INTERNSHIP JOURNAL 1: INTRODUCTION AT MY INTERNSHIP
My name is Marc Rodriguez, I’m a communications and marketing intern at East Harlem Tutorial Program for CUNY Service Corps. I started my position all the way back in September of 2019. At my internship, I work on a number of different projects that me and my supervisor work on together. I’m responsible for updating marketing materials such as brochures or letterheads. I’ll fix up the website making sure everything is consistent, and I also sometimes work with their social media posts. I’m learning how to use WordPress and Square Space in which I’m fairly comfortable with. I wasn’t too experienced with WordPress, but I’m continuing to learn how it works. I do love the culture at my office. Everyone is friendly and communicative. The office culture is not really corporate at all, which is something I really like. Overall, I’ve gained some new skills but also building on some new skills as well.
After a few months, I believe that what’s important about having in an internship is to always network with people. Networking helps you to connect with people, which is something I should definitely do more.
INTERNSHIP JOURNAL 2: AN IMPORTANT PROJECT I’VE BEEN WORKING ON… FOR QUITE A WHILE.
So this is my 5th month at my internship. At this point, I’ve learned new things about myself. I’m naturally quiet in an office, but I’ve been a quiet person my whole life. Even though this is my first time working at an office, I’m getting used to how an office operates. I’m always focused on the work that I’m doing and if a new task comes up that I’ve never done before, I’m ready to learn!
Me and my supervisor were discussing my hours for the rest of the month of February. Since I’m apart of the CUNY Service Corps Program, which is a CUNY internship program where you have to complete 240 hours by May, we had to talk about extending my hours all the way till April. I had over 160 hours done already so we needed to make sure it extended a little before may.
My tasks for the day was getting letterheads done for my supervisor. I’ve been working on the letterheads for the past couple of weeks. This was an on-going project, and usually as a communications and marketing intern, you work on a lot of long term or short term projects. My supervisor told me in the beginning that I would be working on a lot of projects at the same time. My supervisors boss would send me instructions on how she would want the letterheads designed. So once I design them, I’ll send them to my supervisor, and her boss would review them. I’m making these letterheads so the board members can review them and figure out which letterheads can be approved as marketing material. So it is my responsibility that the letterheads are designed the way they would want them.
NETWORKING EVENT AT CENTER FOR FICTION
For my networking event, I went to a panel discussion that featured comic book artists. Comic Book artists, Khary Randolph, Robin Ha, and Vita Ayala and were all part of the discussion panel. My former professor, Sara Woolley, invited me and some students to attend the event. It was at a library called, The Center for Fiction. The Center for Fiction is in Lafayatte Ave, Brooklyn. It was a really big library! It looked very classy. The book shelves were very high with so many books.
All three panelists talked about making a name for themselves in the industry. They discussed about topics like what was it like being a person of color in the industries that they worked for. Comic book artist, Khary Randolph, talked about how some comic book companies didn’t tell stories of people of color realistically enough. So he had to show them what people of color actually went through instead of the stereotypical stories people would normally hear.
After the panel, they all had a signing of their books for fans. While I was at my table, me and some friends were about to leave, but our professor wanted us to stay a little longer and network with some of the panelists that were there. Sometimes when I’m at events like this, it does seem a little scary to talk to people, but it is something that is good to practice on. I was a little anxious, not about talking to the panelists, but I was anxious because It was after 8:30 pm, and It was a little late for me. I live in the Bronx and I didn’t want to get home late. Anyway, I knew it would be helpful for me and the other students that were there so we could network with some of the comic book artists.
I had the pleasure of meeting Robin Ha at the signing table. I thanked her for coming out to speak to the audience. She’s actually friends with one of my professors, Sara Woolley. I actually bought one of her recent comic book memoirs called “Almost American Girl”. I’m into reading a lot of biographies of peoples life, so I thought I would give it a read. The book is about her growing up in Korea and struggles about living in America. She told me that the book was her first published graphic novel that was her own. It took a long time to write the graphic novel and it took her 5 years to have it published. I really didn’t think it took a long time for graphic novels to get published. However, she told me that lots of editors turned her down. She also gave me advice on how to find my own style in drawing. She told me to continue to copy other artists that could influence your style and draw hundreds of their drawings. I’ve taken this advice lately, and now I understand its important to see how you can come up with your own style with influence from other artists. I think it is a good way to experiment your artwork.
