Drawing has always been my passion since I’ve learned how to write but my achilles heel is not drawing from the top of my head.  I would have to visually see something to draw.  Fast forward to the time when i first purchased an iPad Pro with an ipencil.  One of the best investments I’ve ever had!

I love to take picture, set it up as a template, add a new layer, and draw it on my iPad with a software program called procreate.  I had recently did an illustration of Zoë Kravitz eating an apple.  It’s in a Rolling Stone magazine and the photographer was Zoey Grossman.  When i finished the digital illustration i added it as a post to my instagram with just Zoë Kravitz name, not the photographer who took the picture.

In this case I failed to give the photographer credit.  Under the AIGA Use Of Photography , Authorship credit and copyright notice it states “…The photo credit and copyright notice would ideally be placed adjacent to the image, weather horizontal or vertical, but can also be placed elsewhere as long as the reader will be able to relate them to the image.”

Furthermore; It hurts me to say this because I am a patron of Spepard Fairey’s art, I feel Mr. Fairey was unethical in his actions when he tried to cover up the use of an Associated Press photograph of former president Barack Obama.  Even though the penalty seems to be lenient, it definitely hurt is reputation as an artist.  It pays to have integrity.

While on my internship I was tasked to add the company’s color palette to a set of templates.  The Company purchased a standard license from Studio Standard through Creative Market, an online marketplace for designs. 

  The AIGA Guide to Copyright under exclusive rights states that “The designer, as the copyright owner, has the exclusive rights to reproduce work; license work; prepare derivative works, such as a poster copied from a design; perform work; and display work.”  Since the Standard license is a permit to use such design, Studio Standard give permission for the company to utilize the template designs.  I did not receive a confidentiality nor a non-disclosure agreement from my internship site.

I work from Monday through Friday from 4am to 1pm and went to school part-time Monday and Thursday so I felt getting an internship with my schedule was going to be impossible.  Getting an internship at Hashtag Lifestyle  was a blessing cause i only had to meet up with the director once a week, so I had the privilege to design at home.

The problem with that is I procrastinated and rushed my work.  Which showed because what should of taken less than a few days to revise the templates with the company’s color palette, took a few weeks to complete.  The Director did acknowledge the procrastination but was patient.  Time management is something i need to work on.

I am not sure if other designers go though this but i would start designing and I would see something that will inspire me to redesign something completely different.  It is a bit hard when a client (in this case the director) changes their direction because of the same reason.  If this case decided to purchase a designed set of templates she left worked well with her vision.  I totally understand cause It happens to me.

I did feel letdown cause my designs weren’t being used but It is part of the processes when working in design.  Always be prepared for change.   I was tasked to implement the company’s color palette into the templates.  In this post are a few templates i designed.  The photos were taken for Hashtag Lifestyles Instagram.

We eat and breath social media, no one can’t deny that.  But being a Communication Design major, I’ve never had a class on focusing designing a social media platform like Instagram.  The director was shocked to find out that the program really didn’t focus on design social media.  We had a quick conversation on it.  It is a great tool for marketing, especially if you are targeting a certain generation like millennials.

So I had to design templates for the company’s Instagram, some would be designs and some would be designs with photos that will have a feel to the template.  The problem I ran into was designing for Millennials.  Young female Millennials that are attracted to luxury brands.  It over came this problem by doing some research.

Since the company is in the works of acquiring office space, I meet directly with the Ms. Dimperio at a Downtown Starbucks in the Village.  I live in the Baychester section of the Bronx so it was a bit of a travel for me.  I would take the 5 train on Gun Hill Rd, transfer to the 2 train on 149 st – 3rd Ave, and take that train all the way to 14 st in manhattan to transfer to the 1.  That train would take me one stop to Christopher street.  In all; the travel would take about an hour and a half, i would leave my house early so i wouldn’t have to run into delays (a common threat to the average MTA commuter) No dress code was necessary.

I had emailed Monica Dimperio, Brand Consultant at Hashtag Lifestyle. She had asked me if I had any experiance in graphic design and if I a portfolio, I replied that I had neither but that I had a few school design I worked on over the years at CityTech.  Next I was asked to create a collage with photos from the company’s instagram.  Once i did the collage Ms. Dimperio had phoned me a few days later.  She gave me a little synopsis about the company and that we would meet up once a week to discuss my task at hand.  My responsibilities are to design templates, collages, and logos for the company’s instagram.