Fall 2020 Internship
In the summer of 2020, I had to start looking for an internship for fall 2020; I received an email about a Citytech department looking for several graphic designers. That email caught my attention, so I decided to apply. The internship was the department called Faculty Commons found within City Tech. “Faculty Commons is a center for teaching, learning, scholarship, and service that coordinates all professional development, grants, and assessment activities of faculty at City Tech.”
They began interviewing at the beginning of the summer. They requested a portfolio, resume, cover letter, and two references as a requirement. I was lucky because I already had my portfolio at 80% ready. In a previous class, I had updated my resume and only had to get two references. After I applied, I was called to interview Zoom due to the pandemic. It was a bit weird to have a computer interview since I wasn’t used to it. In that interview, I was able to speak with four people, 3 of them work for the department as designers and coordinators other than the supervisor. The interview was not very long. It lasted for about 30 minutes. First, the 3 designers interviewed me, and then I had an interview alone with the supervisors. Their vibes were perfect, and that called me helped me relax a bit. They asked me many questions about my portfolio and my design process. After I finished the interview, I waited several days, and they sent me an email saying that they accepted me for the internship. Before starting the semester, I would have to do a 30-hour training via zoom to learn about the department and how they work. This training was from Monday to Friday, 5 hours a day. They taught us many things about how the department works. I learned how to write an email to a client. Questions that we must ask ourselves to have a clear idea of what the client wants and much more. On the last day of training, they gave us final work. We had to design a poster with an infographic about covid 19.
Entry 2
In the first week, they decided to meet via zoom with all the designers once a week. The meeting helps us maintain better communication since we cannot closely see each other due to the pandemic. So in the meetings, everyone talks about the assigned projects, what ideas they have, and the others can make a criticism or collaborate with an idea. The first week was a bit slow as the entire university transitioned to this new style of teaching. So they didn’t assign us any work. But we took the time to review a bit of what we had learned in training in the summer. This department has as clients the teachers of the school or people who work in it who need help with some design. Some of the projects are poster designs for some school activities such as workshops or important information that the university wants to publicize. I remember that the summer we reviewed some projects about a writing contest, and they gave us the chance to create a poster in our own way.
Entry 3
The second week of the internship has been a bit slow. I’m still waiting for a job to be assigned to me. The reason for this is that we must wait for the clients to have in hand all the information about the project they want to do. Also, since this semester is online, this has caused a little delay in some jobs or clients. Our team had a meeting via zoom, and they told us that they might assign us clients to start working.
Entry 4
Finally, they assigned me, two clients, to work. Now I have to do some research on them to get a general idea of who my clients are. Then I have to contact them by email. In the mail, I must introduce myself and offer my services so that clients know who I am and what I can do for them. After I get in touch with them I have to organize a zoom meeting to discuss more in-depth about the projects and understand what they want.
But it is not as easy as I thought, I tried to send several emails but they never responded. I contacted my supervisor but she told me to wait a few more days because maybe they were busy. At this point, I was losing interest a bit as my other classmates were already working. Several days passed and I was able to communicate with one of my clients. But it did not give me good news since they were still in the process of this new stage and did not have any type of work for me at the moment. My second client never answered my email. Sometimes clients are busy and not responding to emails. On the one hand, I felt good because I followed the protocol to contact the client but on the other hand a little unmotivated since there were projects to work on. I told my supervisor what was going on and he told me to wait several more days and that may be new clients would arrive.
Entry 5
Faces of Freelance
Some friends and I found this event. I have noticed that lately a lot of people are using instagram live to do interviews. On this occasion we find NYC_HUB. Jalen Vasquez is the community manger At Nyc_hub. The objective of this interview is to present the lives of some of the freelancers, their ups and downs, how they started, what they are working on and how they are doing to continue working in this time of pandemic.
On this occasion they interviewed Eric Lee a graphic designer and illustrator He talked about his journey as a freelancer and tips that have worked for him in his journey.
Lee explains how he started his freelance career. He says that his father inspired him since his father opened a food distribution business and a restaurant and this pushed him to do something that he always wanted and that was to work independently. He started making designs for friends and over time he got more clients.
He mentioned something that I liked and that is that through his Instagram he got clients. He created a page only dedicated to his work and through there he became known more. I think that’s a good idea for designers.
Entry 6
This has not been my best semester. The pandemic has made many things difficult for me. But I try not to lose motivation.
This week I was assigned a new client as the first two could not agree on anything. My new client is The School of Arts and Sciences. I followed the protocol of introducing myself and coordinating a meeting to discuss the new project. We arranged a meeting on Friday afternoon. At the meeting, there were two professors who are in charge of the project. The project is for The Fifth Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium. This is an event where science fiction experts meet and each year the event has a different focus theme. This year the topic is about race.
Some of the Topics are:
Histories of race and Science Fiction.
