Shivonne Khan's ePortfolio

 

Image from Freepik

Time really do pass by fast when you have been doing a lot of work for the semester. With that said, I enjoyed my experience working at the non-profit organization. From the simple, yet creative magazine designs to the engaging hat and t-shirt designs, all of these projects has helped me a lot on doing better in graphic and typographic design. It has been a hectic semester for me, from the animation senior project to making sure my portfolio website is properly designed and dealing with the tasks I was given by the supervisors at the organization. Though, I will be lying if I said that the experience in there isn’t an engaging and enlightening experience. Thanks to that internship opportunity, I have gotten a better grasp on how working at a company works. It does help that the supervisors are quite supportive of the design team.

With me earning the 120 hours I needed and me closer to graduating out of there with a Bachelor’s of Fine Art in Communication Design, my future possibilities in the communication design industry is massive. As much as I do want to stay at that organization to earn more, I will leave there to focus on other endeavors that I have in mind while studying Communication Design. With that said, being in this organization for this internship has been an enriching experience, with me having a much improved understanding on graphic design.

Image from Clker

As much as my time being in the non-profit organization has helped me learned a lot of necessary skills I needed when I work for any company, I did face a lot of challenges along my time being there. That challenge being my time management. Throughout this semester, not only I have to do tasks for internship but I am also competing with time to do my projects for both Senior Project and Portfolio class considering this will be my final semester in college. Despite that, I do manage to try my best to make sure I do all the tasks that were given with the best of my ability as well as manage my time better.

Despite said drawbacks, my experience in the non-profit organization has been nothing but excellent. Because of my time in that internship, my appreciation and proficiency for graphic design has increased greatly. It does help that the supervisors has been encouraging the communication and marketing team to do their best designs for the organization’s digital media. I am grateful for the enlightening experience I have received working for them, it gives me a better insight on how being in a workplace environment works.

 

Image from Freepik

In a workplace environment, it is important that the higher-ups are supportive to their employees as much as possible. Thankfully, I do have two individuals of a sort that help the communication and marketing team not only grow as graphic designers but also make us grow as experienced individuals at a company. Whenever my supervisor provide the team with a project, they will often encourage us to be creative and they even provide us tips on how to create effective designs for their digital media.

Whenever we would finish our works, we will upload it at the Microsoft teams chat and they will provide effective feedback. The feedback that they have given me has been beneficial to my growth in my graphic design skills. They will always try their best to be encouraging to the fellow interns in the design team. With that said, I am grateful to work with the best supervisors that really puts the design team’s interest at heart.

 

 

Image from Pexels

After doing the mockups for a week, I was given normal magazine article design tasks again. This time the article I have to design centers on a major issue known as fast fashion. Considering the organization’s goal to also help bring awareness to environmental issues, having an article focusing on that matter fits their overall motive of bringing awareness to ongoing societal issues. Making a design that correlates with the theme of clothing is an easy subject matter to execute.

Another project I was given to do is making three social media posts along with a Contact Us page for the digital magazines. Those projects also help develop my graphic and typographic designs a lot better as I have developed a better usage of image and text placement to make sure the designs are optically correct. With that said, I am not only enjoyed doing these projects but I also improve a lot on making aesthetically appealing graphic designs for the organization.

2A.) As someone who dedicates majority of her life doing creative skills such as graphic design, animation and illustration, it is important for me to browse through the web to find sources of inspiration for whatever piece I am working on. When it comes to me finding the source of inspiration, I google whatever is the subject matter and see what are all the other artists’ takes on the subject matter through their work. For other forms of creative media such as magazine page designs and magazine covers, I always make sure whatever image, music and other assets I use is credited to their respective owners in order to avoid any form of infringement that will cause my creative career to end.

2B.) I took a glance at the case study regarding Shepard Fairey with the HOPE poster. Upon further analysis, it was revealed that not only Fairey used a photograph of Barack Obama without permission from The Associated Press, he tampered the evidence to hide his own mistakes. As a result, he was fined with a huge sum of money along with probation. This incident highlights as a milestone for being one of the most prolific copyright infringement cases in the graphic design industry. With that case study in mind, it gives me and the other designers a major reminder that we must always give when credit is due, especially for a photograph that is not intended to be used royalty-free. Copyright infringement is the last thing any designer will want to experience in their creative career, so to avoid the worst case scenario, I always make sure to give when credit is due when I use an asset (photo, clipart, music, etc.) that does not belong to me and to make sure if that asset can be used for commercial use royalty-free.

