Fine Arts Career Services

This internship has been an amazing experience. In retrospect, I have grown as a designer, student, and professional. Over the past four months I’ve created and assisted on projects that uphold the UT standard of excellence. Also, I have made some great connections and friends along the way.

As I look to my not so distant future, I am beginning to look for the perfect job. Typically, people straight out of college have trouble and usually settle for less than perfect jobs, which I understand. However, thanks to my internship, I have gained skills and experience for the professional world that make me feel confident to apply for a job and be ready to take on whatever they give me.

Looking back at the start of my time at the printing press I realize that my design skills have tightened and cleaned up. Learning some prepress operations has helped me develop an eye for minor mistakes that most people to cannot identify. However, these small mistakes are what make the difference between amateurs and professionals, which I am striving to be. I understand that I still have a long way to go and much time to put in, but this experience has helped me get one step closer.

February 4th, 2009 by jcg596

Recently, I have been working on the Agenda for TACUP 2009. After two mail outs, different conference forms and signs, we are starting to put together an outline of events for the conference. Tables have always been one of my weaknesses. As a designer it is hard to have something look organized, aesthetically pleasing, and easy to read. Last Friday, after a long week of classes and work I looked down at my light table and noticed that I had done 4 different renditions of the itinerary. They were all awful!!!

So I did the only thing I knew, went back to the drawing board. I kept struggling as I added more photos and overlaying layers upon layers of imagery and text. By the end of the day on Monday everything still looked like a giant mess. So I grabbed all my files and through them away, and crinkled all my prints and through those away too. Start fresh, clear your mind, take five seconds to your self and GO! By doing this I was able to clean up my design and simplify. It worked, I was able to organize, beautify, and make the text more legible.

This project helped me learn that sometimes you just have to know when to STOP! We clutter our minds with ideas and sometimes have trouble letting go of concepts that are not so great but have invested so much time in. The solution was easy…clean up and start again.

The common problem that has been haunting prepress operators and designers for years has been logos. It is not a matter of the quality of the design…it’s the fact that when you begin to deal with lots of “designers” they seem to not understand the correct way of submitting a file. Many times they will send low-resolution files that will eventually end up printing pixilated.

The problem: I have been working on our second mail out for the TACUP 2009 event. Sponsorship began with 6 businesses and has grown to 14. I appreciate all of these companies and their donations, however they always fail to send the right file for print materials. This equals headache for me.

The solution: I discovered that sometimes it becomes easier to rebuild the logo in illustrator (design program) than wait for the company to send me the correct file. In my desperation, I did some research and also found a life saving website: brandsoftheworld.com. This website contains eps files (the correct ones) of all the major corporations logos, both their current logos and their older ones.

Lesson: Sometimes you just have to throw in the towel and solve the problem yourself. It will save you time and a headache.

I recently had a job interview for a freelance job where I would be creating a company logo. I met the manager of Tinniest Bar in Texas on Fifth street recently and we began talking. First we were just talking about unrelated material and then the question, “what do you do,” arose. I told him that I’ve been working for the UT Printing Press as a graphic designer, for the past few months.  He instantaneously jumped on the opportunity to ask me if I could help them out with their marketing and advertising.

The following day I met with him and brought my portfolios to show him some of my work, that would relate to their needs. He liked the work very much and continued by giving me the opportunity to come up with some renderings and sketches for the bar. After talking, I sat at my desk and began thinking about the challenges of the project. One, the bar is breaking up into two venues and changing the name of  the bar to Tiny Bar and 5th Street Live. Two, my “interview” is not over, when we met it was only the first part. Now, I have to wow them with my initial sketches and have them buy the concept.

Because they are giving the place a face-lift their budget is small and would not be able to offer me very much money. However, in looking at the big picture, this has the possiblity of turning into a long lasting relationship where both parties will benefit. I figure that if I do the job for a small amount today, later it will pay off. My internship provided me with the materials I needed to go this internship confident and ready to make a deal.

-Julio

Work has been quite ordinary the past two weeks. I’m currently working on The Texas Association Conference for University Printing (TACUP) marketing projects which takes up most of my time. It’s an ongoing challenge because my director is requesting a new postcard mail-out every few weeks. The challenging part comes in making all of the mail-outs look different but relatable do all the rest. Also, as sponsorship grows, I have to add logos to the card which creates layout disruptions. It will be interesting to see how the branding of this event will evolve over the next few months. TACUP is scheduled for mid-October.

This past week I also finished my first concept for the redesign of our conference room. My biggest challenge here is to transform a drab room into an exciting, interesting, and aesthetic place to showcase the press’ best work and hold conferences. In my design, one of the walls has text all over with words that relate to the printing industry. I find that the design is very modern, but I’m foreseeing a comment like, “its too distracting”. At this point, I’m coming up with a proposal and some nice prints of my perspective composition so that the director gets a good idea of what is in my head.

-Julio

For a recent celebratory dinner, that would be hosted for our clientele, my supervisor approached me with a small job,  to design two signs for recycling bins. One of the recycling bins would be for plastic bottles and the other would be for aluminum cans and each sign would go with its bin respectively. I had to act fast as the day was nearing its end, as was my creative output. The University Printing Press has recently become a green business by Printing with water based inks, increased paper and plate recycling, and implementing awareness all across the building and their website about being green. With this progressive and contemporary implementation on business, I decided to use a “progressive and contemporary” style for the signs. I loosely illustrated a bottle and can and integrated it into the signs. I exported the final pdf’s clocking the project in at about an hour and fifteen minutes….I was thinking, “not my greatest work, but it’ll do.”

The dinner was a success, and apparently so were the signs. About a week later a representative from AT&T, who is one of our good clients, contacted our rep. and wanted to place an order for my signs that were to go up all around their building.  Currently, I am in the process of sprucing up the design and having it look more professional. Also, there has been talk of the signs going up campus wide. This is very exciting for me, I love people seeing my work and having the work be of use for more than aesthetic purposes.

-Julio