Graduation is right around the corner and I really don’t want to think about it. I am finishing up my junior year. I’m currently undergoing finals and it is always the most stressful time of the year. The only things I have to keep me positive are Sheetz runs in the middle of the night, taking naps, and thinking about the summer and getting to see my girlfriend. Though right now I also have a Krewella concert tonight to look forward to, but that’s besides the point. So I will be starting my senior year next fall and that’s scary as shit. I don’t want to graduate and go out into the real world because that is scary and a foreign territory to me. It’s mostly the fear of the unknown. I have no idea where life will take me after graduation and that’s a frightening thought. I will be going where ever the job takes me. So I could end up in New York, Philly, or who knows maybe all the way out in Cali. It is just scary to not know what’s going to happen to you or where you will go. Getting a job. Who knows how long that will take. Getting a place to live. Paying for said place to live. Being alone in a big city. (I mean obviously I’ll be in a big city because I don’t think there are many places that are out in bummfucknowhere) Being in college is fun because you don’t have to be a grownup just yet. You have enough freedoms because you are out of the house and living on your own. You can eat what you want, do what you want, go where you want. The only draw back is you still are supported by your parents and you have to still answer to them. So you’re close but not quite there. I am just afraid of the responsibility of supporting myself and not being able to afford a place to live or eat. So live up the college years while you got em because it’s a big scary world out there. I’m not sure I’m ready for it to end. But whatever I do in life I know for sure that I’ll take it all on with force and determination. I don’t live life half-assed and I’m not ready to lead a future that only is half rewarding.
Spring and Internship
Since the illustration concentration classes are only offered in the fall i already know how my whole senior year will go. For spring semester classes first half I will be taking Self Promotion and Portfolio. Self Promotion is how it sounds, I will be making business cards and little designy things to send out and promote myself and my designing and illustration skills to anyone that could help further my career, whether they are one of my peers or a future employer. In this field anything you can do to get your name out there and your foot in the door is worth doing because it is so competitive. Now the reason that I am only taking two classes is because of how ridiculous of a class portfolio is. Portfolio is a whole class dedicated to us taking old projects we’ve done and reworking them to make them better and perfecting them for print so we may have a better chance at a job. So it is a second chance for the projects that did not get enough attention the first time around or projects that were rushed. So you can only take one other class with that without wanting to kill yourself. Second half of spring I will be going on my internship and have a senior exhibit of some my work. Update on that internship! We had a recent graduate come into our illustration class the other week and talked to us about his work he’s been doing. I saw one of his posters was for the electric factory and since that is where I want to internship at I went to talk to him after he was done speaking about it. I asked him if he knew anyone who worked there and he said that he knew the last person who was the in house designer for the electric factory and that he would email me the name of the current one once he found out. And he just did! So I’m going to email her and see who I would need to talk to about possibly setting up and internship for the second half of spring semester. Ahhh I’m so excited! So we shall see what happens. If I don’t end up getting it I’m going to use Soundgarden Hall as my back up. They are a similar venue and located in Philly as well so here’s to positive thinking!
Fall Scheduling
I picked my classes for Fall Semester 2014! Our schedules work a little differently than other students. Our workshops and senior seminars work in half semester increments. So for the first half of the semester I will be taking two of the classes that are in my concentration (Illustration and Graphic Design), Visual Essay and Identity Systems. Visual Essay will be an Illustrated poster that will tell a story. Identity Systems we will be making a whole company from scratch including letterhead, logo, business cards, etc. I will also be taking the Poster Design workshop. Professional Practices will run the entire semester unlike the rest of my classes. For the second half I will be taking two more classes in my concentration, Personal Style and Corporate Publications. Personal Style is exactly how it sounds, I will be working on a personal illustrative style. Corporate Publications, I’ll be honest I really do not know what I will be doing, but I think it will be something along the lines of brochures and booklets and stuff like that. I am also trying to take Package Design. I have seen what the students have made in that class and all of the packaging for their products looks amazing and it looks like so much fun. The only catch is that every one wants to take it and there is already a waiting list for that class. If I don’t get in I wont be too bummed since it isn’t really vital for me to take it, but it would still be fun nonetheless.