I think what I’ve learned from this event, is that networking is just like talking to people. I’ve met Khary Randolph before, but some of the others I didn’t know them, so I didn’t know what to say. I think it’s good that I got to work on my communication skills. I feel like it’s good to hear other artists perspectives on the industry and how you should get your foot in the door.
INTERNSHIP JOURNAL 3: MY PREVIOUS SUPERVISORS LAST DAY
I just found out recently that my supervisor had to leave because she got another job at a non-profit. I had found this out when she told me. She helped me a lot throughout my internship and I had a pleasure working with her. She had taught me a lot with working with WordPress, which was something I was inexperienced with, so I was glad that I gained knowledge and skills when working with WordPress.
I’m now working with another employee, who is the head of the department that I’m in. She is my new supervisor and will oversee my work until the end of my internship. I had to let her know what I’m working on and what I have learned so far through out my internship. Me and my old supervisor, Jocelyn, worked on a 30-60-90 plan. The 30-60-90 plan is a document to help keep track of what I’m learning. Although, she took care of tracking my learning, I was the one that needed to be responsible for what I wanted learn and let her know if there was something I didn’t learn yet.
My supervisor didn’t give me too much work for the day. All I worked on was letterheads for the day. I use Adobe acrobat to edit them because they are pdf’s. It was easier to edit the pdf on adobe acrobat rather than using InDesign. I didn’t have to re-type everything which made it easier. My supervisor said that the letterheads looked good after a few revisions. So she usually sends these letterheads to the board members. If the board members don’t want something added to the letterhead page, they will just tell my supervisor and I will be the one to edit them. So I’m kind of the designer and editor at the same when creating these letterheads.
NETWORKING EVENT AT SOCIETY OF ILLUSTRATORS: SKETCH NIGHT
Me and some friends started our own Instagram chat group on social media. We actually all came together to start a group chat after being invited to the Society of Illustrators from one of our professors. We always talked about going to a place where you can practice your drawing skills so we found out that society of illustrators had a sketch night that they do every Tuesday and Thursday. We decided to agree on a day where everybody could come and draw as a group.
We all decided to go on a Tuesday. We all didn’t arrive at the same time and we all came at different times. When I got there, it was starting to get crowded! The building had two floors and sketch night took place on the 2nd floor. The event had cost 20 bucks. It was really packed and a lot of people were sitting very close together. The models at sketch night were all nude. I don’t really mind models being nude because I feel like its more natural drawing them nude. Me and my friends couldn’t sit together since it was very crowded. We were scattered in different seats. They also had foldable tables where we could place our sketchbooks on. They also had healthy food and drinks which was pretty good too.
INTERNSHIP JOURNAL 4: STILL WORKING ON OUR SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN
So far I’m on the 6th month of my internship. My supervisor is continuing adjust to my workload. She’s been great so far in guiding me through these past two weeks. We also still have check-ins on Mondays.
My supervisor needed me to create a social media post. We are still in the process of our social media campaign. We are working on a social media campaign to recruit students, teachers, and volunteers. Our campaign focuses on “The Why?” of teachers, and students. Teachers and students share their experience of why they love to be at East Harlem Tutorial Program everyday. Each social media post is targeted to a different audience.
My supervisor would usually send me a photo of a student or teacher, and I would include them in our Instagram post. Today, she sent me a photo of a student and her mother. I was the one that took this photo during a video shoot we had a couple of months back. So I would mock-up Instagram posts with photos of students or teachers. I would re-size the photo a bit to make sure its placed in the center of the Instagram post.
INTERNSHIP JOURNAL 5: FIRST TIME WORKING HOME… LETS SEE HOW THIS GOES’!
