This Week I worked on more promotional stickers. As opposed to other promotional stickers, we wanted to make these very user friendly,  and have a little humor behind them.  The purpose of the stickers are to help ease user experience with the KISI system. The stickers this week were laptop and back door stickers. While the task might seem simple the method for each was very different. The purpose of the laptop sticker was to get the K in KISI to light up over the apple logo on a MacBook. As a simple way to promote KISI is by getting existing customers involved who already believe in the product.  While after many, many printouts, I finally got the right positioning and size of the K.

Afterwards, I decided to focus on the Back door sticker. The purpose of this sticker was to help ease users out of the door with a little KISI reminder. Similar to the initial door sticker. My supervisor gave  me a few ideas, and I came up with some as well. After illustrating many different versions  with the help of the noun project, a site for vector icons, we realized that the concept  for most didn’t work.  It often takes many trials and errors to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Sometimes with design something might look great, but if it doesn’t fulfill the intended purpose it isn’t useful. The beauty of design especially graphic design is that saving work that may not be used at the moment can in turn be useful later on.

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So my final week at Tribe has arrived. I surprised the guys with a box full of donuts from Dough. They were super stoked, and were amazed by how delicious they are. It was my way of thanking them for bringing me on board. The internship turned out to be a great experience. I couldn’t have picked a better company to work for.

This week at Tribe, Wyatt asked if we can get started on the new website banners. The banners on the site currently are pretty haggard, so we need to bring a new flare to the website. This will be my final assignment for them aside from the catalogue. I promised the guys I wouldn’t leave any projects unfinished. The guys hired a photographer to do lifestyle shots so Wyatt was waiting on the photographer to send over some photos so I can finish both the banners and catalogue.

While I was getting ready to leave, Mitch spoke to me about another decal assignment, but this time they are hiring me. Its funny how things work. The one assignment that stressed me out the most is the one that they want to pay me for. So we’ll see how far my relationship with Tribe goes.

This week was not that exciting. I had to tweak some things on the handlebar packaging for the printer. Pretty simple stuff, the only issue was that Wyatt was the middle man. I’m used to dealing with the printer direct, instead of someone relaying the printer’s message. There were a few questions I had but I figured out what the printer really needed.

Besides the handlebar packaging, the other company involved with the bike shelf completely changed the mounting instructions. I needed to rework the whole file to compensate for the new copy I was given to use. I needed to really plan this out before I started shifting things around. The design worked really well before and I tried to not mess that up. The email that I had received with the corrections had the wrong dimensions. Mitch and I found out the hard way. After going back and forth for a while, he finally realized what was wrong. Once we got that sorted, I finished the file and I think I like this version more. I’m really glad that they changed the mounting instructions!

During the weekend, Mitch emailed me that they hired a few art students to paint their outside gate. He wanted me to create a stencil of their logo and design a logo for the neighborhood, Red Hook. Mitch specified that he wanted to use a big red hook, the hook being the universal symbol of the neighborhood. Within a few hours I knocked it out. They needed the file to be set up for a laser machine, which they would use to cut out the stencil. I’ve never really done anything like that. I’ve created files for a laser machine to cut through plexi-glass, but this was totally different. After a few tries, I finally got it done.

There were a few other little things the guys needed. Tribe teamed up with a few cycling companies and one of them wanted to create a cycling jersey with Tribe’s logo on it. I received the specs and I got started on it right away. Both were fairly easy tasks, but I cant wait to see how they come out!

The Red Hook Crit is here! In all of the 7 years working in the cycling industry, this was my first RHC ever. I was pretty excited, I knew a lot of people who were going to race, and I bumped into a lot of customers at the race. Before I headed to the race I joined the guys at Tribe for the official Red Hook Crit party. Their good friends at Sixpoint Brewery provided us with a ton of beer, about 600 cans!

Overall it was a great night. Mitch and Wyatt introduced me to everyone as their graphic designer, which I thought was pretty cool. The whole experience was awesome. I’m so happy that the guys and I had the chance to knock a few ones back and unwind with each other.

New bike day! Mitch gave me the heads up that I would be receiving a bike of my choice in exchange for all of my hard work. Sweet deal! As soon as he asked me, I blurted out that I was one of their track bikes (the most expensive bike they have). When I arrived at the office, the guys presented my brand new bike. I’m so excited to get this bad boy hooked up and ready to go.

Other than the new bike, the guys and I discussed my new project. I’m going to design their catalogue, which will be sent out to all of their dealers and other bike shops across the US. Pretty awesome. I have a lot of experience designing publications so this assignment shouldn’t be too difficult. They want me to design a template so that when they receive the product shots of the new bikes, they can just past them right in. This should be a really interesting assignment given that I won’t be around to help with the final version.

As my internship comes to a closure, I have a lot of reasons to be grateful. I had the chance to work with great minds that helped me grow both as a person and professional. My time at Faculty Commons was not very long — something like 5 months — but it was enough to provide me with amazing experiences.

As I’ve mentioned before, I have a lot for which to thank Prof. Jordan. She was a key person that made sure this experience was the best for me. My coworkers were also very welcoming and sweet to me. Many of them have been working together for a long time, so it would be understandable if they kind of had their thing going on, but that’s not what happened. They were extremely friendly.

Another aspect of interning at Faculty Commons that made me grow a lot as a professional was the fact that I became a photographer. I still have a lot to learn, but have improved my skills significantly. Now I absolutely feel comfortable to add that skill to my resume and pursue something related to photography as a career.

I hope I was able to perform well and that my coworkers and faculty have appreciated my work. Thank you, Faculty Commons team and everyone involved in this program.

On Monday, I had the honor of photographing an event at the Hospitality Department that gave away awards to selected students. Professor Jordan asked me if I could be a part of it a few weeks back and I had to get back to her, since I have evening classes on Monday. Thankfully, I was able to work around my schedule and be a part of the event.

The ceremony only started at 5:30pm, but I was asked to come in at 4pm to take pictures of the graduates. It was a group of around 20 people, and we went to the Atrium area on the 2nd floor to figure out the best angle and light. Prof Garcelon, from the Hospitality Department, was there to help me art direct the photoshoot. We tried two different angles: one with the students in front and on the staircase, and another one of me shooting them from up there. The photos came out great!

After that, I headed down to the Atrium amphitheater, where the award ceremony was going to take place. The organizers of the event were taking care of the last details, and it was nice to be there and plan my positioning in order to get the best shots. That venue tends to be very dark, but thankfully most lights were on during the event. The ceremony was very beautiful, and it was a pleasure to be a part of it. It went on for a couple hours, then we headed up to the department’s Dining Room, where an amazing buffet was being served. I took some more candid pictures for about 20 mins, then was able to dig in and try some of that incredible food that was made by the students.