Journal #1
This semester I’m interning at a screen printing and embroidery company located in Brooklyn. The shop Started in 2017 so it is relatively new, and it is a small shop but provides quality work. They specialize in customized apparel such as T-shirts, sweaters, pants, tote bags, and more. Customized apparels for all of your needs. The clients for this company are typically family & friends, as well as corporate, or start up Clothing line. The way the owner runs the company is very much through social media and google ads. He is the head of the work environment and is completely involved in everything from the art department, to doing the screen printing himself, he leads by example and it has shown from the amount of clients and work the business receives.
Journal #2
I am currently working in the graphic design / art department. I got this internship through a client that i did freelance work for and he referred me with the owner at the screen printing company, I had a small interview and showed some of the graphics i worked on for clothing brands or just designs that were printed through screen printing. at the screen printing company im interning at now I am a graphic designer currently learning how to get client art work ready for print ( screen printing process). This comes with different roles in one because i can be designing for a client, mocking up a clients design if already made, vectorizing or bitmapping a design. My supervisor explained to me that i will get a more hands on experience as well as learning how to talk to clients whether it be via email, phone, or in person.
Journal #3
My workplace is a small section of the shop with 2 desks for computer work and file managing where they keep clients art work files that have been printed on laminated paper for screen printing purposes. the other part of the shop is where they have a 6 color screen printing press. The attire at the company was less formal, i had the option to dress as i pleased with the exception of always wearing a company t shirt or hoodie while working. So I dress with sneakers jeans and the company t shirt, nothing crazy going on with my sneakers or my jeans because it was just a very casual place to be working in. I agreed on working 7 hours at the print shop, lunchtime would be about 45mins which was very calming and didnt feel stressed about the time due to the fact that there was so many choices for lunch very close by.
Journal #4
Screen printing is something that i never really looked into working in, almost as if it didn’t exist for me because i never focused my attention into apparel. before interning here i knew that cool graphics could be printed onto clothing but the amount of work that goes into this process is a lot. I actually learned a little about different printing methods just my first day at lunch with my boss on how screen printing uses mesh screens and plastisol or water based ink that is different and gives you a different result compared to DTG also known as Direct To Garment printing which is basically a printer that prints an image directly onto a piece of clothing.
I am currently learning how to use a program called color seps. this is a program that makes the color separation for screen printing so much easier. colors need to be separated for screen printing into a 6 color spot process. The colors need to be separated before printing because it basically goes in an order of what color layer needs to be printed first and what pieces of a design need to be printed.
Journal #5
This week I have been learning how to bitmap an image for screen printing, bitmapping an image so that it is ready to print was a bit tricky for me in the process. I learned how to create half tones for an imagine that is usually black and white this creates a grayish look when the image is printed on a t-shirt with out any actual gray being there. I learned bitmapping from my boss through photoshop.
I started to get my hands on experience on actually screen printing. My boss showed me small steps to what he does. today was just a small session to get the feel of how to use a screen printing squeegee (used to push ink onto screen printing screen) on a 110 mesh screen (type of screen printing screen).
Journal #6
Today was just a full day of screen printing! well screen printing and cleaning. Today was really fun but very tiring. Having to set up screens, print, and wash screens was really a repetitive cycle. Today we worked on printing t-shirts for a construction company, we printed about 120 shirts using 1 color, but we had to print back and front placements on a t-shirt.
We started off at 1 station each meaning my boss was printing the front of a t shirt and i was printing the back that way we both had different placements on screens and when the ink on shirts were dry we could swap t-shirts and he would move to my station to print the res of his batch and vise versa.
Journal #7
A key factor of todays day was the learning experience at the internship continues to help grow, because as a graphic designer you work with and have to learn to adjust working with different clients. But sometimes when its to the extreme you have to learn to let some clients go or learn that they do not suit you and your type of work or vise versa. This was shown to me by my boss because he had trouble communicating with a client and he found it to his best interest to not work with this client. He really taught me how to best handle this situation and I feel like it was a lesson learned through someone else’s experience.
Journal #8
A collaborative project that Worked on was a t shirt graphic for the company i am interning at but it was with a freelance artist that the company hired. The artist drew up his own version of the famous painting Mona Lisa, it was drawn with paper and pencil from there I had to take the image scan it and bitmap it on photoshop because it needed to be printed as a two color print job. overall the experience of collaborating with the artist was great he was really professional and we got to network. we worked really well because it was easy to communicate with the person as to where he was on the project but I think a great factor to this was that my boss was in no rush for this job to get done so there was not a great amount of pressure.
Going back and forth on the way the mona lisa would be designed was difficult because it is such a historical painting that what possible version could we do. The artist had his ideas, I had mine and we both had to agree and disagree for aspects of the art piece. It was nothing too serious other than us as creatives just speaking our opinions with respect towards one another. In the end it worked out for us, I bitmapped the image, did the mock ups and got the okay from my boss. I even got to help screen print this piece myself.
Journal #9
For my self-evaluation for a graphic design / screen printing project from start to finish I would have to say I am very surprised at how well i managed to learn and to execute something I have never done before. As a graphic designer I would consider the type of work I do to be great because typically It was work for school or for clients and it would usually be printed on paper or displayed digitally. But I have really learned immensely with the guidance of my boss
Journal #10
A great person that i would love to keep getting mentoring from would be my boss over at the print shop because of all the real life situations that came up along the process of working there with clients and him being so open to discuss the situations with me and give me useful tips or just insights of how he was dealing with clients and time management with projects he had to hand in to them.
Work Ethics
a. They are to discuss how the design work they are doing handles sourcing of images and the company’s trademarks & logos.
For the company I interned at, using the logo and trademarks was always to be checked with my boss. Since i was over at a screen printing company, the logo was used on merchandise, invoices, receipts, and on special request if given. The logo was made by the owner, so he gave the go to if it were to be used or not and in what form, there was no specific guideline but there was always directions to follow.
b. It will also discuss if they had to sign a confidentiality or non-disclosure agreement for their internship site and how they have handled that with regard to their internship journal for this class.
No, I didn’t sign any confidentiality or non-disclosure agreement for the internship site. If I was in this situation I would have asked my professor how to go from there. but for a discussion purpose i would have spoke with my supervisor about using the projects that I designed for a final presentation. I would let them know that it wouldn’t be uploaded to the internet for people to see.
2) In the second journal entry assignment students will write about whether or not the readings they’ve been assigned have changed their perspective on their own design work.
- a) Students are to reflect on whether, in the past, they have used another’s creative work and how have they given that artist credit?
The readings that were given were always helpful and guided me that we need to be aware of everything in the design industry. I feel as if i always was taught not to take from another artist at all because there would be consequences. I always knew there were rights and if you wanted to use art work of any kind you would have to pay a fee or credit the person. although what i did learn is that you are able to use art work that is in the public domain. for example when Jeff Koons designed bags for Louis Vuitton he used art work like the Mona Lisa which is in public domain and didnt have to pay at all to use the painting on a bag.
- b) Students are to give their opinion of the arguments and outcome of the Fairey Copyright case.
Shepard Fairey was guilty because he tried to cover up his evidence. The article stated “but later admitted that he had been mistaken and had tried to cover up his mistake.” Since his presidential campaign poster was such a huge deal, jail time was unavoidable. Fairey could have used his own images or copyrighted where he received his images.
