Author: Evelyn Ng (Page 3 of 4)

This week I learned that you can make a title of a chapter more interesting by formatting it like this! CHAPTER 1 – Making marshmallows. I also learned if pictures aren’t all the same size, it’s still best to try to center them to make some parts consistent. On top of that, I’ve learned that graphic design involves research. By that I mean you can’t take images from the website because of copyright but you can illustrate them. So I had to figure out what is the best way to illustrate several buildings to make them look consistent yet still stick to the theme? My two mentors Or and Philip suggested using a polaroid camera, having pictures around the wall or scattered at the bottom of the poster. I could also use a corkboard and pin-up photos of the old and new buildings to better incorporate my client’s idea instead of doing a one-point perspective. So not only did I have to research old buildings, but I also had to figure out where to place them and their size so the visuals would aid the text, not be the focal point. Philip taught me how to align things perfectly to the page, and overall I’m also learning how to measure the speed at which I work with the deadline. This means I take the ideas that are given to me and execute it the best I can and fix them as I go. Time is very valuable when everything is due next week including all your classwork so it’s super important not to try to get everything perfect within the first draft.

This week I attended a club fair as a part of my asynchronous class. We started with an ice breaker about what our major is, and we named and claimed something. Today I got to connect with Sabrina Santos who manages clubs on LinkedIn. We were both peer mentors and I also met Ngozi Okonkwo who is the president of the newspaper club and several other occupations. They played a presentation slide with each club’s details and contact info in case we were interested and hosted a Q and A at the end. You can join clubs at this website: https://citytech-cuny.presence.io/. I’m interested in moving pixels and the exp club but since the clubs all meet at the same hour I probably can’t join more than one club at the same time.
I also attended a webinar about canto to Mando transition and how important it is to learn multiple languages because it can gatekeep you from many opportunities. Through that webinar, I learned that you could learn Mando by keeping the same sentence structure and then changing the way its pronounced which makes a lot of sense than learning Mando from an English speaker’s point of view. While I do know that not everyone has the luxury of having a canto background it was still very informative and they were trying to get people to join their courses. I decided not to because there are other languages I wish to pursue in order to work for Korean MMORPG companies. I choose to focus on my studies and internship for now.

So far what I have learned in this internship is that I should ask the client first of all what the project goal is. What the deliverables look like, deadlines, and also if they have existing content to share with me. If they have previous versions of the event that is also super helpful. I should also keep an eye out for logos to include and if they should have a specific size. When designing for something that needs to become a banner and social media post it’s better to just design the poster and then take elements of that poster and convert it. I should also have a sketch one week after, as well as have the poster ready one month in advance of the actual deadline if possible. If the deadline is tight I should just focus on the content.

On our second project during training, we did personal posters, and that project allowed me to illustrate. I learned along the way that leaving things white is usually not the answer as it is bland. But for our final and last project for the training, we did a group project on designing something like a campaign. I was in charge of the postcards and through that, I really learned that we’re designing for a client with a specific purpose in mind. There should be a reason why you choose certain colors, imagery, and body copy. For me, the struggle in this project was thinking about the purpose of the design. Where would the postcard be placed? Would it be mailed out to students if it’s a postcard trying to convince students to be vaxxed? There was a lot to consider and in the end, me and my team thought a digital postcard and zoom backgrounds would be best.

The attire at my company should be casual formal or formal. I dress in a plain colored t-shirt with no distracting designs. The typical employee week is to first send out an introduction meeting with your client. From then on you schedule a meeting to figure out what they need. Afterward, you schedule a meeting for the following week after but before you meet with the client or provide them the sketches you meet with the design team once every week to show our work. After the meeting, we leave and work on revisions or suggestions made by the members of the team. My mentor provided me his number to contact if I have any questions but I email if it’s not urgent.  My fellow interns have a group chat to ask questions or to ask for feedback. The software I use to manage my projects is an excel sheet we all write down the date, purpose, and outcome of the meeting in our own ways.

Overall when I attended summer training, I actually learned some pretty valuable things. We have a manual to refer to and organization is key. We were taught to organize our files in two folders named semester files and master files. The semester files were for us to put whatever we wanted in it and master files would only be for our final projects. We would have to send that out to our director eventually so it had to be perfect. Getting used to revision is a big thing as well especially as an entree graphic designer. I know for sure I didn’t come in the strongest in body copy and spacing but I am learning things like how the text should fit the shape, not the other way around. At the beginning of our summer internship we designed a poster for City Tech writer.

My role in Faculty commons is to design for my client. This semester I will be working with Professor Hellman to create a Soho memory poster, web banner, and posts for social media. My supervisor is Professor Mary Ann Biehl but my mentor for this project is Philip. I’ve come to select this internship because it was recommended to me by Professor Woolley. I was invited to work on the emerging scholar’s program and during my time there I was working with Professor Woolley, Professor Guzman, and Jennie to create illustrations for a book. At the end of the program, Professor Woolley suggested that I should sign up for Faculty commons so I asked if both professors would be willing to write me a recommendation letter and if Professor Woolley could review my portfolio. They were kind enough to say yes and I deeply appreciate that I was given this opportunity to get interviewed through zoom. I was interviewed by two of their designers and the director at the end during the second half but I was by myself. The wait was a few weeks I believe my interview was during May and I got to start training the month after. The questions I was asked during the interview were what are my strengths, weaknesses. What are my favorite pieces in the portfolio, what do I hope to gain by interning at faculty commons, and what do I think faculty commons does. Above are photos of digital sketch ideas that I had for City Tech Writer before coming to the final. The first three weren’t interesting enough but the last two had body copy issues that I later corrected.

The internship I got accepted into is called Faculty commons. It consists of a Faculty Advisor and a design team at City Tech. Faculty commons is under CUNY – New York City College of Technology and is there to design and solve visual problems for our clients. It is a center for teaching and learning while helping coordinate professional events happening at New York City College of Technology.  The events we will be designing for can be found on the Faculty Commons website. The Faculty common directors are Professor Mary Ann Biehl and Professor Shelley E Smith. I will be joining the internship as a design intern alongside 3 other interns that specialize in different things. We will come together with our design mentors in order to create visually appealing posters, flyers, etc that the client needs. Faculty commons has an internship journal on open lab where they reveal commencement final design entries, honors convocation finalists, and more. I posted a picture of our second project from the training above. We were tasked to design a poster that represented us, our interests, and our strengths.