This will be my last blog entry for the semester. 14 weeks has pass so fast, and so much work has been done. Through out the semester I have learned and gained a lot of knowledge and experience. I learned how to work well with a team, how it’s good to always get a second, third or even a fourth opinion before handing my work to my boss. I learned new techniques in photoshop and how to use something from the Internet and redesign it to make it my own. I gain real world experience not to say that the class and class work didn’t help because it really did.

BTTIP which stands for Brooklyn Tech Triangle Internship Program; help me out lot. They picked me out of a lot of applicants and help me prepare for the speed interview, and help me find a great paid internship that fit me and my major. And I am so very pleased and happy with this program and the over all end results.

I worked at  New York App Designers   and my title was graphic designer, I was one of 6 designer interning with this company. My supervisor Khalidi Lawson was very fun and laid back, and working with him made my job more interesting and fun. He helped us start the app building process and by the second or third week we came pros. I can add even more experience on my resume thanks to BTTIP and Mr. Khalidi Lawson at New York App Designers for giving hiring me and teaching me the ropes of really life.

To be honest even though I did say I think the internship class is a waste of time lost from my actual internship, I can say now that it’s not entirely  true. I did learn more than I thought I would  from Professor Mason. Thank you Professor Mason  for also teaching me things I didn’t even know it really would be a issue. For example the video you showed class about face to face communication and interaction. I see now as I look around me that everyone is either on the phone or IPad  or some for of social media And not interacting with real life people. Which I believe  that this is hurting us as a society, people wouldn’t be able to talk to someone in person without texting them on the phone or hitting them up on a social media. And the other thing that stuck with me is the Roth IRA I think that’s what it’s call. I think I will do that once I get more information on it so I can have some kind money saved up for my retirement.

This week is is very busy busy busy. In my internship I am finishing up on the minor details on my futuresandoptions.org app. I readjusted the text placement so on all slides the text are even on every slide in both the IPhone and android apps. now all I have to do with this app is work on the content and than place it in a PhotoShop mock up presentation so I can present it to the clients and the class.

I want back over my babybuggy.org app to make sure I didn’t have to fine tune it, or make any major changes. So far the app is still complete and only thing I need to do is place it in a PhotoShop mock up document to present it to the clients and show it to the class.

My first app I designed was stompoutbullying.org, I had to do a major over haul with this app. Had to change a few of the images and and add two more images to the slider.  I’m still working on this app but I’m sure I can save this app and finish it in time so I can show the clients.

I am hoping that I will finish everything Monday and start emailing the clients. I only have two weeks left of my internship and I want to make sure that everything is complete so that i can add even more work to my portfolio other than school work.

This week April 13th to 17th, was more of have too get work done, finish the finer details.

On Monday April 13th; I was working on the smaller  details, like text and font sizing, images and placement. I added the images from futuresanfoptions.org website and placed it in the app. Also I created icons on the tabs so when the users isn’t on the about page they would see an icon instead of words.  It took a long time sizing the images and icons, but end at the end of the day I think everything came out beautiful.

On Tuesday April 14th; I try placing text from a section of the site however it didn’t quite workout in the way I would like it to. I had to try recreate the text and numbers from font in Adobe PhotoShop. I couldn’t find the right font to match so I had to search for a similar font. Oh man talk about tedious, it took me two and a half hours just to find a similar font in PhotoShop. The worst part was that the numbers was a different font than the text, plus there was 2 to 3 numbers in each fact and the numbers was different as well. Than after I found  similar fonts I had to place each fact sentence in 10 different PSD slides. I came in at 2 pm and work til 4:30 pm on the fonts alone and than another half hour on just placing and re-sizing the fact font for 10 different slide. I leave at 5 pm every day and as soon as 5 pm came I gave up for the day. I actually saved everything and closed the laptop, said bye to everyone and I just walked out the door.

On Wednesday April 15th; I crated two more icons one foe who we are and the second one was for how you can help. I started uploading the finished png’s to the server and assigned them to the slide part of my app.

On Thursday April 16th; I had a mandatory BTTIP meeting I had to go to before I went over to my internship. The meeting the BTTIP coordinators discuss about summer opportunities for summer internship even if I graduate I can still apply for the internship. It was very vague and they didn’t know much about it either, but all they knew was that big technology industries will be hosting this internship and that it starts sometime in June . Than after the meeting I went to my internship for awhile and just fixed some more details with color and placement of content.

On Friday April 17th; I moved content from the futuresandoptions.org website and placed it in their respective place in the app.

This week was a very busy and creative one.

