Tag: Design

Day 4: French West Vaughan

Today we joined in on a social status meeting where they discussed updates with various companies (and the government) such as Pendleton whiskey and Case Knives. For both companies, influencers were one way to reach a larger audience. They also work with the North Carolina Department of Transportation where they discussed campaigns such as Click it or Ticket and Booze it, where they work to improve traffic safety. Creating content and utilizing influencers were also a large part of this project. After this meeting, we also were able to meet with Barrie, the VP, and Ms. Best, who is the COO. We discussed and asked questions about their job and FWV in general and were able to gain many new insights.

Day 1: Company Intro Info and Internal Meetings

Today we learned about the inner workings of the company, from the way it was set up to how it runs. We sat in on internal meetings discussing planning, status updates, and client content schedules. We also asked our pressing questions about the company before breaking off into smaller groups to shadow individual team members. Everyone was super nice and answered tons of our questions!

SAS Day 6

Today was the first day of the second shadowing program at SAS. I had come from spending 3 days shadowing people at marketing, and today I started shadowing Mark Malek at SAS’s UX Design (user experience) field. UX Design deals with the presentation and efficiency of a website. It does not create ideas for websites, but takes an existing website and makes it as presentable and enjoyable as possible for the user. I met Mark for the first time and we sat down at the cafeteria introducing ourselves and talking about my background in technology and design. We then spent a few minutes going around the UX offices and meeting people that worked there. We then settled in his office where he ran me through his profession and the tools he uses to get work done. He uses programs like Adobe Illustrator and Sketch to make interfaces, but we focused mainly on Sketch today. Sketch is a good tool to lay out a website page or draft and brainstorm appealing visuals. He pulled up a random website page from SAS’s drive website and he recreated it so I could become familiar with the program. He provided me with a MacBook that I will be able to use throughout the week. Once we were done, it was time for lunch and we both broke out and I was able to eat with some fellow Cary Academy students.

After lunch, we attended a quick one-on-one meeting that Mark has with another intern regarding Sketch. The intern had a few questions on Sketch and it was helpful to learn from the questions asked and answered. We then went back to his office where he showed me several websites and tools that designers use to get inspiration and showed me more advanced and nifty tips on Sketch. We went over tomorrow’s plans and finished for the day. This was the first time I have ever experienced something like this since it merges two string interests, design and technology, that I have not always been able to put into practice and allows me to see how they are applied in the workplace.

Generate Design Day 4

Today was a little less eventful, but I was still able to get in some work for GD. They looked into reviving their social media accounts such as on twitter, instagram, etc. and they told me to think about possible interesting insights I could note and help them post things that are more relevant form my perspective and would appeal to my type of audience or generation type.

They also run a blog page that they asked me to possible search for and save images for in the future. Tyler asked me to write a small piece for the blog about the Pantone’s Color of the Year: Living Coral. I was able to read a few articles on the color, and their ultimate decision in picking that color, and write about my own takeaways and conclusions about it. I ended up talking a lot about the impact on the environment and the the significance of the color it has on me and possible others in the community.

On the way to lunch, Tyler told me a little about college admissions and the whole process of appealing to the council. He was/still is a college educator and was able to give me valuable insights on how I should approach my application/essay process. An important thing I learned is to always stay resourceful, even without the right tools or programs for it, it shows that you are always able to get the job done, and that you aren’t reliant on technology or software to help you do your job or what you need to get done.

SAS Day 2

Day 2 at SAS gave me a glance at what several people in the workplace do every day. The first hour was split into shadowing 2 people for 30 minutes. Evan was a marketing writer and Trey was a marketing editor. They both ran us through past and current projects and told us why they preferred editing over writing and vice versa. We then spent an hour shadowing Beth Satterfield which showed us several of her projects at SAS like all the times she went at Disney for fair to sell products from SAS. She showed me pictures from her booth and showed us the process in creating a booth that would grab someone’s attention by linking it to Disney or whatever their customers’ interests are. She also told me about many tips on getting a job, like maintaining contacts with people I meet, sending thank you letters after interviews, and being kind to everyone since they can provide opportunity in the future. After beefing with Beth, I went to eat lunch with everyone I met today and the day before. The lunch room was a different lunchroom than yesterday but was also huge and offered a broad variety of foods from around the world.

I then went with my host, Leah, to look at many of the work/life centers like the gym, pool, meditation garden, daycare facility, library, and many other facilities that were offered by SAS. Finally, we spent some time in the design lab where we explored many of the collaboration spaces filled with sticky notes and many variations of buttons, links, and drop down menus that are found in a website or app. We didn’t spend too much time there because I will be shadowing people at the design lab next week. I am glad that I was able to shadow so many people and get to see so many professions within the same branch of SAS and am excited for my last day in the marketing field.

Generate Design Day 2

Day 2 started off with some work for me to do. They are pre-planning and making designs for their future ads. Mr. Barth asked me if my creative writing skills were up to par, and let me write a few possible headings and blurbs for the ad they will be releasing in the next few seasons. I worked on taking the website creating and designing aspect of their company and stringing together words that make it sound appealing to the audience.

I was going to sketch out some designs for a logo project they have coming up, but Mr. Barth left the office, so until then, I was helping Tyler look for images that corresponded to his social media posts. He let me search up images on getty to download. They addressed topics such as the use of mobiles, the use of video testimonials, and others.

Generate Design Day 1

 

Today was my first day at Generate Design. It is located in Six Forks, Raleigh, and up in a small office building. The person I shadowed is Tyler. He is one of a team of 5, who all take on design projects for their clients. He showed me around the office and explained the importance of certain aspects of a design factor, such as something as simple as the type and texture of the paper used. They use a website called Trello.com to help plan and organize their social media posts and their current projects.

Tyler explained that graphic design is all about culture and technology; you have to know your audience/client, and they best way to give what they want to them. From PowerPoints to business cards to logos, they meet with their client to establish an outline and clear goal, so they can start designing and putting together different drafts to be approved. He also explained the importance of making the buyer feel like their in charge, to always give them a design they’ll reject, so that they have a more satisfactory feeling of contribution to the process. He discussed my future interests for a bit, about what I hope to do in animation, and recommended a few tasks I could do to help add to my experience. He was familiar with animation and was able to give me advice on some aspects of art school applications.

Currently, one of the projects Tyler is working on is designing and formatting a PowerPoint for Governors Club. It is important to note the audience, which primarily consists of older, wealthier residents, and the aspects of their newsletter that they enjoy so he can implement those design factors into the PowerPoint itself. I’m pretty sure we will continue to work on this later this week, as well as look at some other things.

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