Guen Fung’s ePortfolio

Balancing Assignments #8

Different amount of assignments in an internship is one of those things that is a struggle currently. As a non profit organization that I am a part of, there are a lot of projects that are ongoing. At first I began a project that was left off by other interns that were in before me. Although they are the work that I am adding on to the previous interns. There are just way more than I expected it to be. Ongoing projects from working with the government, other agencies and clients is what made the internship very lively for me. There were times where I felt overwhelmed with tasks, as my supervisor wanted to branch out different tasks for interns to get their hands on new experiences they might be interested in.

Most of the challenge when it comes to working on different tasks is that there are times where I got confused on the prompt. As I was working on one of the assignments from last week, I defaulted and jumped conclusion and set up the document to the default 8 and a half by 11 for a flyer, when I was actually supposed to be working on a 1080 x 1350 pixels for a social media post. When I am on Zoom, there are times other interns and the supervisor would ask me how I am doing. Along the lines they would be confused, or I would be confused on explaining what I am producing. As it is confusing on which task I was working on for them to keep track of. There were instances where I had to stop what I was doing for the day and produce a quick invitation for one of the interviews that was going to happen during the day.

What it really comes down to is the priorities that the assignments hold. Most of the assignments that are assigned to me, aren’t actually due soon. But occasionally there are moments where they request something that needs to be done within a day or two days. The experience gives me a better understanding of valuing the balance of the workflow that is offered in one work environment.

Role Model #7

Being able to find someone that takes interest in your work during my internship is something that I will always remember. As this is my first internship, the way the supervisor and other interns appreciate and take time to explain about their opinion I have submitted is heartwarming. From not being confident with my work, I began to slowly get more and more comfortable with the work I created.

But with many kind people from all different kinds of personalities, the one that stood out to me is the manager that works with me and a few other interns. He would be the role model for me as he is a great mentor. Being able to task assignments that seem difficult, to make it smaller and more manageable steps. It makes a difference when you have someone to mentor you. On top of this, he also backs us up when we have to present to the supervisor. If we weren’t clear about the presentation, he would step in for us and make it easier to digest for the supervisor. On top of that he explains to us how we should be approaching that kind of skill. Not only is he a good mentor, he also makes the work environment more fun. Being able to tell jokes, sharing experiences he has throughout the day, upcoming interesting things. I find that having those balances makes him a great manager. I would like to be able to communicate as well as he does with other people. Slowly taking the steps to become a better me for others to view the workplace more heartwarming.

Self Evaluating #6

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

When you are doing an internship, there are bound to be times where you are confused about your assignment. One of these for me was copywriting for a grant to get approval of the project we were going to start for the non profit organization. I wasn’t sure on how to start writing a grant and I was stuck on this first paragraph for a good hour. My supervisor was currently away, and I wasn’t able to ask her for advice. The other interns weren’t on at this time, as it was early morning where I logged on to work. Although it felt very difficult to come up with an idea or a foundation to start, I just started looking online for resources to help me guide the way.

I was impressed with the ways people could start a proposal in different ways. But for myself to evaluate, it was a lot more difficult. The first thing is that I never got to meet the people we were writing a grant to, as it was another intern that had that meeting with them. The only details I got was what happened during that meeting, and it was lots of information to remember. However, once I got started, I made a different alteration to thank the person for willing to partner with our non profit organization.

When my supervisor came back, I showed her what I got so far. She was satisfied with the way I approached the writing at the beginning. My supervisor then gave me some more details about the grant, and what to include into the proposal. The self evaluation I gave myself was a lot lower for expectation than what my supervisor had in mind for my work. Overall, this is a good take away for me, as I get to learn more about proposal writing and how to critique myself better in the future.

Remote Internship With A Partner #5

Being a part of a group effort for a project is a difficult task. Not mentioning that this is also a remote experience for me. Many of the other interns are remote as well. This has its pros and cons. Most people are happy that they don’t have to commute to go into the office, which is a bonus. But the downside to this is that the remote experience doesn’t help with explaining things at times. For example, using Adobe programs is much easier to explain when you are in person than on a Zoom call. The way you show someone to use a program is much more effective if you are in person with them.

There was this one assignment that required me to work on creating a mockup for a website. The request was to try to make it as a replica of the website. The issue with doing this was the amount of text they gave for us to include. One of the challenges was that I was working with a partner, and they had a hard time trying to align text onto the baseline in InDesign. As we are on Zoom, he was trying to fill in one of the pages, but was struggling to do so. As the text didn’t align from one paragraph to another. I shared with him what I do to get to the baseline grid to snap, but in the end he didn’t have that option on his InDesign’s program. Took us a few minutes to figure out what was the issue, it was that his shortcut key didn’t work, but opening it in the settings for the baseline grid shows up. It was also difficult as he was using a MacBook, and was in their campus’ cafeteria. Making it difficult to hear him clearly and that the operating system is different from the Windows computer that I use. The keys are slightly different, as well as differences in shortcuts in InDesign.

