Summer student summary of the summer.

Quick, find me in this picture!

I wish I could have fit another word starting with s into that title.

This week is officially my last week as the 21inc summer student. Tomorrow? My last day as the summer student. Gasp! That means it’s time for a summer employment blog post. I found it easier to write this in point form as there was a few different topics I wanted to write about.

Three topics I would like to touch on regarding my summer employment:

1) Worth and value in employment. I don’t know about you, but in my teens (and slightly beyond that) I worked in the food service industry. If you have ever had a job at a fast food place, you know that people tend to come and go. Even though I would go to my place of employment and put in the same amount of effort I would for any other job, I never really felt like I was particularly appreciated for my effort. I didn’t feel like I was of particular value to my employers (Because in their minds, I was just another employee, and employees come and go and can be easily replaced.) At 21inc this summer, I was not only told that I was of worth to the organization but I was shown as much by the projects I was given and the reception to work that I’d done. My opinion is of value, which was shown to me by the fact that Tim would often ask for my opinion on things he was working on (Even if it didn’t have anything to do with what I was working on or design.) I think part of that is due to the fact that I love what I do, but that’s another story. Up until now I didn’t see my own value as an employee/graphic designer because it’d been drilled into my head with years of food service that I was disposable as an employee.

2) Social and economic development, social innovation, politics and public policy. Up until I started working at 21inc these were topics that I did not know much about. I would not say that I’m now an expert on any of those subjects, but they were ones that would come up often in office conversation and it was something that I found quite interesting. Up until now my conversations with people generally involved the ‘hey-how’s-it-going’ type questions, talk about entertainment, and the occasional debate on a philosophical question (If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, does it still make a sound?) For some reason politics and current events (and particularly, what was going on the province) were never topics that came up. But now when people talk about these topics I at least listen (Sometimes I feel like I don’t know enough to express an opinion) because it’s actually a lot more interesting to me than I thought it would be.

3) Learning experiences. From the beginning Tim said that he wanted me to take any opportunity to learn something new that would help me be a better designer or help my portfolio. In my time at 21inc I’ve done two print design projects. I’m a graphic designer but my training is for screen based graphic design. Some aspects of print design were touched on at school so I still felt like I knew what I was doing, but it was still a big learning experience. Another big thing I learned was about communication – Things like explaining software to someone who doesn’t know as much about it, about the importance of including notes on what things I’m aware that need to be fixed on draft documents, asking for a second opinion, and so on and so forth. And using the phone instead email. I learned about work plans and project outlines, and planning projects. Tim would also frequently encourage me to think a little deeper about why I was designing something, and the purpose of it, and how I should integrate all those things together. And to think about how we (21inc) communicate ourselves to the general public. It’s not that I didn’t think before I started here, I just did not give those aspects of design a lot of thought. And those are very important aspects of designing anything (Which they don’t emphasize as much in school, I find)

On top of all the greatness that I have already mentioned, this was also a really fun job. I got to do something I loved, and I worked with awesome people and an awesome organization. There was never a dull moment in the office.

Newsletter is coming soon!

A large portion of my first month(ish) of full time work for 21inc has been spent on a newsletter. It's been pretty exciting (and a good learning process) for me because I usually don't get to work in print.

When I first started we had a template from J.D. Irving, Ltd. and I worked from there. I learned a lot about InDesign, which is a program I'd never really used before. Since this is the first edition, it took a long time. And a lot of rearranging text, photos, and design elements. I have a new appreciation for print because, well, it's really hard to make everything fit onto that one page sometimes (but it can always be done). Now that we have a solid layout of where the text and photos go, and what order all the pages are in, I'm sure that the next edition will be pulled together much quicker.

I feel really accomplished now that it's finished though. And I'm pretty proud of myself, it looks really awesome and I'm quite happy with it. (I have also declared that everyone I know is going to read it.)

The articles are pretty fantastic, we have some pretty great content. I definitely have some favourite parts, and I definitely enjoyed reading it (I hope you do too, when it's released)

Long time, no post

This is the beginning of week four for me of my full time employment with 21inc for the summer. I have been quite neglectful in updating the blog (oops) but this is my attempt at change. I'm just going to write a bit about what I've been up to in my exciting first weeks here

For the most part I've been working on our first newsletter. I have put much of my time and effort into it, so I'm looking forward to it getting out there. It's definitely awesome (if I do say so myself.)

During my first full week, Bill Clinton came to Fredericton and spoke at the UNB Aitken Centre with Frank McKenna. Tim managed to get some tickets, so I was able to go (along with a number of 21inc Alumni) which was really cool. The talk itself was great, it was definitely funnier than I was expecting it to be.

Afterwards, 21inc and the Fredericton Chamber of Commerce hosted an event at the Windsor Castle Bar, titled 'Dissecting Clinton.' Margaret Conrad, Michael Maynard and Larry Sampson all spoke for a few minutes on what they thought of Clinton's talk, and then attendees spoke about what they thought. It was all really interesting conversation and definitely got some wheels turning. Afterwards I conducted some interviews, which will become a webisode to be released in the future. I also took some pictures, which you can see here.

The webisodes aspect is definitely one of my favourite parts of this job. I really like everything about it, aside from maybe approaching people. I'm a little shy - But if you think about it, what's the worst thing someone's going to do? Say no? So that part gets easier every time. Aside from that, I get to go to interesting events and talk to people about what they thought, which is always nice. The part that I find really interesting is threading together all these interviews - people's thoughts - into one coherent train of thought that spans a number of people. It's definitely very fun for me.

The following week, we took a trip to Halifax, which was fun. It was sunny for the first day in a few weeks, and it was nice. I got to go to Julien's Bakery which was awesome (I had a bagel with chive cream cheese.) and we took a visit to The Hub which is a cool place.