My supervisor emailed me late at night the day before I come into work. She told me that the offices were being cleaned and disinfected because of concerns of the coronavirus. So nobody was able to come to work. I was a little concerned because I thought somebody had it, but luckily nobody was infected with the coronavirus. I was thankful nothing happened to anybody.
So, since this is my first day working remotely, I just had to log on to the computer to make sure my supervisor knew I was ready to start the day. Me and supervisor decided to have a phone call check-In. She was very busy in the morning, but had time for me anyway so we could touch base on the work I had to do.
There were a couple of awards I had to edit on my own. The awards were to be given out to notable teachers and staff at an all-staff summit that my organization usually has twice a year. All I had to do was replace the names in the awards with new names. I didn’t have trouble with it so much. I’ve never edited type on awards before, but now I see that type has to be in a consistent manner on all of the awards. Thank goodness for guidelines and rules though on Adobe acrobat! It helped me a lot to make sure it was consistent. This took a little while since I was trying to be extra careful with the type, and I needed to find the font for it because I didn’t have the original one. There were also some issues exporting it. The type didn’t show up after it was turned into a PDF. So some things needed to be fixed. Thankfully it got fixed and everything seemed ok. I sent it to my supervisor and she said everything looked good and consistent!
INTERNSHIP JOURNAL 6: SLOW DAY… BUT STILL ADJUSTING… STILL WORKING
So ever since the organization I worked at, closed for the time being, working at home has been a little challenging to adjust. You don’t want to get distracted. I’m not getting distracted as I was before though but I guess I need time to adjust to it. I’ve been working home for the past couple of weeks and it will stay this way until my final days of my internship.
I didn’t have that much to do today. My supervisor wanted to me to monitor our social media accounts. Ever since the schools shutdown, virtual classes was becoming the new norm. The schools at my organization were now having classes all online and this is happening all over the world. So it’s becoming a new thing!
So now that virtual learning is becoming the new norm, my supervisor wanted me to monitor our social media that we were tagged in that showcased virtual learning. My supervisor told me that she wanted us to have a collage of photos to show virtual learning on our website. We had about a couple of posts that tagged us in our social media. There was a video that tagged us in a social media post with a student having her class on google classroom. Usually if we want to have photos on our website, we would need permission from parents so that we can use them. In this case, we got permission so everything was good!
INTERNSHIP JOURNAL 7: ART PIECE FROM NASSAU MUSEUM
When we saw the Blue Exhibit video from last week in class, the art piece that I found interesting was a carpet painting that was created by Antonio Santin. I couldn’t find the name of the actual piece. I was interested in how this particular painting has a very hyper realistic look that gives it some type of form. There’s a lot of movement in this piece. It looked very unsettling and unreal when I first looked at it, but it has details to show what you might be looking at. I couldn’t see that they were paintings at first because they almost look liked photographs. The painter has had a lot of art pieces like this one. He wants the viewer to understand what is really happening when they see these still life paintings.
INTERNSHIP PRESENTATION: IDEAS FOR A THEME
- Always be ready to find a solution
- It’s important being yourself at an office
- Always be curious and be ready to learn something new everyday.
- Ask questions
- Finding balance between projects
- Take initiative
INTERNSHIP JOURNAL 8: WORK CULTURE AT EHTP
I enjoy the culture here at EHTP! It is a friendly environment and it’s not corporate at all. Everybody is very approachable and friendly. I didn’t have no problems with other colleagues which is a good thing. I do my best to avoid things like that, but also I try to be the best that I can be. Most people wears suits. Some people dress casual. I remember on orientation day, I asked one of my colleagues, Raul, about the dress code at EHTP. He said that it was ok to dress casual or dress in a suit, as long as it was appropriate. I don’t really dress in suits, so I was glad that I had the option of wearing whatever I could.
Working here at EHTP made me realize that I want to work in a friendly and relaxed environment like this one. This was my very first internship, so I hope the next won’t be corporate at all!
