Hello, my name is Huseyin Akis and it’s my fifth week interning at City Tech Image & Visual Communications office. I rolled into the office at 10 AM with a smile and said “good morning” to my co-workers. I prepared my desk and my spotify playlist before, I started working on the City Tech Wi-Fi logo. This wasn’t the start of the logo, this was the revision phase.

My supervisor Mr. Vargas wanted me to change the font to Helvetica and the typeface to bold. The problem was the original font I used Xsotik, where I downloaded from DaFont.com. The letters of the font Xsotik were too close to each other. Which ended up leaving a lot of space for the shape of the Wi-Fi symbol. I changed the text to Helvetica bold and adjusted the shape of curve of the Wi-Fi symbol.

I took my lunch time at 1 PM, it was time to take a break from the computer screen and time to eat. I had a roast beef sandwich and a Snapple Lemon Iced Tea. I took my lunch break for an hour and then went back to working on the logo. So, I changed the text to Helvetica bold and using the pen tool, I traced over each of the curves on the bottom of symbol.

Finally, I created outlines of the type and used the pathfinder tool to divide the type and the symbol. Mr. Vargas came to my desk around 3:50 PM and said  ” I want you to make fit the words Wi-Fi in the symbol as well”. Just like the way, I fitted the letters inside the symbol in the sketch.

I was out by 4:00 PM and said to my co-workers “good bye, see you tomorrow”.

Today is September 29, it has been a few weeks since I started interning at City Tech Visual Communications. I have adjusted quite nicely to my work schedule and to the people that work at the Visual Communications office. Mr. Vargas is a cool supervisor, he gives me great things to work on. The first two weeks, I worked on masking out the backgrounds of the Dura Project and City Tech photos. There was one photo of the Dura Project where a woman was holding a solar panel. The solar panel had the reflection of the sky and I had to use the clone tool to get rid of the reflection.

This past week Mr. Vargas gave me a new project. I had to create a sign using a symbol and typography to show City Tech Wi-Fi. The sign is to tell students, where there’s Wi-Fi at City Tech. Last week on Tuesday and Wednesday; I did research on Wi-Fi symbols and thumbnail sketches. It was a long process; I did a lot of thumbnail sketches before I got to my final sketch. No, complaints though because I missed doing this and I enjoyed every moment of it.

This week I started working on the sign in Illustrator CC 2014. I m nearly finished, I have to add the final touches and might have to make a few revisions. I have to say it was a challenge working with typography, such as finding the right font, placing the type in the symbol and positioning it. To make things a little easier Mr. Vargas scanned in my thumbnail sketch and I used it as a guide. It definitely made things easier, I was able to work faster with the type.

This past week I took the procrastination quiz, personality test and did a few readings online. Let’s start with the procrastination quiz. The results surprised me; I thought I was a professional procrastinator. However,  the results say that I’m an average procrastinator. As for the personality test, I found out that I am open to new experiences and I’m in between disorganized and conscientious. The results also, showed that I’m introverted, agreeable, nervous and high-strung.

One of the readings I did this past week was called How to Get a Job by Thomas L. Friedman is an article in the New York Times. The article tells us that a Bachelor’s degree “is no longer considered an adequate proxy by employees for your ability to do a particular job- and, therefore, to be hired”. I agree because the world we live in nowadays nobody cares about your degree. What interviewers seek in an employee is how they can help them add value, what they can do and how they can continuously reinvent themselves.

The other reading I did was When G.M. was Google by Nicholas Lemann an article in the New Yorker website. The article tells us that G.M. (General Motors) an automobile manufacturing company was once as successful as Google is now. General Motors in its earlier days was “an acquirer of small companies”, they were the No. 1 car maker and company of the 19th century. The car manufacturer went bankrupt five years ago, the reason is because General Motors ad delivery system was not at the level of other companies, such as Google they’re a success because they knew how to advertise to target potential costumers. The second reason is because Google’s “business model constantly adds more information and more search features”.

Its September 8 my first day to intern for City Tech’s Office of Visual Communications.  I would have to say I was nervous and anxious. I kept wondering what Mr. Vargas would have me doing on my first day. Hopefully, I didn’t forget how to use some of the programs of the Adobe Creative suite. I got there at 10 am I told Norma (the lady that works there) that I m here to intern. Mr. Vargas walked me over to my desk and I got to say my desk is quite roomy. He placed my school bag on the table I took out my macbook pro. Mr. Vargas gave me about 6 pictures of students working in the construction management/civil engineering field. The images had marker marks on the places I needed to mask out in the photography. Throughout the day I worked on those images. Around 1:00 PM Mr. Vargas came over and told me I can go out to lunch at either 1 or 1: 30 PM. I decided to get more work done so I stuck around till 1: 30 PM. By, 1: 30 I was starving I left for lunch for an hour. I went to the deli on Jay and Tillary Street and I got myself a Turkey on a roll and a bottled water to stay hydrated. As soon as I was done eating I went back to the office of visual communications. From 2: 30 till 3: 30 all of the photos had been masked and Mr. Vargas took a look. The only thing I needed to do was clone out the sky reflection on solar panel the student in the picture was holding. Since my time was nearly over Mr. Vargas told me to work on it tomorrow. At the end of the day I felt like I accomplished something. I was satisfied with the masking work I had done and I learned that it’s quicker to use the selection tool, eraser and the refine mask to mask images.

There is an interesting article I read from The New York Times in the Opinion Pages section.
The article is called How to Get a Job (one of the assigned readings) by Thomas L. Friedman talks about how job recruiters “no longer care about what you know”, they only care about what you can do. The Bachelor’s degree is only required because its a requirement when applying for most careers. The Bachelor’s degree is just a necessity its not the thing that gets you the hired anymore. Recruiters are seeking for highly skilled candidates that is skilled in many areas. I can say as an example recruiters that is hiring someone in the field of Graphic Design is definitely going to hire somebody that is highly skilled in graphic design, web design, and broadcast design rather than someone that is only skilled in graphic design. Even getting hired for an internship position is quite a challenge. The interviewers they analyze everything I mean EVERYTHING! your communication skills, politeness, professionalism, resume and portfolio over again. Some interviewers may even ask if you have other skills rather than just one because of that they might not offer you the internship. Not, only is getting a job a challenge as well as getting an internship. I been through I probably applied to more than 60 places. I only got called me up for a few interviews however, most of them I couldn’t even go for the interview as a wheelchair bound student its hard to find places whose offices are wheelchair accessible.  One place by the name of Big Tent Entertainment scheduled an interview with me by the end they were uninterested with hiring me all because I didn’t have much illustration pieces in my portfolio. Thanks Professor Mason for helping me find an internship at Office of Visual Communications.