Overall, the way the internship is set up remotely makes it harder at times to collaborate with each other. But the pro is that people are more flexible with their scheduling as they don’t have to commute to be in person.

Learning Inclusion #4

It comes with no surprise that when you are on a team, you are bound to have different ideas and different knowledge in a particular topic. One of the biggest themes about working with an organization that is primarly helping people with special needs is that there is an importance of being inclusive. As there aren’t many people with formal training in the internship about the disability community, it was important for me to learn more about this. Many well known areas would have good inclusive access for the disabled, but many places in New York City do not have that access.

Part of the internship is to identify what the city could be improving to be more accessible. One of the projects we had was partnered with the Historical House Trust. One of the issues with HHT is the fact that they are lower budget than something like MoMa (Museum of Modern Arts), the lack of fundings, workers and acknowledgement makes it more difficult to assess what it is missing for a more inclusive access for the disabled community.

One of my favorite things about the internship is the ability to communicate. I get to meet spectacle artists. The disabled community is well versed, they have motivating goals and aspects that for a graphic designer, I am very honored to work with. They give aspects where I didn’t think were possible. Amazing people in this amazing community is what gives me a good smile. They make it so positive, in a world where there are a lot of negatives and bad interpretation towards disabled communities.

Role At My Internship #3

When it comes to responsibility, us interns have different tasks that set up a bigger picture. Being a graphic design student, I would love to work on graphical things. But in hindsight, it isn’t as black and white to just assign graphic things all the time. There are many times that require copywriting. Being a graphic design student, we get to learn more differences in our audience as we are learning how the market works in a different approach compared to other fields. Although we have our set skill sets as interns, we weren’t showcasing it completely as it was an interview, and we haven’t got to work with each other to learn our work styles and our personality as humans.

One of the interests I have is motion graphics, in the field of graphical design works. When the supervisor and the other workers in the weekly meetings, we have discussed what we want to move forward towards. It was in great interest for me to emphasize on what I would like to get done, as it helps me as an individual and have work that is impressive for ABS as well. I spoke about having interests in motion graphics, such as video editing. Later on in the internship, I was tasked with an older intern that has been there for a few months prior, and we connected over and started working on a video project where we interview artists and make a video with clips from all the interviews to showcase a collage collaboration.

With this in mind, I am excited about what kind of tasks will be assigned to me. The steps of having the conversation with the supervisor is helping me grow as a whole. I am getting out of my comfort zone to let them know what I would prefer to work on during my time with my internship.

Organization For Special Needs #2

Second part of the journey of internship is getting to know more about what I am working for / towards. Although the description and the interviews filled in a lot of the gaps about special needs, but there were so much more to unravel. It was an appeal for me to get in, as I have family members that have disabilities and navigating through the performances and arts is one of life’s wonders. Being inclusive is important in this regard. Having people appreciate the works of disability communities and individuals that create creative pieces.

There are other interns in this internship. They are from CUNY as well, but from all over the boroughs. They were all hand selected to be a part of the organization, following through the same procedure for interviews. The organization has many connections that are connected to them. They work with the government, individual artists and big tech companies such as Google. Their services provide for museums, galleries, cultural institutions and arts organizations through partnership opportunities, training sessions and inclusive environment assessments, inclusive technology assessment and feedback, user experience research, and ongoing consulting options.

Overall, the organization provides a lot of good into society. I am honored to have this engagement with their organization. Helping others and the community is a wonderful experience to have. I hope to get more insight and learn more about their operation.

Internship Interview #1

The first journey of an internship starts with finding an intern. Honestly, this was probably the hardest part of the journey. There were too many options out there, the anxiety of the what ifs comes up. I personally didn’t have a too polished resume, let alone a proper looking portfolio to showcase my work. Being a part of CUNY, there are opportunities that I took advantage of. One of these came in the hands of the Cultural Corps from CUNY. I was able to get into the Cultural Corps. Within that time frame, applying to internships were a lot simpler. The interviewers know a bit more about you in general, being a part of CUNY and having a safety net of Cultural Corps, as you would need to be accepted into Cultural Corps to get to interviewers.

