ATC Internship Update #4

Things are starting to wrap up here at the ATC as the internship draws close to an end. I've had such a good time here learning about the trail, graphic design, marketing and communications, but I've also made some good friends and had a lot of fun working at an organization with such cool people and I'm kind of bummed to have to go. But new things and experiences are out there, and I'm really excited about all the possible prospects that lay before me!

Before my time here is over though, I get the opportunity to work on some really cool, super important projects, one of which I am actually in charge of creating the theme for in it's entirety!

Every year, the ATC holds a membership drive and shows a film to raise money, and John, the resident graphic designer, comes up with a theme for the drive that reflects the film's feel. But this year, I get to be in charge of coming up with the theme, which I feel is a pretty big compliment to my marketing and communications abilities! It is also a really big responsibility though as my designs and ideas for the theme will end up becoming the real deal. I'm talking flyers, banners, web graphics, buttons, stickers, and so much more, so there is definitely some pressure that comes with this project.

Theme art for the drive 

 
My approach to this project was all based on the feelings I had towards the film, The Appalachian Trail: An American Legacy. Since the movie had a really heavy focus on the history of the trail and what it means to hikers today, I decided to try a concept based around using old black and white photographs and giving them a splash of color to try to imply the idea of something from the past becoming alive and relevant again. I then paired that with a really modern block layout logo to further incorporate the fusing of the old and the new. So far things are going really well and my idea was super popular and is being implemented into all of the promotional material for the marketing drive! Just to know that my designs are going to be all over the place up and down the whole east coast is something I am super proud and excited about!

This unfortunately is the last project thats worth mentioning on my blog for the rest of my internship. I have done so many other things in my time here including some photography and some video shoots along with a bunch of other designs and maybe when I get some time I can upload those to my resume website for everyone to see. Until then, I have to finish a bunch of other projects before I can start to edit and show those, but keep an eye out for those in the near future!

I actually want to use this blog to write about all sorts of things from entertainment, to literature, to just rants about random things. My goal is to use it to direct people to my YouTube channels and post content that relates to my future videos.

Thanks for keeping up with my internship, you wonderful people! I appreciate your support!

ATC Internship Update #3

Things have been really busy here at the ATC, but things are going very well! I have yet to spend a day in boredom here because of all the work both John and I get on a daily basis. As the only graphic and web designer at our company, John constantly gets project after project added to his plate and it was really starting to pile up, but since I have been there I am able to help lighten his load by taking on things that he has no time for, and those are the projects I am going to talk about in this post!

The first one I want to talk about is a flyer I made from scratch for the ATC for our Leave No Trace Traveling Trainers. Basically, we had two people from the Leave No Trace organization coming to teach a seminar about how to set up campsites and other camping/hiking related activities without damaging the environment, and we needed a flyer made to advertise their coming. 

I was really given free reign with this project so I really had no rules in terms of the art besides print size and the information. Initially had a really hard time coming up with a design because of how much freedom I had but eventually got a foothold on something I felt comfortable with and the rest came pretty naturally and in the end I ended up with a design I felt really proud of. This was a great lesson in using minimal information and no predetermined art style and creating a good looking and clean flyer that communicated effectively before the deadline, which was extremely short. My supervisor actually handed me the project and apologized for giving me it on such a short notice and said that it didn't have to be anything spectacular, but I'm not about that so I buckled down and focused all my energy on creating a nice flyer in only one work day. I think it worked out well though! 

Since we're on the topic of flyers, let me share another one I had the opportunity of making. This one is a piece I made for Wildlife On The AT, an event which involves a member of a wildlife foundation coming to our building and talking to children and their families about all the different animals that live near the Appalachian Trail. Taking into consideration my audience, I set to work planning out a flyer that was colorful, playful, and inviting. 

This project actually started of really well because I know exactly what I wanted to do after looking through pictures from earlier events. I saw that the animal trainers had brought a skunk last year and that it was going to be here again so I decided that I would implement that into my overall design. I decided to put it on a sign, add some nature elements and before I knew it, I had a great looking kid-friendly design all ready for the press! 