Reference(s):

Shepard Fairey is Fined and Sentenced to Probation in “HOPE” Poster Case: https://archive.nytimes.com/artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/07/shephard-fairey-is-fined-and-sentenced-to-probation-in-hope-poster-case/

HOPE Poster Case Study: https://bbhosted.cuny.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-73245777-dt-content-rid-561964855_1/xid-561964855_1

1A.) In the visual communication industry, ethics are formed in order for us designers to have a clear conscience on how the code of conduct works in workplace and industry culture. It is important as budding creative designers that we must follow said code of conduct in order to not get ourselves into trouble if our works happened to be problematic in some kind of way. With that said, my tasks as a design associate intern is to not only design things like magazine covers, articles, t-shirt designs and other forms of visual media the company needs, but to also make sure that my designs do not go against the code of conduct that will put a negative impact to the company. For things like the logo and the articles that are used for the magazine article designs, the content was provided by the organization for the designers to use for their brand. However for other assets I required for my designs, I try to search for websites that provided royalty-free images for commercial use to try and avoid infringing copyright and fair use. With that said, my designs has gotten favorable feedback from the organization and I feel as if I accomplished something by designing the deliverables for the organization. With that said, I gave AIGA’s Guide to Copyright a thorough read and it reflects certain elements of a design can be excluded from copyright, i.e. typefaces. This reflects on when in my internship, the main font they use is from Google fonts, and normally all the fonts from that website is free for commercial use.

1B.) For the non-profit organization I am doing my internship for, aside from the internship agreement form I have to sign up and send to the supervisor, there was no form of non-disclosure agreement as well as any form of contract that the company provided. Despite that, I still have the common decency to not infringe or disclose any information regarding the personnel involved in the company as well as their personal lives whenever I made my journal entries. After all I am seeking to gain experience in working at a company, organization, business firm etc., not infringing or disclosing anything private about the co-workers and other personnel in the organization. I try to be as not provide any specific names of the personnel involved for the sake of their privacy, Not only it is the right thing to do, it is common human decency and a good sense of morals. According to AIGA’s A Client’s Guide to Design, it stresses out enough that it is the designer’s responsibility to communicate with the truth to the pubic and to avoid making false claims and misinformation that could lead to the company having a bad reputation. I keep that message in mind whenever I design a work for the organization so my designs will reflect on what the organization stands for in their overall mission.

Source(s):

AIGA Business Ethics-Guide to Copyright: https://bbhosted.cuny.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-73245777-dt-content-rid-561964859_1/xid-561964859_1

AIGA Business Ethics-Client’s Guide to Design: https://bbhosted.cuny.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-73245777-dt-content-rid-561964856_1/xid-561964856_1

Image from OnlineLabels

As I keep working on the tasks I was given in my internship, my supervisor assigned us to design T-shirt mockups for their company. This was an exciting opportunity, because I have always wanted to try out and design the graphics for T-Shirts, even if it is just for a company. Not only that, but I can use my illustration skills to my advantage. Keeping with the goal to help groups that are seeking empowerment and civil and economic life, I designed the graphics in a way that symbolizes equality and empowerment.

(Disclaimer: Please DO NOT download or reupload the images anywhere else. These are my designs and they are for the organization)

I must say, this project is quite an engaging change of pace from the usual design the magazine article assignments I have always given, especially since I have a bit more lee-way on how to execute the graphics for the t-shirt designs. I am looking forward to see just how much more intriguing and engaging the projects that were provided by the organization.

Image from Unsplash

During my time in my internship opportunity, I was assigned to be in a team of other fellow Marketing and Communication interns to help create graphic design deliverables. Whenever I need some proper feedback, I will try and use the Microsoft Teams group chat to see what sort of feedback the group can provide to help me improve on my design. Previously, this company was using Google chats. While I do have no issue on using it, I always found the interface from Microsoft Teams more engaging in my opinion.

Occasionally during the week, some folks in the company will post info on additional assignments that needed to be done if possible. Other times they will notify certain things that are related to certain racial groups and major news. Regardless, the Microsoft Team chat is only been used to get info on any upcoming assignments I was given. It would have been a more engaging experience if this opportunity was on-site or at least have occasional Zoom meetups.

Image from ClipArt Library

Within my time in the non-profit organization, I was assigned to not only design the pages for the articles that was written by the writing department, I was also assigned to design the cover for the February magazine. Considering the organization’s main objective, having a magazine centered around Black History Month is not only appropriate but also a pleasant gesture to celebrate Black individuals for the whole month of February.

The articles I have designed focuses on the many aspects on Black History Month from the activists who contributed to fight for the rights of Black people to the notable Black figure that made a positive impact to society. With that said, I made sure that the designs for the articles and the cover for that digital magazine spread reflects on the overall theme of Black History Month. I have chosen empowering imagery to create the magazine cover. For the articles while I can design it however I want, I still have to use some of the brand’s colors for consistency sake. Overall, doing these tasks for Black History Month is not only inspiring but it is such an engaging task for me to get a better grasp of my graphic designing skills.

Image from Dreamstime

For the non-profit organization my internship is located, I am working as a design associate for their communication and marketing department. Within that branch, the whole team has to design articles for the organization’s monthly magazines. Additionally, the marketing team are also tasked to design merchandise such as t-shirts and baseball caps to help promote the organization to individuals and families who are interested in helping the organization’s main objective.

The marketing team helps promoting the organization further by making social media advertisements that will help people who will be interested on finding out more about the organization to see if they are interested in fighting for their cause. Not only is being part of this branch an engaging experience, but I also have a huge improvement on my graphic design skills as well as my proficiency with the industry-standard software such as Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign.