November 17, my second day of my internship at Brooklyn College. Currently I am working on two postcard designs the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship currently happening at Brooklyn College. The main goal of MMUF is to send well prepared minority students to distinguished colleges and universities for graduate studies. The art director, Lisa, stated that the higher ups would like to see a collage of the pictures that I converted and that they would need at least two designs by the end of the day. So I spent the better part of the day researching postcard designs since it has been a while since I have ever seen one physically (thank you email). After a while I just did some sketches for postcard ideas, let me add that I am not particularly fond of graphic design either. Web Design or more specifically the coding I liked the designing part not fond of it at all. I came up with a few designs but nothing I really loved or remotely liked. Eventually I just started to play around with illustrator and Photoshop just to see if anything creative came to mind. I came up with two designs, one that seemed boring and the other was kind of fun but the problem was how I would incorporate it into the design scheme. The boring one had the picture collage front and center with the college’s colors in the back. If you are thinking that is boring, then you would be right. The second one, the slightly fun one, had an polygonal outline in the back with constellations. Fun to do but hard to incorporate it. By the end of the day I had three designs instead of just the two, all of them collages but with different flavors. Lets see how this goes.

From the article of “The Disruption Machine”, one sentence that catches my eye is “the world may not be getting better and better but our devices are getting newer and newer”. I believed this is true. Today, everyone must has a USB drive (Universal Serial Bus); we use this to save our documents and our files. It is very useful and easy to carry. I always have two UBS drives in my bag, whenever I want to save something, I can use it. In the past, we used the floppy disk, the size id bigger that the USB. Technology is growing fast, I cannot find the floppy disk now.

Listening to music used by record player and gramophone record was large. I had some gramophone records, but I threw out all of the one year ago. It is because I do not have a record player. I thought that if I kept these, this gramophone record may become an antique and then later become a treasure. Nowadays, we listen to music in mp3.

In addition I remember that the first cell phone was very big; it was not easy to carry. However, it was very convenient for us to make a phone call. For that time, this cell phone was very expensive and not much people had cell phones. Nowadays, I think most people own a smart phone; some people may have more than one. We can see people using them on the bus, ferry, subway, everywhere.

Technology is growing very fast, just as the author wrote, “our devices are getting newer and newer”. Anyway, it is good for us.

In the article of “The Brainstoming Myth” it says that if people are scared of saying the wrong thing, they will end up saying noting.

It is true, if people do not say anything because they are scared to say the wrong thing, we will not get any result.  So, we should not criticize. Brainstorming provides a free and open environment that encourages everyone to participate.  Any ideas are welcome, it can help us develop a rich array of creative solutions.

Osborn said that many of us can work much better creatively when teamed up.  Sometimes, when a person expresses his or her idea, another person can come up with another thinking because of that first idea.  It can bring out  a lot of ideas within a short time when working with a group.  The brainstorm turns people into imagination machines and is a good way to boost productivity.

Brainstorming also can help me to solve problems. Individual brainstorming is good, I do not have to worry about other people’s egos or opinions, I can be free and more creative. I just write down whatever comes into my mind, list my  ideas and do not judge the quality.  It can help me choose a topic, and let me know what I should do.

I think there is no wrong or right, we just make our minds deliver the ideas.  We can say anything  free willingly.  We do not have to be afraid to say anything that comes to mind. Also we always use brainstorm in the classroom.  It is a creativity technique used in the world.

Twelfth Entry: November 18^th.  Today was interesting, mostly because we once again had the opportunity to pitch a few ides for a commercial spot regarding a new plan. Everything has to be well though out, because both new and existing customer see the promotional offers and the representatives in the Corporate locations must be equipped to answer anything that gets thrown their way. 70 Hours wrapped up.

November 16, today was the first day of my internship and things were not running as smoothly as I had hoped. The mac-book I was supposed to use for the internship was being used by someone else, but thankfully I had the foresight to bring my own laptop just in case (unfortunately, I could not get online, that will be relevant). There wasn’t really much to be done for the first day, I simply had to convert RGB photos to CMYK and raise the dpi to 300 without re-sampling them. A few of them really needed some retouches due to the artifacts left behind and some had lost a lot of their vibrancy. Later on in the day I learned that I would be designing a few postcards with the pictures I had worked on. Even though I did not have the exact dimensions for them, I did some very rough sketches just to pass the time away. I would have done some research beforehand, but since I had no internet that was all I could do. After two hours of sketching, I had the bright idea to use my phone’s 4G network to research, the bad part? I had forgot to bring my charger. So I spent the rest of the day either sketching or trying not to fall asleep onsite (did I forget to mention I have had insomnia for the past three days?). When I got home I decided to do some research on them with the hope that maybe tomorrow or the next day, I would finally be able to get online.

October 28, I read an interesting article about a CEO who set minimum salary for his workers to at least $70,000 dollars and now he’s receiving backlash for it. The name said CEO is Dan Price and in order to make up the difference, Price cut his one million dollar salary to $70,000. Not only that but he mortgaged his house, sold all of his investments to create a nest egg of three million dollars for his company, Gravity Payments. Usually when one hears that a CEO has been this generous with their employees, one would expect that nothing but praises would be heaped in his general direction but that was not the case. In fact he is being sued by his own brother, Lucas, a minority shareholder in Gravity Payments. The damages from the suit might cost the company one million dollars worth of legal bills. The story goes on citing criticism from others stating that it was a publicity stunt, to his own veteran workers, who apparently quit over the new policy. For a few moments I just sat back and let the story digest. And the only question I can ask myself is “what the heck is wrong with people?” I mean seriously, in a generation where the wealth gap is getting larger and larger, something like this happens and people complain about it? Yeah, it is officially I do not understand people…At all. If you would like to read the story for yourself here is the link:  http://money.cnn.com/2015/08/09/news/gravity-payments-dan-price-70k-salary/

Finally New York Artwing decided a logo for Big production which is new production company. They choose simple old fashion typewriter style logo, even they don’t want to color on it.

