a family emergency that couldn’t be avoided. The video i watched was “What’s new in Adobe Indesign-October 2020 Abobe max release” the video was quite informative i was able to listen to the speaker Terry White who is a worldwide design and photography evangelist for adobe. He spoke about the new upcomings in the adobe max release of indesign.Such things in the update I found were quite vital that indesign needed. To be honest the points brought up were points that I’ve spoken about in the past and how indesign needs to make an update, or correcting, or something. Terry spoke very clearly and he took his time. He spoke of working with text around images. Text wrap is the ability to wrap the text around an image. With adobe max masking around the subject you’re able to vary the amount of space around the subject to get it to look right, usually done on photoshop but now indesign allows it in an update. I always wondered why that was possible, but i figured it was because photoshop deals more with photos. Well now Indesign lets you do that. The adobe max update allows idesign to detect photos better and understand what the user is trying to do.

He also informs us of the Indesign review workspace, to share with others, you are able to allow only certain people to see your work. You can switch to invite only so only selected people may view, or make it public which gives anyone the ability to see it. It gives the review the ability to comment while also Giving people without an adobe ID the ability to review your work, since not everyone is rich and can afford adobe am i right ?. You can  also mark peoples changes as resolved and comment back to their statements, for an example if the reviewer says “Change this headline to a different font “ you can ask why and the non adobe user will be able to see your reply and communicate back to you. That’s kinda cool. 

Last but not lease a color satch update, You can now work with color better on indesign, when you have a specific color now you can change it through the whole document, you can search for this specific color and everywhere you used it, once changed you are informed how many places that color was changed. Way faster than going through the document and going through each page. Thank god, I always felt like things needed to be easier on indesign and I knew I wasn’t the only one feeling a need for change. What else does adobe max have to offer ? Hmmm well have to wait and see im hoping for something cool with illustrator.

Today Lisa emailed me, me and my partner Eli had finished the letterhead that needed to be done that Thursday, isn’t that neat ? Upon opening Lisas email and reviewing the task, the assignment was to do research. Ugh i hate research. The assignment is to review the graduate program viewbooks for other colleges. We are to read the viewbooks and determine if its a good viewbook or bad and why. She wanted us to list colleges, while keeping in mind to find some Cuny, Suny, Out of state Colleges and private colleges. She explained that in recent years she was chosen to design the college viewbook for Brooklyn College. The assignment to me wasn’t hard, I just had to critique viewbooks while keeping in mind if it makes me interested in the school. To be honest i have no idea what school is a Cuny or even a Suny so i had to go online and break the two into categories.

Upon doing this assignment I found 9 schools, for each of these schools I’ve given an explanation on why I choose that particular college and my critiques on the viewbook. It was hard to find college viewbooks. I feel as if some of them don’t have one which seems crazy, but it’s like their viewbook is hidden by the government CIA. i can’t find their viewbooks anywhere. This issue mostly occurred when looking for viewbooks within Cuny schools which I found odd. Upon making my list, I reviewed it and realized that I didn’t select any Cuny schools at all. I felt like this was going to be an issue but it was what she asked for, but honestly I didn’t like any of the Cuny viewbooks I saw. I’ve looked at Baruch, John Jay, Hunter etc. and didnt like them. My list concluded colleges such as University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Syracuse University, University of Nebraska at Omaha, The Northwest schools, Parsons and etc. I felt as if all these institutions have a suitable viewbook that draws applicants to their attention. For example the Parson viewbook speaks for itself. It doesn’t even look like a viewbook, it looks like a museum. I like how the viewbook is interactive rather than just scrolling. Thue use of fonts and colors are vibrant and clear. I like how they go more in depth with certain programs like a fashion design mfa and fine arts along with others each have a more indepth page. The way the book is designed it just drags you more sand more into the next page and makes you want to read. I like viewbooks that are clear to read, I like vibrant colors and not tons of whitespace. I feel as if all the whitespace makes one distracted and eyes wander. The headlines should be a different vibrant font to catch my attention. Viewbooks that are unique tend to do better than others, this can be inferred just by the design alone. After having my List i sent it to lisa via email. I explained to her my situation about not picking and Cuny schools and about how they dont catch my attention. She was actually happy about my response. She respected my honesty, she can tell i really looked over these viewbooks. I’m trying to stay on top of my game and be the best intern i can be. Well until next time guys, be safe.

