Recently at the internship, I was given two projects. One is designing a greeting card for WPC and the second is to design a book cover and postcard for a member at WPC.  The first greeting card project I am working with another intern at WPC, we both made sketches and ideas for the card. It’s an interesting little project but to get ideas down was really difficult because my supervisor was (not) very open to anything. She didn’t give a specific idea of what she wants or which dictation she’s thinking of, so we tried various sketches. The second project is to design book covers and a postcard. This is for one of the members at WPC. She wrote a book on her own, and my supervisor and I had a meeting with her and discussed what the book is about, target audience and what she wants from WPC.  My job is to revise her postcard, first book cover, and design for the second book cover. I love this project more because I actually meet with the client and work directly with the client.  It feels more likes the real life experience. But the difficulty of this project is to connect with the client because she had a postcard design already, which I felt was very disorganized, very ‘busy’. Busy, I mean that it has too much for the eyes. For example, front and back have two very different colors schemes, too much contrasting. Front side is earth tone and back is in pink and I don’t think the design works but she wanted that way so I can’t change the way that I think is good. The hardest part is to teach design to the client, for example when we doing the book cover she showed me the first book cover, she has an image in a rectangular shape and on the yellowish ground color background and back has another image and her self-portrait too. So I tried to tell her in design wisely, we try to avoid putting an image in the square shape. She asked me why I don’t know how to explain to her why and I know I can’t just say because it doesn’t look good. I am learning many strategies of working with clients, and know they are not as design conscious as I, so I must be patient. Occasionally.  Overall, it was a great experience to work with her.

A typical day for me begins at 6 am, a bit early for what I have been used to. It is the summer and warm and the sun is up so it is easier to get out of bed compared to a cold and dark December. I drive to the College and attend a Design Team class from 8:30 am until 11 am.  then drive to the WPC office, which is about 15 minutes by car. Parking is easily available because there is a big Lowes parking lot. I start my day at the WPC at 12 pm – 12:30 pm. In the first week of my internship, I mainly organized files and mailing correspondence to clients. I had to find the client information and print mailing labels. This is one of the first new skills that I learned, how to print mailing labels, and how to use the printers of the center to accomplish this. The printers are big industrial sized machines, and I feel they are good to learn to use, because someday I may work for a design firm that prints in bulk and operates these large machines. They are noisy machines, and emit an odor of old ink, and can get hot when they are working constantly. This is one reason that the printers are located at the back of the office where there are some big windows. Usually, I finish at about 6 pm, and the office remains open until 8-9pm. From there, I return home and do some work at home as well, like finishing projects on my computer.

The WPC is a non-profit organization. They accept anyone to be volunteers, and the culture of the workplace is informal, though with a sense of purpose. Everyone seems very dedicated to their work and passionate about the work we do. I never hear anyone complaining about the work, because they know that the job they do is a necessary assistance for the community. The workers are happy in their jobs. The dress is informal as well, comfortable clothes. The office is located in an open space, with no partitions. A typical workstation is a desk with a computer. There are a few very large printing machines located toward the back of the office, where a wall of books is also located. A typical work day for a full-time employee like my supervisor is from around 9 am – 8 pm, when the center is open. The hours are not regular because the workers often travel within the city for the clients. One thing that surprised me is the lunch time. A local restaurant donates all the meals for the WPC. However, this is only done in bulk, on Saturdays. This means that a few people go to the restaurant with large containers on Saturdays and take a LOT of food that will last the office through most of the week. I was surprised by this because everyone shares everything, like a family. It makes sense because this is a non-profit organization, they do not have any large income, so they must cut their daily living costs wherever possible.