My personal interviews with the interviewers went smoother than I expected. At first it was very high intense anxiety. As it went on, the process got more natural for me. There was less fright, less stutters and most importantly, I felt a lot more confident. Setting the mood to be easier for myself and the interviewers was insightful. Most of the interviews followed standard interview questionnaires. I was practicing and using resources online, such as the one from Business Insider, about The most common questions hiring managers ask during job interviews. The little prep work allowed me to answer questions that were less expected. But having reviewed some of the questions, the curve ball is less of a hassle.

Overall, the interviewing and getting accepted to Cultural Corps was an amazing opportunity for myself. But I wouldn’t have gotten this offer without the help of other students, they were the ones that informed me about this program from CUNY. The best part about all of this, is that I got accepted to the intern I was most interested in, this was a non profit organization that craters to special needs. Their agenda was the first thing that was catching my attention when I saw their info. Being able to get interviewed by them through Zoom. I was able to understand their organization and how I could be a part of their operation to sharpen my skill set and provide a service to the community.

Ethics for Graphic Designers: Part 2

2a. My perspective from reading the articles from AIGA has shifted from a less understanding to a more concrete understanding about the ethics of design. The importances of having ethics, as well as the importances of the law. It is only fair to have your works credited and recognized. Many of my works I have done in class aren’t credited in the past. But that was because they weren’t enforced when it was presented for classwork. But as an intern right now and in the future, it is always important to have the works credited. I wouldn’t want someone to use my work one day without having the credits shown. For example, it is only fair to practice what I preach. According to A Client’s Guide to Design: How to Get the Most Out of the Process from AIGA Business Ethics. “A professional designer must not attempt, directly or indirectly, to supplant or compete with another designer by means of unethical inducements.” To me, that quote means that even if one’s work isn’t appealing, the ethics of not using unethical inducement is important.

2b. The New York Times article “Shepard Fairey Is Fined and Sentenced to Probation in ‘Hope’ Poster Case” is about Shepard Fairey. An artist that was fined in the federal court for using a photograph without permission and making a profit off that. Fairey at first denied that he was in the wrong, stating that it was a fair use of the photograph of Obama. He claims that he transformed the photograph later on and that was allowed under creative expression. What I got from this article is that although you can get away with taking credit for some things, it isn’t wise to. Even when corner stores take photographs from the internet and use that on their storefront / menus, they could get into huge legal issues. It is most important to take the interest of ethics before anything else after reading this article. Although Fairey is doing fine and continues to do artworks on social media such as Instagram, it is still a good example to not follow what he has done with his poster with Obama as he stated that he was ashamed of his behaviors.

Sources

Richard, Grefė. “A Client’s Guide to Design: How to Get the Most Out of the Process” AIGA. PDF. New York City, 2001

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

Ethics for Graphic Designers: Part 1

Photo by **Med Badr Chemmaoui** on **Unsplash**

1a. In the world of graphic designing, there are always questions and concerns about ethics. Around the corner stores in NYC you would see stock photos of burgers, fries, bagels all rip off the internet. There are even times you could find one of these photos with their watermark still attached. Although this seems to be the norm for a lot of the smaller businesses, the fact that this actually breaks the guidelines of copyrights and devalues the person / group that came up with the design, photography, etc… On top of this, the designs that are found in these stores are normally not very great, as they are often commissioned by a friend, or a family member that has limited knowledge in design. “Design is about the whole, not the parts. If you wear your $2,500 Armani suit with the wrong pair of shoes.” This is a quote from A Client’s Guide to Design: How to Get the Most Out of the Process from AIGA Business Ethics. The meaning behind this quote is that although it’s a good photo, it’s how it is used to deliver a good design.

1b. As an intern currently at my site, there wasn’t a NDA to be signed. Non – disclosure agreement wasn’t something the intern cared for as it was more beneficial for the interns to explore and give more knowledge about their experiences. However there are laid out rules to using photos and logos. We have to request to use their designs, getting their approval to work with their design to incorporate them into the projects we are assigned to. Although making some of the mock ups aren’t in these rules. But having to design for a project that involves publishing has to follow the copyrights rules. As students and interns we have used stock images, photographs, clips. “Fair use is a limited exception to the exclusive power of the designer (or client, if the designer has transferred rights to the client) to control the uses of designs.” This is a quote from Guide Of Copyrights by AIGA Business Ethics. Fair use in terms of stock assets involves crediting the author of the asset. According to Use Of Illustration by AIGA Business Ethics. “Written and signed documentation should be completed before work is begun (even on a rush project) to ensure that everyone has the same understanding.” My supervisor is the one that handles the works from other artists, asking for permission for us, the interns. If this gets approve, then the supervisor gives us the greenlight to use the artwork from that artist.