Last week Lisa, my boss, had me complete two out of four letterheads that she needed to be created for the campus safety services. She informed me that she only wanted me to complete two out of the four documents. After meeting with her today I finally learned her reasoning. It’s been bothering me all week, I thought she thought maybe it’s too much for me or maybe he can’t do it but that wasn’t the case. She wanted me to be able to complete the documents on my own so that I can collaborate with another intern so that that individual can complete the last two documents. The student’s name was Elijah, I’ve seen him before in city tech and I’ve even had class with him before. Lisa emailed to both me and Elijah that she wanted us to both work together to help Eli make his version of the documents. I had to explain to Eli exactly step by step the moves that I took to create my letterheads. Did I mention that Lisa, my boss, said that she wanted me to take charge on this. I had a feeling that was going to happen. I planned on being patient with Eli and told him whatever he needs he can let me know, One thing I learned about the design field is that networking is a good form of working. Getting to know new people and collaborating on projects can really progress you as a person and a design as a whole. 

Working with Eli was a breeze as soon as he was able to see a sample of the work 

(the one i completed) in order to do his work. While helping him he explained that the Indesign program wasn’t his best program and how he was more of a photoshop guy. This can be good on projects that me and him collaborate on in the future. I’m more of a vector person when it comes to graphic design, I often have difficulties using photoshop or getting around but now that I know what he specializes in we can both help one another out. I’m not the best Indesign person but in terms of the skill level between both of us in the program, we both concluded I was more well rounded. I didn’t give Eli all the ropes. I helped him to a certain extent then let him spread his wings. Spread his wings as in taking matter into his own hands. Since i was able to make two variations of a good copy i told Elii to send me his assignment when he was done. If he is a graphic designer then he shouldn’t have any trouble am i right ? Two days later and 15 or so back and forth emails from me and Eli and we were able to complete the last 2 letterheads. I Hope lisa likes them to her liking and doesn’t need a pool ton of corrections, I know were interns but i would hate to look like a lousy intern

Today within my Brooklyn College internship I was given an assignment from Lisa, my boss. Before Lisa Zoomed called me I had to get ready. It was pretty early, I had to shower, brush my teeth, eat and make sure I found a good shirt to look professional. That’s a lot to do so early in the morning, trust me. Once I joined our call she informed me that she needed to work on letterheads for the office of campus safety.She provided me with four documents. The documents looked as if they were done in the year 2005, they were really old. Lisa wanted me to take the old format of the letterheads and recreate them using the new Brooklyn College format. The documents were in really bad shape, they had to be cleaned up and spaced out evenly to be the way she wanted. The directions were pretty clear, although it took some time. Majority of the time went towards cleaning up the old documents text, but once that was done it was onto the layout. It took a very long time because I overestimated the assignment. I thought it would be easy to just place the text within a confined space but it’s harder. Things have to be a certain size, while others need to be kerned. 

Upon receiving the assignment Lisa, my boss had given me four letter heads and informed me to show her the result of the first one when tis competed to make sure it’s to her liking. Both me and Lisa have had to at least send the first completed letter head back and forth ten times. I used the Brooklyn College guidelines to make the best format possible, white the back and forth emailing was to work out little kinks such as, spelling,line spacing, changing font weight. After going over Lisas corrections and making it the best possible way she wanted me to use the first complete document as reference to complete the next. I said no problem, but on the inside I wished she would have helped me the next. I told her “ I’ll give it my best shot”. She informed me that for the second document  it would be best if she can have it within a couple of days. It was no problem because more than one day is enough, but i’m just wondering will she like it ? Will it need another one hundred corrections ? I need to stop doubting myself and tackle these challenges. She then told me “only do one more”. I was a little confused at first, but then Lisa said she had something planned so i’m not sure what it is. Why would she want me to not finish all the work ? i didn’t want to question her authority, i believed she knew what she was doing and just told her “ No problem i’ll have the second one done soon” I hope the second letterhead is easier to do, the text is more messier than

Today is my first day working at Brooklyn college. I have a zoom meeting with Lisa, my boss. She said there’s a few things she wanted to go over with me before I get fully started and it’s alright with me. I’m a little scared. I hope what she has to go over isn’t going to be a lot. I mean it can’t be right ? It’s only the first day, but then again what can I expect? It’s a job. I woke up a little late but made it in time to be on zoom with a button up shirt and basketball shorts. How neat. Lisa likes to email me early so I always try to wake up at least 8 o’clock just in case she needs me that day. I really only have class on Wednesday but I told Lisa I’m available to work Monday Tuesday Thursday and Friday. I can actually work those days so it’s really up to her whatever she needs me to help her on.

