Finally, for the last portion of my internship since work coming in was slow or could be completed rather quickly between myself or the lead designer I spent the majority of my time designing different announcement cards for different occasions. I did some for weddings, graduations and a baby announcement.

I was not involved in making the cover of the LDS church's leadership calendars but I was in charge of redesigning the table system and entering in all new calendar information throughout the entire inside of the calendar. This was where I really got good practice at creating tables. By this time I was starting to realize how powerful of a program InDesign really is and how much faster it has made preparing jobs for publication.

This job came in earlier into my internship. Sometimes we would get lucky and artwork that came in would already have bleeds as part of the document file, but many times they wouldn't. This was one that did come with a bleed which was nice and made my job of setting it up to print very easy. Just using this job as a simple example of the type of work I was involved in on a regular basis during my internship.

  

This company would ask for business cards sometimes upwards of 3 times a week and in large numbers too, sometimes asking for cards for 10 or more new people. This particular job was for only 4 new people. I did this job dozens of times and jobs similar to it for several other companies. We had a template saved and I was responsible for entering in new information and tweaking the card at times depending on the information that needed to be on the card. This job includes 4 fronts and the back that went on these cards. We would set these and most other business cards 24 up on a 13x19 sheet of paper.

I was involved with putting together a few Girl's Camp booklets this summer. They would send us a pdf file of their booklet and it was my job to resize it and get it set up for printing. This particular one was set two up on a 8.5 by 11 sheet of paper to save printing costs. This was something I never understood about the print industry and that I spent a lot of time doing, that is, figuring out the most efficient way to print the job on the best sized sheet of paper to boost profits and cut cost.

This company Daylight Donuts also started doing mixed drinks and so they initially wanted a punch card for buying 10 getting 1 free. Then they decided to do a Free Drink coupon card. The punch card I created referencing from their donuts punch card and the coupon card from referencing their donuts coupon card. 

Another instance of a company with a card that we didn't have artwork for but they wanted printed so they sent a physical copy and I recreated the card exactly the way it was done previously.

This school had these forms printed in the past but there was nothing on record with our company so they sent a physical copy of the form and it was my job to recreate the form identically. I got these sorts of jobs from time to time and even though its not original work it's good practice in using the programs. 

Not that creating these calendars was necessarily tricky or difficult but it was good practice in utilizing the creating a table function in the InDesign program which before my internship I really had no clue how to use effectively. After learning how to use this tool a bit better this job came in allowing me to practice a little more. I was able to finish these little calendars in less than half the time it would have taken me before.

Droubay Wedding

A job in the earlier portion of my internship. They had doorhangers made in the past but wanted new ones.

Throughout the last few weeks, I am often given jobs to work on with very minimal help as my knowledge has increased as well as my ability to use the software and provide the services that the customers are looking for. Many times the lead designer has had to leave and I've been left in charge of running the graphics department which has gives me confidence and also helps me continue to improve on techniques and using InDesign.

Working here is much different than designing at school. At school, we are given a design problem and have the freedom to take our own personal approach on it and design it for a wide audience. Here, we are designing specifically for what the customer is wanting and envisioning in their mind. We use correct design principles as much as possible, but many times we get jobs that won't allow us to use "good design" since we have to produce what the customer wants more than what will look good. Occasionally we can discuss different ideas about what they want or we have freedom to design the product in a way that gives us freedom to purely design and then send proofs to them for the customer to ultimately decide what direction they want to take on what we've designed. It's probably one of the hardest things to do, to bite the tongue and do what they want even when it doesn't look as good as it could but we aren't allowed to change it.

I have learned so many things that will help me in my future design and approach to design, especially for print. I am much more familiar with InDesign now than I was even 2 and a half months ago and I'm really grateful for that because of how incredible and in-depth that program is. It can be a designers best friend if used correctly. This internship has helped so much already and still a month to go!

Two weeks ago during the week of June 1st - June 5th, the graphic design head left on vacation, leaving me in charge of running the entire graphics department of Copies Plus Printing. I had still had some help from a couple other employees when it came to printing, but I was in charge of making sure everything looked correctly and was printed right. Since I had only been in my internship for just over 3 weeks at that point I was forced to go all in. I had to use everything I had learned in my internship up to that point as well as everything I have learned in school to keep the graphics portion running smoothly. It was a fantastic experience. I failed a few times which really helped me learn but for the most part I was able to do a pretty good job considering everything. I learned so much and being in charge of the graphics department really helped me become a better designer and prepare documents for printing.

Beginning Projects

So Much to Learn

As I have been working here for the past 3 and a half weeks at my internship I realize HOW MUCH there is to know in the print industry and how little students understand of all that goes into printing. I have been privileged to work along side a designer who is familiar with the graphic design as well as the printing side. Which has really helped me be able to see what can and can't work when it comes to making designs. I still have a long ways to go through this internship though and hopefully I will be able to learn much more!

Today I started my internship at Copies Plus Printing, Inc.! It was an enlightening experience to be able to get my first taste in the corporate publication and printing world. There is so much to learn and practice! I look forward to applying the skills that I learn into design and building my resume through the work that I will be doing here!