This is it

Since I got a confirm for the logo, I talked about the web-site with my supervisor. They wanted also simple web-site and showed me a example web site. It was really simple. Logo and navigation were on the top and huge retina image took most of the page. I understood that showing image is very important because it is production and events company.

After we discussed about how looks like, I asked some information about company and images. They never sent me anything. I couldn’t wait for so long. I made a mockup using logo and images from internet and then show them.

They really liked it. So now I can work on coding, and I asked some information again.

Its November 9, 2015, I’m pretty out of it today. The weather this fall has been strange. This has to be one of the warmest autumns; we’ve had in a while. However, we did have a few chilly days. I’ve been dressing properly, all of this autumn and yet I managed to catch a cold. Sigh… today it will be tough working with a congested sinus.

I am currently interning at City Tech Image & Visual Communications office. Today, I rolled into the office around 10 a.m., looking pale like a zombie. First thing, as I got in the office, I met with Mr. Vargas in his room. We had a discussion about the new project. For the new project, I will be creating a logo for the City Tech Alumni Associations mentoring program called “PG4U” (Professional Growth For You). The logo must be similar to the Alumni Associations logo.

I started to do research on the City Tech Alumni Associations; to learn about what they do, and offer for City Tech Alumni’s. I also printed out a meeting memo, from the City Tech website because the Alumni Associations logo was on it. Next, I started to sketch thumbnails for the PG4U logo. Near, the end of the day Mr. Vargas, took a look at my thumbnails. He helped me out a little and sketched some thumbnails of his own. He wanted me to try different variations, of the examples he sketched.

I’m glad he has me working on logos using typography. It’s something I need to practice and improve on. These projects are helping me out significantly with my typographic skills.

Note: working sick stinks but I made it!

Eleventh Entry: November 10^th. I’ve decided to part ways with my Cre@tive Design Internship to focus primarily on my Internship with Sprint. The hours are more flexible with my schedule and most of the work is very hands on. I’m learning a lot about finances and market research. Kevin had given the Team a task to survey people in the park on what they expect from their Wireless carriers, and were asked to rank the Carriers based on what they know so far. Sadly, to say Sprint wasn’t at the forefront of their answers. A lot of the damage was due to a poor network build out of the LTE services, which caused a large shift in perception. This outdoor mission lasted about 2 hours, in which I had to then relay the information the head of Market Research in the department, Anna. She took a look at the results and mentioned how it lined up with what the company had suspected.

Ever since Marcelo became CEO, there has been a large focus on trying to gain subscriber growth, but that would be very difficult if customers felt the service was unreliable. A lot of the new game plan, has to do with how people on the front line shape the consumers, i.e. the Retail Locations and Customer Care. Both aspects of the business interacted with the customers directly and decided whether or not the customer will recommend your service to a family member or friend. If you have a person who is willing to promote a brand, chances are you will have a better chance of growth – even without Advertising or Commercializing plans or new devices. The Team spent the past 3 days focusing on perception on the consumer level. Almost 12 hours collecting data. Some people couldn’t understand why AT&T and Verizon customers were being offered “Half Off’ rate plans, but T-Mobile customers were not. They felt it was unfair and that T-Mobile was in fact the true rival to Sprint since they past Sprint earlier this year. They’ve had the largest spike in subscriber additions in 8 years. In wrapping up my meetings yesterday, Kevin advised that I was at 61 hours so far, and could easily achieve 100 by December if I kept the meetings consistent. It’s not necessarily an easy thing to accomplish, but I’m determined. My last few weeks have been – Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 10 AM – 2PM. I’ve made arrangement with my manager to schedule me for closing shifts and sacrificing my lunch break to make this possible.

Its November 3, 2015, slowly winter is approaching. This is my last semester at City Tech. Finally all the dedication and hard work will grant me a Bachelor’s degree. I’ve been at City Tech far too long now. I’m excited because I never thought I would get this far. Once this semester is over, I can finally say I have a Bachelor’s degree.

However, there’s still about a month left and let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I must still get through internship class. I am currently interning at City Tech Image & Visual Communications. Just like every other day; I rolled into the office cheerfully I said “good morning” and got prepared to work. I looked around and saw the Alumni department was busy as usual. My supervisor Mr. Vargas gave me a new task to work on and told me to hold off with revising the City Tech Wi-Fi logo.

Today, I worked in Photoshop’s camera RAW and adjusted the lighting, contrast, and saturation of 28 photos. Each photo portrayed one or more school security guard’s. One of the security guard’s was sitting next to a woman in a lavender shirt. They are seated behind, a table that is covered by a blue cloth. On the top of the table there are pamphlets about New York City emergency plans for pets and people, opening up business in New York City and a laptop. Students are gathered around the table asking questions to the security guard.

It was definitely a productive day because I haven’t worked in camera RAW for a long time. Working in camera RAW today, helped understand how to adjust the lighting, contrast, and saturation of the photos.