On Monday April 6; I created two new icons for two of the pages. the first one was Fatherhood, which didn’t have an icon on their website.  I used custom shape tool in PhotoShop to create the two circles(blue, than smaller yellow circle). And to represent fatherhood I used the custom hand shape to make a blue hand and a smaller yellow hand inside the blue one. The second  icon I created was for social media slide where it links to the social media page.

On Tuesday April 7; I continued to resize images and I uploaded some of my completed slides on to the New York App Designers website, here is where I have a login account. Once I log in with my organization I can upload, add content and images. This is where I create my mobile app designs and layouts and published them on to a server.

On Wednesday April 8th; I finally finished my babybuggy.org  app. After a long day of fixing mistakes I made from a few days past, I finally completed my first app. So now the fun part is over time to move on to the next non-profit organization.

On Thursday April 9th; I found a new non-profit organization called futuresandoptions.org. what this organization does is help young adults age 16 to 24, prepare them for job interviews, working force,  and school giving them a chance at making something of themselves. I started researching the website to see how I can layout the content and images. Also design a homepage for the app.

On Friday April 10th; Mr. Lawson and I came up with a nice concept and layout design. I used the main colors (orange,blue,fushia,yellow and pea green) from their site as main tabs which will link directly to main content within the app itself. I only got as far as laying out the homepage, hopefully Monday I’ll be able to have a completed full working app.

Week of March 30-April 3;

On Monday March 30th; I finished the layout design for my non-profit organization called Baby Buggy. I kept the layout I start from last Thursday. I added text boxes, and images I used from the babybuggy.org site, and placed it on the landing homepage. I created a frame, really a long rectangle shape, and used it as a place holder for the images. The place holder or framed is really used to distinguished the difference from background  and the images in the foreground.

On Tuesday March 31st; I took even more images of the babybuggy.org website that was on the headers of internal pages. I resized them and cropped them so it would fit on the headers in there respected pages.

On Wednesday April 1st; I continued to resized and cropped images. Also I started on creating five main sliders to link to internal pages in the website.

On Thursday April 2nd; after finishing up the IPhone layout, I  edited a couple of minor details with image and text placement. I grouped all my layers in my IPhone homepage layout(640 x 1136) in PhotoShop and dragged it to my android homepage layout. I resized the the layout to fit inside the android. (which is 640 x 960)

On April 3rd; I finished up on the android home layout page, and started on the resizing text and images. I also dragged in icons from the site and added it to title of that slide: For example: Give Gear a page and the icon to go with it is a blue circle and a smaller yellow circle on the blue one and an image of a blue onesies.

March 23rd -27th

On Monday March 23rd; I continued to work on my babybuggy.org app; laying out the design and placement of content and images. Finally I came up with a design that uses the colors and images, and content from their website. I worked on my concept for the rest of the day.

on Tuesday March 24; I completely changed my concept. I didn’t like the look and feel of how my app was coming out. Than after I trashed my idea I had a design block. I became frustrated and started panicking on the inside, and left the design blank and just added content from the Website.

On Wednesday March 25th;  I went to my internship class. Professor Mason had the class sit in a conference circle, and we had to go around and tell the class what wr are doing at our internship. It was nice hearing other students and what they are doing and the probleMs they have, and they came up with to solve the problem.

On Thursday March 26th; My supervisor and I came up with a great design layout and concept. I came up with the design when I saw ads from magazines that my supervisor brought in. Ads was of apple sauce to go, and I used a similar layout for a portion of my app. Than I drew a triangle on it’s side to show a modern look and separation of the top of the and the bottom. I also used the colors from the babybuggy website.

On Friday March 27th; I changed the design again and used circles instead of a triangle. And with the circles I copied it to make a double layer, than the two circles came out to form the letter B. Staying with the B letter I duplicate the B and placed on the first B so it looks like BB which represents baby buggy. I think Monday or Tuesday I will wrap up my app and publish, which make it available for IPhone and android.

The week of March 16th – March 20 was even more busy than last week

On March 16th; I continued to look for at least seven new non-profit organizations so I can create apps for based on their website and what their needs are. I finally find one its called babybuggy.org. What they do is collect baby gear, and clothes and money people who want to either get rid of their old baby things or just want to donate new baby things, and they give to homeless families, families in shelters and very low income families. I choose this organization because I love what their branding, website I especially love what they represent and they do.

On Tuesday March 17th; I was mapping out layouts and content seeing whats the most important thing that should be on the mobile app that really important to the organization. I can up with four tabs How to give, who they are and what they do, fatherhood and news and events.

