COMD 4900- Internship

As this was my very first internship, I feel like it was a success.  I learned how it feels like to be working for a company, how the company runs, and receiving on my designs to make it better for specifically social media (since the projects were geared towards social media the most.)  One thing that I have learned there that stood out to me the most was, social media kits and their purpose.  Social media kits are kits that have images where a group of designers are given a topic to design for and then placed together into a folder, this folder is then given to a company.  The company takes the images and posts it on their own social media, this helps promote the company and the company that gave the social media kits. During this internship, I have worked on projects with real life due dates and making posts for specific target marketing as well as initiating meetings with my supervisor. Overall this experience has made me build confidence in going out into the real world and I am grateful for this experience and to my supervisor who gave me the opportunity to work with them. 

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2B) Shepard Fairey is an artist who had gotten tangled up in a lawsuit due to the “Hope” campaign poster that he had created using a photo that was not his.  Fairey had decided to destroy the documents and shift the blame to someone else to hide the fact that he used a photo of Barack Obama from the Associated Press as well as hiding the fact that he had found the photographer.  Not only did Fairey destroy the documents and shift the blame to someone else, he filed a lawsuit against the Associated Press claiming that he used a different photograph.  What Fairey should have done was give credit to the photographer and/or aquire the rights to the image.  In the end, both sides had agreed to share the rights to make posters and merchandise containing the “Hope image.”   As designers, we should always, always remember to give credit to the original artist’s work or your career will be over while facing the consequences. 

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, https://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/07/shephard-fairey-is-fined-and-sentenced-to-probation-in-hope-poster-case/?mtrref=undefined&assetType=PAYWALL

1B) When I started my internship, I was not given a nondisclosure agreement.  A nondisclosure agreement is a legal contract to which you sign and you are not to discuss any information about the company, projects, or clients that you are working with to anyone.  It is also to help prevent outsiders from obtaining sensitive information about the company.  Like I had stated earlier that I was not given a nondisclosure agreement, this does not mean that I will not act ethically.  There are things that you are not supposed to share and it should be kept that way, this includes upcoming projects, designs, clients, etc.  There are exceptions however, for example if you work on a project and the company that you are working/worked for has published it then you can talk about it.

Twin, Alexandra. “Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA).” Investopedia, Investopedia, 16 Sept. 2021, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/nda.asp.

For my performance during this internship, I believe that I have been doing really well.  I ask questions to make sure that I am getting the right information for the project that is being assigned to me, so that way I can make sure that I am producing the right designs for the right task.  The designs that I have been creating for the organization have been mostly illustrative and there are some designs where I use photography as well. 

I make sure that I clear time during the week to work on the projects that are given to me and submit them before the deadline.  One thing that I would like to improve on is coming up with even better designs to help the organization garner more traffic for their social media posts.  The content that I produce is fine, however if I am to push myself to become a better graphic designer then I need to look more at other people’s content so I can get more inspiration to create better. 

The company that I am currently interning at is a non profit organization.  The non profit organization is an organization where they take revenue that they generated (from marketing, virtual events, and sweepstakes) and then convert cachet into cash and give it to other non profit organizations to help.  Since the company needs to grab people’s attention, they have told us to think of creative ways to promote traffic to generate from social media. 

Once I had emailed the employer at the nonprofit company, we had discussed when was the best time to have a one on one meeting.  When the time for the meeting came, we had an online interview where the supervisor had given a brief summary of how the company worked and what I would be doing.  I was going to be assigned tasks to complete while working with other designers and a public relations manager.  The next day I was given the company’s Google account to keep in contact and set up meetings as well as uploading the work that I have completed.  This was the beginning of my internship.

A couple of weeks before my Internship class had started, I started looking for internships.  I applied to multiple internships, however I was not accepted to any.  As the date for the class became closer and closer, I was getting a little worried that I would not be able to find an internship.  When I met my professor for the first time, she had asked me what programs I was comfortable using and looked through my resume.  Working with the information that I had given her, she had supplied me with information from a nonprofit organization and suggested that I apply.  I had gotten the spot at the organization after emailing the employer that worked at the nonprofit organization she had supplied me with.  Because I had applied a little late I was unable to start the first week of the internship, however starting my second week I was able to start working on a couple of projects. 

 

We have different employees scattered around the US therefore another employee’s workday differs from another due to time zones and other commitments.  For my work day, since I work at home, depending on the day of the week, I usually log on around the afternoon and then I log off for a few hours before logging back on again to do work, after that I am finished for the day and log off then. Other days I usually log on towards the end of the day and then do the work that is required for me to be completed. 

The content that I usually am working on are social media kits and social media posts that are coming up for a holiday like World Wildlife Day or for like St. Patrick’s day.  It is fun because I get to work on different subjects.  For example, I worked on creating social media kits for a couple of nonprofits and I had used animals in my designs.  When working on posts for social media kits or social media posts, we use a style guide that was created by a senior designer, to follow.  

Since my internship is completely remote, we do not stick to a certain dress code.  When we have our weekly and one on one meetings, we are allowed to wear our regular everyday clothes as long as we look presentable.  On the same day of the week, we have our weekly meetings and there we get our next tasks and then another day we set up a one on one meeting with the supervisor to see where our progress is and for some feedback.  We also have a group chat in Google Chat for the interns to ask questions, get caught up on anything they might have missed, and occasionally look back at the recaps of the meetings as well as the tasks that are typed there.

 

 

Up until recently the other interns and I have not worked on any collaborative projects however, I am working on a style guide for one of their subsidiary companies and the second supervisor had suggested that the interns (including me) each create a social media post.  After it gets submitted, all of us will choose which works best with the website.  The purpose of this is to gauge what elements can be used in the future social media posts, it also helps me because then I can add it to the style guide.  When the style guide is complete, the other interns will be able to use it when creating content for the subsidiary company.

2A)  As I started taking design classes, I learned that you can take images from those websites to use however, you are to credit the person/website that you have taken the image from. In the beginning, I was not aware that there were websites that provided free copyright images that you can use.  The professors would also stress the fact that we are to credit no matter what and they had also taught us how to credit the original.  One example of this is when I had taken a publication class a few semesters ago and was required to create a magazine.  The professor had stated you must credit the person where you had used their photo. I placed the credit under the image so it is visible.  She also had stated that you must create a page at the end of the magazine to make sure that you credit all the people and their photos that you used in one place.