These were both so much fun to make and I learned so much by making them! I got exposed to both situations concerning having an idea and not, and I learned how to deal with those in an effective manner! I will talk about my latest and greatest projects in the next post, so adios for now! 

ATC Internship Update #2

Salutations! Welcome to another update post about some of the projects I have been working on for the ATC! I will be going over a license plate graphic and a video project I created and the experience I gained from them! So, without further ado, let's jump right into it!

One of the first projects I got to work on along with the GAME graphic was this license plate graphic. The objective was to create and adjust artwork to certain specifications with the purpose of being printed onto license plates for the state of Pennsylvania and my job was to take preexisting elements and modify them to fit a specific standard.

My first task was to take a picture of a hiker standing on rocks and create vector outlines in Illustrator, but the tricky part was in the details of the hiker as we wanted to to keep the image as gender neutral as possible; thats where the heavy editing came in to play. I messed around with the image until I came up with the perfect solution for our situation making the hiker have a balanced look of both masculine and feminine, and added it to our license plate template to get approved.

This project was a great introduction in the art of marketing and the power of imagery and icons, especially in the field of keeping the art gender neutral. As a nonprofit organization, we want to use our money wisely and reach as many people as possible and that includes trying our best not to offend people by including as wide of a demographic as possible. I was very comfortable with the software so creating the art wasn't a problem so this was a great opportunity to apply the communication skills I have learned into the real world.

The License plate has reached production and is now being sold in Pennsylvania! I'm so excited to see that my design is actually being bought by people!

My second project was a video one. We had hiker's videos submitted for a contest last year to see why people love the Appalachian Trail and after choosing three winners, the videos were supposed to be uploaded to youtube and the winners announced on social media, but the videos were never branded under the ATC name so they were never uploaded.

 

 Now, for the videos to be properly branded, they have to have the ATC logo presented before and after and a graphic appear halfway through the video reminding viewers that they could donate to the ATC. I was tasked to make those edits and export the videos to a YouTube friendly format. This allowed me to create a great motion graphic intro for the video's beginnings and ends which allowed me to play around in After Effects, one of my favorite programs!

Alright, thats all for now everybody! Be sure to check back in a few days for the next update! Farewell!






 



 

ATC Internship Update #1

Hello, my fellow internet denizens! I've been working really hard at the ATC and doing some really cool stuff, but I finally got some time to write an update about how things have been going and the work I'm doing for them!

First off, I would like to say that the people I work with are super awesome, friendly, intelligent, and just all around fun people to hang out with and that makes the environment a great place to work and feel welcome in! I get to interact with staff members from almost every department in the organization due to it's small size and everyone is great! Some days I even get to chat with the director of our company in the break room as we get coffee (which is for me and not being fetched for other staff members.)

 John, my supervisor, the graphic designer/web developer and Javier, the director of the Communication department are especially awesome to work with. Both of them allow me to be creative with any project I work on and from there, help me refine my ideas to fit company branding standards.They also assist me with any technical problems I run into. Overall, they exceeded my expectations of what it's like working in a professional environment, and while I understand that not all directors or supervisors will be that cool, I am very thankful that mine are really understanding, supportive, and honest about my work and my experience at the ATC.

As far as the work Im doing, I have mostly been working on graphic design projects for the organization such as logo, poster and flyer design, but I do some other things as well regarding video work, photography and marketing/advertisement campaign advisement, but for now, I want to exhibit some projects I completed earlier in the semester.

For my first project, I was tasked with creating a logo for T-shirts and other merchandise with a sporty feel for hikers who hike from Georgia to Maine using the abbreviations for the states to make the acronym GAME. In just an afternoon, I was able to come up with a rough concept of a pair of crossed hiking poles with block type to make it feel sporty, emulating sports logos for reference.  