That covers my first two weeks, so I'll leave it at that for now.

Brief communications update

Today was the last day of classes at school for me, and although I still have a few loose ends to tie up (DVD authoring and I, for some reason, completely forgot to include audio on a project that required audio.) I'm feeling like it's summer already.

Excitingly enough, I've been hired on as a full time employee at 21inc for the summer. I'm pretty excited because I get to work in my field, and I haven't even graduated yet. It's nice because I'll finally have the time to get everything I want to done (on the website, with videos and our newsletter)

I also have been picking up a bit of French, I'm sure you will be happy to hear. I've been attempting to (roughly) translate some text for the website into French and I found that has been helpful

It's that day of the week again!

It's another Thursday, which means I'm due for another post.

Initially I was going to write a big long post about how I don't know how to drive, to continue on the "things Sarah doesn't know how to do" train of thought, but I figured I'd spare you most of that. I would, however, like to state that I have driven a tractor once, and a car twice. The second car incident involved me almost driving my friend's car into a snowbank while my sister sat in the backseat yelling at me (The joys of winter and being stuck in the snow. Everyone was okay. Even the car! I said almost into the snowbank.)

Ahem. Onto a different topic.

I have recently started paying more attention to politics. It started when I began working here for the most part, but it started cropping up in all areas of my life - My brother often discusses politics with me, it occasionally comes up at both of my jobs, and at school the other day we took a political test. I've been able to vote for the past couple years. I voted the first time I was able to, the second time I did not because I had moved, but this year I'm going to. Tim told me yesterday about vote mobs and it's actually pretty inspiring. There's one happening in Fredericton this Saturday, and I'm going to attend. (there's a good article here about it)

And it's all thanks to Rick Mercer... And even if you aren't attending a vote mob or anything like that - Please just take 20 minutes out of your day and vote, as he says.

Intern post number two

I have a (small) confession to make.

I don't know French.

I never learned French when I was younger, and now I'm wishing I had. It would make things a bit easier for me. I never really saw it as something I needed to know (though I wanted to learn after I took a trip to Montreal last summer) but something that I kept procrastinating (gasp!) on learning. Most of the time if someone speaks slowly to me in French I get an idea of what they're saying, but it's not perfect. Where does this fit in with 21inc? Everything is bilingual. Which I think is awesome. Except I keep making changes to the website and then am reminded that I have to go in and change the French version too. If it's text? Have to wait for someone to translate it.

So something I would like to gain out of working at 21inc is to at least have a grasp on French. My title does have the word 'communications' in it, and probably that should stretch to both languages. (This will be put on the backburner until after school is finished. My other summer goals are to paint more, get into traditional illustration, make comics and go to the beach.)

One thing that I'm already gaining in my (so far) short time here is experience working in an office environment. I've had a few jobs before this (I actually go to school full time and have another job) so I know what it's like to work somewhere, but usually there's a lot of managers telling you "you have to do this and that and so on and so forth..." but here.. I have a number of things that Tim and I decided I'd be working on, and I get to self-direct myself. I have a really short attention span, so it's nice because I have a number of very different things I can work on (layouts, video editing, web stuff) so once I need a break from one thing I can move on to something else. I find that that's how I work best when I'm doing homework, so it's nice to see that I can apply that to a workplace as well (though obviously things that have a deadline get priority.)

What I've been working on today is a webisode for our e-newsletter, with interview footage that I took at the event at Up a few weeks ago. It's actually really convenient because in my A/V production class we just recently went over documentary editing (which was basically putting interviews together) so it seems less daunting now. Putting all the footage together is almost like a puzzle though, but not in a bad way.

Being an intern is fun

It really is!

Some of you may or may not have heard of me (or even met me) but for about the past month I have been an intern for 21inc. I attend the New Brunswick College Of Craft And Design, taking the Integrated Media program. I hear you now asking yourself, "What is integrated media?"

If you are familiar with NBCCD at all, you may know that one of the studios (programs) they have is called "Communication Design" which is basically Graphic Design. They decided last year that there was so much in the realm of graphic design that they couldn't fit it all into one program any longer. So! They split it up into two programs, Graphic Design (Mostly print media based and basic web design) , and Integrated Media. What I take in school is less about the print side of things (Though those things are still a part of my program) and more about media - More dynamic web design, special effects (Motion graphics), film, animation and game design. I also graduated from the Foundation Visual Arts program last year (I miss the drawing/painting aspect of that, though I still get to draw and paint - I just don't always have a drawing class) and I'm almost at the end of year 1 of a 2 year program. The things that I'm most excited about next year are making video games (We're going to be using a program called unity which looks amazing), learning php/web programming, flash actionscript and I get to take another elective (I would like to take a drawing class or something in textiles/surface design.)

Tim brought me on to take care of more the communications side of 21inc - Newsletters, web, and video is mostly what I'll be doing. It's really great for me because I get a chance to work in my field and I haven't even graduated yet. (Sidenote: I get to blog and post things to Twitter/Facebook. For work. How awesome is that?)

Last week there was an event for 21inc alumni at Up wine bar with Nancy McKay, and I got to attend and take pictures/interviews. It was really interesting because I don't really read the news that often or keep up with politics (shame on me) so I definitely learned a lot. I didn't participate in the group discussion but hearing the differing opinions was very insightful. (And the decor was amazing)

That and photography is something that I really enjoy doing, so I was happy that I had a chance to borrow a sweet camera (Nikon D300s) from my studio and go out and take some pictures. I would say that I took at least 80, but narrowed it down to 12 to upload, which you can see at flickr (Click the image at the top of the post)