NETWORKING EVENT AT AIGA: CAREER ADVICE DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
There is has been an economic downturn since the pandemic began. It’s A very struggling time for a lot of people. So I decided to attend this webinar by AIGA for advice during a pandemic. Since I’m going to graduate, I need all the tips and advice for this struggling time as I don’t know what the future entails for a lot of us.
The Webinar had a couple of designers as guests who are now working from home and they gave the audience tips on how to apply for jobs and look for new opportunities during a pandemic. They briefly talked about how some ad agencies laid off some of their best talents. I don’t think they specified which countries have done this, but this is what usually happens during a pandemic that leads to a recession. One guest said that those companies will have to re-hire new talents that have years of experience.
The panel guests mentioned that opportunity is more global than ever. Since working from home is the new normal, anybody can work for a company in another part of the country, even if they don’t live in that country. They talked about a designer who lives in Denver, and he applied for a job in San Francisco, California. So opportunities are endless during this time. They also said to keep on networking with people on LinkedIn. They recommended to attend virtual networking events and update your portfolio. They also gave us advice on what skills to focus on right now which are business and commercial, AI design, UX design, motion and video, e-learning, and instructional design.
CREATIVE APP REVIEW: SWIFT PLAYGROUNDS
So I went on a search frenzy looking for a creative app to choose. It is hard to find app that matches what you like, which is why it took me so long to find one. I cam across an app that looked pretty interesting. It’s called Swift Playgrounds. Swift is a 3D coding application that helps people who want to learn how to code. Now the coding that you do on this app is not mundane, it’s pretty fun, easy and enjoyable to learn. It actually has pleasing and playful 3D visuals with a character interacting with the world around him. The user has to control the character by inserting command codes so that he can move around. They also have tutorial videos on their app in case you are new to coding. You can create your own world by placing objects like trees, flowers, etc.. You can also share your creations with other people or record yourself creating the world. Now we can all agree that coding is hard and it’s not easy. However, this app is for beginners who want to have a fun learning experience with coding.
This is the user interface. I was doing a tutorial which was to play around with the code. The objective is to move the character so he can capture the red gem on the other side.
INTERNSHIP FINAL PRESENTATION:
ETHICS BLOG POST 1:
At my internship, they do have some restrictions on using certain photos of people. My supervisor would tell me that since they would always do photoshoots for teachers and students, they needed permission from the teacher or the students parents to release their photo for social media marketing purposes. They did give me a paper that was called a “Visual Style Guide”. In that Visual Style Guide, they do have a statement regarding branded materials, logos, and materials that should be requested to use by emailing the organization itself. They have a Resource Folder on their website that has more information on having permission on using their materials and logos.
I didn’t have to sign any non-disclosure agreement. Since I was an employee in the organization itself, I had access to use photos and logos in our branding for social media, or marketing materials. I would use photos or logos unless instructed by my supervisor, who would let me know if using certain photos or logos would be fit to use for a project.
ETHICS BLOG POST 2:
So there have been sometimes where I have had to credit an artists work. For my animation class, we had to do a final project where we would create a character and that character would have sing, talk etc… So it was up to us to use our own audio or find audio on the internet. I found a song on the internet and used it in my animation. By the time I was in portfolio class, my professor told me that it’s always good to credit somebody’s work in your project. Some of my professors even told me that if you collaborate with other designers on a project, you have to credit them in that project because they contributed in helping with the project.
After reading the Fairy Copyright Case study, I think that settlement seems fair, but also I think that Shepard Fairy raised up a good argument that it was for artistic expression, even if he altered the photo. he didn’t re-use the photo and shared it as his own. He used the photo as reference by adding his own colors and editing, and adding the word “HOPE” on the poster. As an artist, people use reference all the time. They shouldn’t use reference and share it as their own work because then it could be copyright issue. Fairy transformed it into something of his own and changed lots of little details that were in the Obama Garcia photo. Using reference is kind of like inspiration, but original reference from a person or org. shouldn’t be shared as it was your own.