This project was a fun way to start my work with the ATC because the project was something that they had been wanting to work on for a while but never had the time to work on it. It wasn't something that was time sensitive or that had a deadline so I got to work on it freely without any external pressure. Shortly after though, things got busy again so I couldn't spend any more time on it, but hopefully it will see it's way to the printing press someday!

That concludes my first update post about my internship! I will be sure to post another update in a few days about some more projects I have finished and ones I am currently working on. Thanks for reading in the mean time though!

   

The Appalachian Trail Conservancy Welcomes Me As One Of It's Interns!

As a senior, part of my curiculum in the communication department here at Shepherd University requires me to work at least 140 hours interning with a company or organization that has a division who's purpose is related to my field of study.

Now, the Panhandle of West Virginia isn't necessarily the hub of all things media and communications related, so I knew that finding a an internship that I liked and that I felt would help me get a good job in the future was going to be difficult so I started my search at a job fair and applied for a Discovery Channel internship and a radio station internship in Greencastle, PA which I was accepted to work for. My hope was for me to get the Discovery internship since that one was paid and also a lot more impressive, but alas, I was not selected for a position in their program.

I was pretty bummed that I didn't get that one and I honestly wasn't too excited about the radio station one because of bad hours, no pay and a long drive, so I applied for a intern position at the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) in Harpers Ferry last minute hoping that I could get accepted there, and sure enough, out of 500 plus people, I was selected along with 5 other people to be part of the the marketing department there. The internship wasn't paid, but I didn't really mind because of the short drive and the steady work schedule. I was also really excited to work with a not for profit organization because I have concerns about my lending my skills to an organization that seeks to simply make money and nothing else. I want to be part of something bigger with a constructive purpose so the idea of being part of something bigger then business and money was really appealing to me (The casual atmosphere of this place is a plus too!)

In the end, I made peace with my rejection by the Discovery Channel and embraced the opportunity I had been given with the ATC and so far, everything has been wonderful, educational, and fun and I'm very thankful for this experience. I'll be sure to share some of my experiences here in the coming days!

Okay, folks!! That's a wrap!!!

As the yellow exporting bar finally reached it's render goal of 100%, I got that feeling that I believe that all creators get when they finnish one of their works. They take a deep, proud breath and breathe a sigh of relief mixed with a sigh of accomplishment. That was me tonight. Seeing that bar fill up and then ding was like music to my ears.

After a month and a half of planning, writing, filming, editing, designing, printing, more editing and waiting, I have finally completed my final product. My film, "Living Life Offline," is finally complete!!
I feel very proud of this accomplishment given the amount of time and the resources I had to work with which was a sparse portion of each as my time was also being shared with other projects and my equipment and financial situation was minimal.

The process to get here though was very difficult and was sometimes, sorry, most of the time very frustrating as there are always unexpected bumps in the progress followed by redoing something that you thought was good but wasn't, to forgetting where certain files were and then staying up all night fixing it and so on and so forth...

But, I still had a great time making this film and if anything, it has confirmed that even though this field isn't easy it is a great feeling to make your vision come true and that makes it all worth it. Plus I actually enjoy shooting and editing so that helps a lot too! I look forward to a future full of creation, inspiration and sharing my visions with the world.

If you're interested in seeing the film, I will write a blog with a link to the Youtube link or you can view it soon on my film's Facebook page

The home stretch

As the date for showcasing our projects nears, I scramble to get everything in order for presentation.

Most of it is assembly work. 98% of the shooting is done along with the editing, audio, motion graphics  and the poster for the film is done.

I plan on doing just one or two more interviews before I wrap this whole thing up since I only have interviews given by younger college aged people and a teenager. I wanted to cover a larger range of age so hopefully my older interviewee has time to answer a few questions for me.

Other than that, I feel like the bulk of the project is done.    
My attention now turns toward working on blogs and and getting things ready for show.

I'm working on organizing my deliverables like my interviewee's signatures and information all filled out and getting ready to work on an online portfolio in a few days. I also will have to set aside some time to get some research information ready for the show.  
Here's where it would have payed to not put them off so long but I'm confident in my abilities to have everything ready for the show.