Internship at JEL Creative_Summary
This is always the hardest section to write / think about for anything. I could talk about all the little road bumps I ran into on specific projects and tasks all day long, but no one wants to read about Illustrator woes and alignment struggles. Here are some more office/work related hurdles I had to work on jumping:
So JEL Creative has a drop box folder structure that goes hella deep. Folders on folders. And it all makes sense, but it took me a good week to really get comfortable the patterns and naming conventions that were in place. At one point I kinda got sloppy with Pride Fund and all the collateral we were making for them, and Chris, thank goodness, rightfully called me out and said, “yo, we gotta clean this up.”
We had a client meeting with Sally Levie, a DC local / amazing artist who worked in oils, and the plan was for me to present the branding and logo work I had done for her and get her feedback. She, however, was under the impression that we were just re-doing her website and spending a minimal amount of time on her branding. Basically, all the work I had done became irrelevant. Chris saved my butt and took the reins for the rest of the meeting—bless his heart—and it was awesome to watch how he quickly re-routed the conversation and kept things running smoothly despite our brief moment of “????”. We came out of the meeting a little shocked, but at least we knew we were all on the same page with Sally.
Don’t use design jargon. It is worth it to take the time and do a mock meeting / “practice speech in the mirror” and either record or somehow document what you’re saying, and then go back and swap out industry language for vocabulary that someone in the general public will understand. That means no crazy acronyms, giving brief definitions when needed, and also providing good examples that people are familiar with! Like, if you’re explaining a “light box” to someone, a good example might be “you know when you’re on facebook on a computer and you go to make a post, you click in the box and the rest of the screen goes dark? That’s a lightbox. It helps focus users’ attention on a task.”
DON’T CRITIQUE THE CLIENT’S IDEAS! BE NICE! At one point Jason had a question about changing a specific element on one of the logo directions. He ended his idea with “what would that look like, would that be difficult?” I knew what he was proposing wouldn’t look good right off the bat, and went into “critique mode” when I responded with “Well, I’m worried that if we did [what Jason suggested] it would make X illegible. I’d be happy to mock that up so you can see, but I just want to make you aware of that before I do so.” To Jason that probably sounded more like “that’s a shitty idea, and I’m willing to mock that up only to show you how shitty that idea is.” So I messed up on that one... It’s so so important to be gentle with clients ideas, and it’s not because they need to be babied: it’s because what you’re working on is their baby. They should absolutely be involved in the creative process! They’re the ones who are on the receiving end when the project is over, and they should feel satisfied with what the end results.
Major refresh on HTML and CSS best practices
Wrapped my head around Javascript on a conceptual level (shout out to Danny)
Learned how to use Squarespace and hack my way around some themes with custom CSS
Got introduced to Bootstrap. Current relationship status: I’d go for happy hour with Bootstrap but I wouldn’t go clubbing with it.
Found my new favorite messaging platform: Slack.
Got friendly with Asana and Harvest
Discovered how to automate InDesign paragraph styles through both Word and XML files which was H U G E.
Got REAL familiar with Section 508 and am a huge fan 💖
THE BIG ONE: crafting an entire brand from scratch—splash page (made with Squarespace) included—in 4 days flat.
What I’m looking forward to
Sharing all the cool stuff I learned with my design buddied at school
Putting Pride Fund in my portfolio website
Planning and building my portfolio website with all the organizational skills I’ve picked up from JEL
Visiting my JEL fam over the semester because I’m gonna miss them so freakin’ much
In an attempt to not follow the standard “last day at my internship :(” post, I wanted to give some shout outs to my small but mighty office crew that I love and adore:
Josh: hats off to this guy. I think a lot of students who aren’t sure where they want to eventually end up in the design industry will all, at some point, consider running their own little freelance business. After watching from a distance all the planning and coordination and just everything that has to be done financially to set up a project... I’m gonna pass. And, like, Josh is literally the epitome of “get you a man who do both,” because he knows the ins and outs of Creative Suite, and front-end stuff, and the creative side, but he also has his head wrapped around the business end too. So 👏👏👏👏 because, man, I can’t even imagine. And despite a 100% packed calendar he still is the nicest guy around town <3
Jayme: such a great project manager. Whenever I finished up a task he always had something for me to move on to when I couldn’t think of it myself. And also so so easy going when I had stupid questions that were answered with “did you check your email?” Jayme is a total sweetheart, and he always gives me great feedback on my work.
Danny: SO great at explaining front-end to me! He’s phenomenal. Any time I got stuck I could count on him to not only fix the problem, but walk me through the solution and explain best practices as he went. Danny also keeps me in check when it comes to tidy HTML (which makes life easier for eveeerryone). And even though he’s “just” our developer (although I can argue that no one is “just” any one thing at JEL) he’s got a great eye for color and composition.
Chris: our resident meme lord and kick-ass designer. Chris has been homie #1 for a few reasons, but I think that having taken a few design classes at AU and knowing exactly what kind of experience/training I’ve had really helped shape what I’d be doing and learning this summer at JEL. Plus he’s got a killer sense of humor and his Dad level is through the roof, which made office life so prime.
It’s been a blast. Really. This was my first IRL experience being in the design industry and it has honestly been so so rewarding. The people I’ve met are all fantastic, the projects were SO fun, and I couldn’t have asked for a more supportive, and engaging team (with a killer sense of humor). And I’m really excited to still low-key be a part of the team! My internship is ending, but I’m still going to be on board as a remote freelancer for smaller one-off projects. In an ideal world, I’d find time to drop by the office once a week, but I don’t want to get my calendar hopes too high with it being senior year. Realistically I think I’ll drop in one or two times a month to make sure I’m on the same page as everyone concerning projects I’m involved in (and go out for lunch with the team duh).
