Zach Bokuniewicz Blog 2/27

Last week we had a guest lecturer, Zach Bokuniewicz. Zach explained his journey from where he started to where he is now. He spoke about his experiences within his internships and his key points in order to get the most of our own experiences. A big portion of his lecture was about his resume, his personality and how heā€™s used them in order to ā€œstep upā€ in his career. The design and use of color in his resume really represented his personality and his clean use of design. He had brought up a key point that I had experience myself in a previous internship, which was building good work relationships with your supervisors and coworkers. In 2014 I worked for Scripps Networks Interactive which caters to the Cooking Channel, HGTV, the Food Network, etc. It was not a graphic design internship, but I gained great experience and some even better references. I was hired for a three month internship, but since I had done such a great job and had great work relationships with my supervisors and coworkers, that I was kept on for an additional three months. To this day, I still use my two supervisors as references when applying to new jobs, internships and programs. I took a lot away from what Zach had spoken to us about, but it was cool that I was able to relate on a personal level. I plan on using this same key point in my internship for this semester, among others points that were spoken about.

Personal Essay 2/23

My name is Gabby Ledee and I am a senior, in my last semester at Citytech. My major/module is Graphic Design, but it is not the first major that I was in when I started college. When I started college back in the fall of 2010, my major was Business and I was attending the College of Staten Island. Two semesters into this major, I decided that I didnā€™t want to be a business major because it didnā€™t interest me. Ever since I was a little girl, I had a feeling that I was going to end up in a career having to do with art and/or creativeness. I loved to put things together, whether it was legos or building a three-dimensional something out of whatever I could get my hands on. For instance, when I was 6 years old, my family and I went to a hot air balloon festival in upstate New York. Upon coming home, I made a small ā€œhot air balloonā€ out of a balloon, yarn and paper; including paper people that stood in the basket. I was always doing arts and crafts, building and discovering new ways to utilize my skills. Choosing to become a business major was not my idea, but my parents since I was the more likely child to take over the family accounting business.

Realizing that business was not really my thing, I made a decision to transfer to Citytech where I could really test out my skills and see where I was going to go with them. I chose Graphic Design because it utilized my skill of putting things together and creating something that others could appreciate. Although, computer based graphics and the programs were definitely not what I was used to, I caught on pretty quickly to the basics. At this stage in my college career, I would say I am good in Indesign and pretty decent with the basics and some more, of Photoshop and Illustrator. I wouldnā€™t say Iā€™m the greatest or that there arenā€™t things that I still donā€™t know, but Iā€™m hoping with my last semester that I can really iron out my skills and know more than I do now. When it comes to websites, I will admit I am not strong in that area because coding was very hard for me to grasp in Web1. Designing websites is another thing because I believe I am decent in that aspect, but I would definitely say that I am much stronger in designing web advertisements. I have gotten a lot of praise and encouragement for most of the advertisements that Iā€™ve designed in the past three semesters because of the clear style that I work in.

I currently donā€™t know exactly where I want to end up or where exactly I want to work, but I know logos and ligatures are my strong suit. I understand that regardless of where I end up working, that my style canā€™t be used everywhere and that it comes down to what the client wants. Iā€™m hoping that this class and the last of my classes before I graduate, can help broaden my skills and my insight to help me in the real world.