On Wednesday March 18th; I was going through the different layout choices on the New York App Designers website and found one I thought would fit their brand. After I picked out the layout design, I started on the actually design in PhotoShop.

On Thursday March 19th; I continued to work on the designs for the babybuggy.org mobile app. So far I have a created a background, I used their logo because you should never changed the clients logo unless they say so.

On Friday March 20th; I changed the whole layout design. I didn’t like the way my design was coming out, so I changed it. Now I have more circles than squares, and i still just have the logo. By Monday I should have my design completed.

The week of March 9th to March 13th was a very busy week.

On Monday March 9th; I had to change the color scheme which was purple and a orange. I had orange on the menu page but it was way to dark and the graphics and text didn’t stand out. So I decided  to change the dark orange  to more of a light orange. With the lighter orange both the graphics and text really stood out more, plus it was legible.

On Tuesday March 10th;  I took a another look at my app home page  and I had to change it.  Before I changed the layout,  it had at the top a image taken from the website  of kids in a school  hallway  with lockers in the background. Than under that image was the logo and there tag line.

On Wednesday March 11th; I went to my internship class which I still think its a waste of hours. However I did get a chance to ask Professor Mason what happens once we reach 120 hours. I thought that we would just stop going to class because all that was require is 120 hours in your internship and keep posting about what’s my internship is like and my experience. He said that I still have to come to class. Than he told us that there will be a final presentation. I am already starting on the layout and content to put in my power pint final.

On Thursday March 12th; I finally finished the homepage on my mobile app. I only finished the app for IPhone and i’m still working on fixing and finishing the app for android.

On Friday March 13th; I was looking for a brand new non-profit organization to create a mobile app. I’m still looking hopefully by Monday March 16th; I find one.

The week of March 2nd to March 6th wasn’t really moving forward as fast as I would  have hoped, however  it was still very productive.

On Monday March 2nd, I was still working on the creative  part of my stomp out bullying donation landing page. I had to start over because  I thought the week before I saved my work however, came Monday I found out I saved something else over my work. It was fine because I actually  saved the image I bought  (I didn’t want to be sued nor did I want the non-profit organization to be sued either) and saved it on my Google drive. I did start over and my landing page came out better this time, with a button I designed that went with the stompoutbullying.org actually website.

On Tuesday March 3nd;  I worked more on the layout and placement of content. I took out some of the unnecessary content on the navigation menu and deleted pages.

On Wednesday  March 4rd; nothing new , I was still trying  to get my app to look professional and look like it took me months to create.

On Thursday March 5th ; I was still  working on the overall  look of the app.

On Friday March 6th; I didn’t work on my app at all, because  I couldn’t  long on to a computer because I intern at the College of New Rochelle and I didn’t have the log in username and password . I had to wait for a student who is also in the internship program and goes to the school to log me in, and she came in later that day.

The week of February 23-27 I went to my internship monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.  I also went to my internship class on Wednesday February 25 because it is a requirement in order to get credit.

Monday February 23 I went to my internship New York App Designers on Nostrand Ave in Brooklyn NY in the College of New Rochelle.  I continued to work on my mobile app for stompoutbullying.org, I was still working on the placement of the tabs (or pages ) and adding and subtracting content from the app. I also created a new “share your story” page and a donation page so it can be more mobile friendly. On the actual stompoutbullying.org page there is a section on their about page called “Share your story”, about being bullied,  or saw someone being bullied, or if you are a bully and how you over came being bullied or if you stopped someone from a bully. This section is one of the reasons I choose to create a mobile app for this organization because of the “Share your story”.  Their link to “Share your store” takes you to more of a sign up window than and actually place to upload your story,  so I started creating the layout of this section on the mobile app.

Tuesday February 24th I was still working on the “Share your story” section, this time I worked on the design and functionality of the page. I made it interactive so a person can actually fill out the form (name, location,  title,) and  upload a file and have it go straight to the server on the actual website. ..well I hope it will do all that by the time I finish the whole app.

Wednesday February 25 I had to go to my internship class instead of my internship it’s self.  I asked professor Mason “why do we have to come to class instead of actually going to our internship? ” . To me it’s a waste of hours sitting in a class room and actually doing anything in my field of study. No hands on project, not experiencing real work. Maybe it is like having to go to meetings that’s sometimes you don’t want to go but have. Professor Mason told us it’s part of the curriculum.

Thursday February 26 I still continued to work on my mobile app.

And on Friday February 27 I still continued to work on my app still tweaking tabs and content.