Summer Internship update
So here’s an update on my possible summer internship. Instead of having the over the phone interview like we originally discussed, I emailed back and forth with Daniel Kloss the assistant creative art director of the company (not without difficulty because my email was acting up) and we set up an in person interview. I drove down to balitmore to meet with him at T Rowe Price (it’s a financial investment firm) and I was really nervous. The fact that I had to wear these high heels that kept falling off my feet was even more nerve wracking. I was sweating. I was not prepared to meet wit him over spring break. My dad had suggested the idea to me after i had already come home for spring break, so i had no clothes for an interview. I had to borrow my mom’s clothes and wear those shitty heels I’ve never worn. So I’m sitting in the waiting room and I’m nervous. He comes down to get me and we have our meeting in this conference room with this other woman Julia who is his coworker, which he said she would be my mentor if I got the position. We had what I would like to think was a good interview. I think I answered their questions satisfactorily. It’s been over a month now and I still haven’t heard an answer. I emailed them a few weeks ago asking if they had reached a decision yet. They hadn’t so if I don’t hear from them soon I will send out another. I need to know what I’ll be doing this summer so I can plan accordingly. So wish me luck!
Internship Part 2
I had a meeting with Professor Kresge in her office today. I wanted to discuss internship possibilities for next spring. We had a presentation for graphic design juniors and seniors to discuss scheduling and internships, and basically just to help us figure out what we need to make happen in the next two semesters. It’s a lot of work and I know I will be ripping my hair out all semester and attempting to mop up my tears with my fallen hair, but I know I’ll survive and come out the other end a stronger person and designer. So I met with my professor to discus other internship ideas because the ones she listed did not appeal to me or relate to the direction I want to go towards in my design career. I would love to work in the music industry. I want to design things like, album covers, posters, event promotion, and logos and such. One of my friends suggested the Electric Factory in Philadelphia as a possible internship location. My eyes lit up immediately. That would be the dream internship for me. I’ve gone to two concerts there before: Zedd and Barstool, and they were so much fun. The Electric Factory would be right up my alley and I’m really excited to find out more about how they operate so I can figure out if an internship is possible. Other possibilities would be the Sands Events in Bethlehem and Sound Garden Hall. I’m so excited to learn more about the music industry and how it works along side design and how they are all collaborated together. So over spring break I will be working my butt off researching information and who I would get in touch with to discus the possibility of an internship with, so then I can go back to my professor and work with her to try to find me the best internship ever.
Scheduling
So the new semester will come faster than we think. As seniors, we have to pay special attention to how our schedule is set up for the upcoming school year. It may prove difficult for many of us to get the schedule we want or even to just fit in all the classes we want to take. It could also be the deciding factor of whether or not you’ll be able to graduate on time and in a good position to go out and get jobs. There is a lot on the line and a lot of pressure, but I’m looking forward to senior year like no other. There are so many classes I want to take it may be difficult to fit them all and graduate on time. I know as an elective, I at least want to take Print Making, which is a class focused of course on making prints, either with metal etchings or woodcut blocks or linoleum, etc. This coming fall since the Illustration major classes are on offered during that semester I will be taking Visual Essay and Personal Style with Professor Cunfer, who is basically already my mother. So those should be a great classes. And I’m also continuing to concentrate in Graphics and in that category I’m taking Identity Systems. Along with those classes I want to take Advanced Typography, Poster Design, and Self Promotion for Illustrators and Designers on top of the internship I have to do and Portfolio and Professional Practices. So needless to say I am freaking out. I have no idea how I’m going to fit all of this in before I graduate. I do not want to have to stay an extra semester because I would like to get out in to the real world and start working, not to mention my dad said he was only paying for four years. So wish me luck in figuring it all out.
Internship for the summer!