Representation of race in Science Fiction.
Representation of writers of color in the Science Fiction field.
Inclusion or exclusion of readers and fans due to race.
Issues of identity, including race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, culture, etc.
Subgenres and movements, such as Afrofuturism, Black science fiction, Indigenous Futurism, and speculative fiction by writers of color.
Race, Science Fiction, and Music, such as Sun Ra, George Clinton, Janelle Monáe, and Outkast.
Race and Comic Books
Engagement with civil rights movements in Science Fiction explicitly or metaphorically.
Pedagogical approaches to teaching race and Science Fiction or teaching about race with Science Fiction.
At the meeting, the teachers shared a lot of material with me to get a general idea of the project.
The next step is to start doing a research and do the sketches and then present the ideas to them.
Entry 7
the name of the webinar and the topic covered
The topic of this webinar was Transitioning from graphic design to UI/UX and of the topic covered are: How to think like a UI/UX Designer How to think like a UI/UX Designer, The missing skills you need to learn, How to gain UI/UX experience, How to create a portfolio to showcase your new abilities and work.
The names of the speaker is Elizabeth Alli and the company sponsor DesignerUp.
• What you learned & was there a follow-up email after the event from the hosts
How paper can impact in your busines. The role of print catalogo. Oporunity for print.
print los mejor para vender productos email no grava la atencion del cosumidor.
direct mail asegura mas la atencion de un potencial cliente .
• Your take/review of the event
The event started on time.
• Research one company or speaker or topic mentioned in the event and add that info to your post.
Entry 8
Science Fiction Poster
A week ago, I had a meeting for the 5th Annual City Tech Science Fiction project. This year the event will focus on race. The clients did not give me a clear idea of what they wanted and told me that I could focus on whatever I wanted, and then we develop the idea together. These projects are a bit more difficult because I don’t know how to start since the meeting did not discuss a precise idea. Something that helped me was that the clients had given me a folder with different images that they liked. So use that for inspiration. Some of the previous designers had done illustrations, but one of my weak points is that I don’t draw. I develop more in what is editing and photomontages.
Previously at the meeting, they had mentioned something about Black Panther, such as the city and technology they had in the movie. So it occurred to me to create a futuristic city on a different planet. The city could represent the population. So I did a photo montage of a city. Then I sent this first idea to the client, and they liked it.
But this still does not represent anything about race. We just had a city background with no clear message. So one of my clients wanted to find a way to represent slavery in some way. Which we thought of adding a kind of evil spaceship with chains representing the slave era and colonialism. The spaceship represents slavery, and the city is the town that wishes to free itself.
We continue to think about how the city could get rid of this evil. We agreed that the city should have a way of defending itself and since this is fiction and we can invent things out of the ordinary, we decided to add a type of weapon that fires at the ship.
Entry 9
Adobe MAX Keynote 2020
This is my first time attending one of the adobe presentations. Conan O’brien opened the event with a monologue. His presentation was good, but since there was no audience, it felt like something was missing. At the beginning of the presentation they talked a bit about everything that has happened so far in 2020. And they mentioned that due to the pandemic this gave them reason to make improvements in some of the programs. One of the updates they made was to be able to use Illustrator on Ipads. Although I am not a big fan of tablets, I think it is a good idea to be able to use illustrator on the Ipad since I know people who use more Ipad to draw and having an illustrator would suit them.
They also mentioned some free mobile apps but I don’t remember much. I think they mentioned photoshop for cell phones.
One feature that I really liked is being able to create a pattern. Before you had to copy and paste several times to create a pattern but now they created an option that with just one click, the illustrator automatically creates a pattern for you and you just have to adjust it to your convenience.
They also talked about photoshop. One of the most used software in the world. They announced a very curious and good tool and it is to replace the sky in an automatic photograph. This called me a lot the attention because I like photography and sometimes it is my photos sky is very white and with the help of photoshop I can change the sky and make it more interesting.
Entry 10
As a group class, we went on a virtual field trip to the Nassau County Museum. The Nassau County Museum of Art is located 20 miles east of New York City. This was my first virtual museum visit. I guess this is the new safe way of visiting a museum. I would have liked to go in person to see it. Virtually it is not the same feeling. I like to explore the museum on my own feet and see the art very close.
One of the pieces of art that caught my attention was by Antoni Santin. This piece of art caught my attention because from afar I thought it was a rug attached to the wall. But the truth is that it is a painting. The skill of this artist to make something so realistic is impressive. In the video, the narrator said that the artist went to the museum and measured the walls, and painted the art. The size of these arts is around 84in x 59in. On google, I found a close-up photo of the art and is impressive the amount of details you can see. One of the art is called “The tree of life” and the other is called “Toast to Ashes”. In class, we were talking about the blue color and its definition. The artist and oriental arts use the color blue to define truth and honesty and also the idea of a peaceful afterlife.