Fast forward to after I met with Lisa and it went so well. She’s so nice and I even love her hair. Today she wanted to go over the brand guidelines for Brooklyn college. I know I’m lazy and usually call work a lot but this was actually a lot. The brand guidelines for Brooklyn College was at least 20 pages. She wanted me to go over the whole thing. The brand guidelines included everything literally. The guidelines explained the logo, letterheads, banners, colors, basketball team logo, official stamp seal and etc. Basically the guidelines explained everything about the logos and the placement in a very crystal clear manner so that the designer can easily follow the official Brooklyn college design without messing it up. It’s the do’s and what not to do. It took me a couple hours to review the whole guidelines, but I was able to manage. Lisa, the boss, wanted me to inform her when I’m done because she has a task for me invoking letterheads. There is a section within the Brooklyn college guidelines that explains how the Letter heads are done. Everything from the font, sizing, logo placement and colors. Upon recovering the guidelines Lisa, the boss gave me the Brooklyn college logo and fonts so that it would be easier. Thank god, because I have no idea how to make the Brooklyn college logo. I’ve taken notes within my book in case Lisa asks questions about the guidelines but I have a pretty good photographic memory so I hope I do good. She’s given me two days to review everything and take notes. Pray for me everyone I’ve got some Brooklyn College studying to do. I don’t want to seem like I just breezed over everything because in an actual job I have to take my time or else I’ll slip up and be fired. Lisa seems like a patient person but I don’t want to get on her bad side and test my luck

So I checked my email and guess what I’ve got. Yes you probably guessed it right, an internship. I couldn’t believe it; it only took about 100 weeks. It’s an internship that I applied to on my professor Tanya internship page. The job is to be an intern at Brooklyn College. The job is within the Office of Communications and marketing.I’ll have to do things such as researching, designing, and producing graphics for digital media projects including email headers, website and social media posts, and other marketing and promotional projects. In addition to that, Inputting and updating schedules, deadlines, and assignments into Basecamp, our project management software. It may seem like a lot but I have to be able to show the skills and knowledge that I’ve acquired over the years. I tend to doubt myself a lot which is something I’ve always needed to keep working on. It’s a very bad trait to have and often keeps me for completing my work.

Fast forward I’ve had the meeting , it was through zoom. It’s an app that people use to webcam one another since the Corona virus happened and yes I’ve got the job. I couldn’t believe it. The boss’s name is Lisa and she’s the head of the communication department. She seems very cool and nice, honestly I was scared that I would forget what I planned on saying. She asked me questions about myself as a designer and things hey I like to do. She asked me about the programs I can use and the level of comfort within these programs. She informed me that the job requires mostly indesign but that’s alright with me. She asked me questions about my portfolio and about certain projects that I did so that she can get a better idea. Overall she liked my portfolio. She then looked at my resume.The resume scared me a little though. She asked if I had any design experience and I said I didn’t. She said it was okay because I’m an intern and I’m learning. After discussing my portfolio and getting a better idea of who I am, she told me that she believes it can work. I was so happy , I was worried and stressed about if my work was up to par for if my design experience would trouble me but then it all went out the window. I was so relieved. We both then discussed my availability and that was all. Everything happened so fast, it seemed as if I was dreaming but I was actually there and it happened. This was my first design related interview , due to lack of response from other internships and I got it. From now on I just have to keep my head High and believe in my ability to do great. I choose to be able to work 4 days out the week although i’m not sure if i’ll be able to. This is a very hard semester for me and balancing senior projects while completing my portfolio is easier said than done trust me .

Today is the day I’m starting my job hunt for an internship. Today is the day that I can actually call myself a graphic designer, although I feel odd. I feel odd because I’m not sure if I’m ready for the outside world. I’m not sure if my work is substantial enough for an employer to actually hire me. All in all its no excuse now. Today’s is the day I fix up my resume, polish up my portfolio and prepare myself for the outside world. After fixing up my resume I applied to many places. At first I was looking for an internship in something I wanted. I wanted to work with clothing or at least create images for clothing. At this time we are currently undergoing the corona virus and it’s hard to get to the places we want due to everything being online. I applied to many places hoping for the best clothing internship but that didn’t work out. I applied for Altress, Kennith cole, glabable fashion, sweet appeal, everdaze and many more. All these internships were found on google due to me having a lack of communication with people and not really having a connection for help. I was hoping that they would reply fast, but one can only hope. My internship professor, her name is Tanya and she works at City tech. She has an internship website in which she posts locations that are looking for  a graphic design intern. I was so replaced about hearing this because we have to complete 120 hours of interning in order to pass the class. I know what you’re thinking…. it’s a lot, but if I don’t get any replies from the clothing internships that I’ve applied to I’ll have to take my business to the internship page that Tanya has. There’s no time to waste Tanya is on her students like “white one rice” so I better find an internship and it better be fast 

I hope I can find one about graphic design. Along the site there’s internships but they qualify for different types of designers. Such as animation illustration and web. Three things I’m bad at but I have to remember I’m an intern and that I’m always learning. This is what it’s going to feel like after college, although i won’t be getting graded on anything, it will be an actual job. Scary isn’t it ? Well see you next time, pray for me everyone. Fingers crossed. I’m hoping one of the clothing internships will respond. It’s been a dream of mine to make clothing that people feel expresses them, but I’m still an intern. I can only dream so big.