Ahhh oh my gosh I’m so excited! I might be getting an internship for this summer! A little background information for you first. So I was at my dad’s aunt’s house for Christmas Eve and her daughter, Meg Millard, and I were having a nice little ‘catch up on each others lives’ kind of conversation. Now I was talking to her and she was asking me about school and I mentioned that I was currently interested in finding an internship for the summer. She offered me up the idea that she might be able to hook me up with one at her company, T Rowe Price. It’s a huge finance and investment company located in Baltimore, Maryland. After beating around the bush for a while after winter break was over and trying to get back into the swing of school, I sent Meg an email. She asked me to then send her my resume and some examples of my work for her to circulate around to the right people. After emailing difficulties, emails back and forth, and several weeks of waiting I finally heard back this morning. I recieved an email from the Associate Creative Director in the brand and the creative group and T Rowe Price. He offered up the option to facetime or phone call interview to discuss the internship. I’m so nervous because I’ve never interviewed before. I asked my professor some advice and she gave me some good pointers. I think I’m going to research their company a little more and try to find out some more information on the design work they have done. I’m curious to find out what kinds of things I’ll be doing there for them. And of course I’m interested in finding out if it’s a paid internship, because obviously I’m going to need gas money this summer. It should be awesome! Can’t wait to see what comes out of it.
An insight…
In my graphic design class I gained a little glimpse of how my job as a designer will work. My professor set up our project as if it was the real world. The project was to create the vinyl album cover art of the soundtrack to our lives. However we will not be the ones designing them. We go to another class mate as a client going to an art director and tell them all about yourself and ideas as to what you would like your album to look like. Then from there the art director then goes and hires a designer to create the actual art work for the piece. It is us to the art director to make sure they are fulfilling your requirements and representing your ideas successfully. So it is our job from the small amount of information we know to create a piece that the client is happy with. So, unless you are designing as an art director, you will be working with many other people to complete the job. Also having had many of my professors multiple times, I learned that they are more than just professors. They have other jobs and hobbies that make them more unique individuals, than just graphic designers. Many of them are free-lance designers or have multiple teaching positions. They are all diversely published and have created a name for themselves in the design world. It is not easy to start out after you graduate college. Many designers end up living from spot illustration to spot illustration, making only a few hundred per piece. This is known as every artist starving period. But if you get lucky enough to get noticed you might get hired by a publishing company of some sorts for a while, but it’s still only temporary. You have to keep your skills up or you will be replaced. It is a very challenging and competitive career choice, and we work so hard for our fifteen minutes and hope to make something of a name for ourselves. My goal though is to just make a difference in at least one life. To make the world a more beautiful place.
From humble beginings…
Even as a child I had aspired to be an artist, quoted from kindergarden saying “I like to ‘pait’ things.” I was always drawing pictures. I looked forward all day to the art class we were required to take that most kids dreaded. In middle school i graduated from stick figures to a shape that actually resembled something remotely realistic. Then to high school when people actually start giving a crap. The figures you draw aren’t so flat any more and you spend hours trying to perfect your awkwardly drawn hands. College was a new ball park. It wasn’t anything like high school art class. It was basically a kindergarden art class. You just fucked around all class and drew some cool looking stuff and maybe a water color still life. When college first felt real was when it hit me that whatever path I chose was going to lead me in a direction and give me some skills to get a big girl job. And that’s a scary thought. Freshman year was the easy transition to taking us all back down to basics with fine art we all started as equals. I started off college as a fine arts major and realized within my first year that fine art wasn’t going to take me all that far in the money making biz. Sorry to say it, but fine art is a dying occupation. Sophomore year was for developing more skills and broadening the way we think. Junior year is it seems for sharpening and grooming our skills and acting in a professional manor. Senior year I predict will be all about being professional and applying our skills to the way the real world operates, getting used to the system. I came from an typical beginning just slightly better than my peers in my skills of graphite drawings of my friends and copying a famous movie character’s likeness. To now trying to discover my passion in design and how I want to use my skills in the future to build a reputable career.
happysnackz 