One perk of working in a studio that has a mostly local client base is that you get to see local celebrities. As I was sitting at my desk last week, my boss was greeting a client and I turned to one of my co workers and asked who it was, he casually responded with, “That is Molly Moon!”. I love that Urban Influence has many local clients and that I have the chance to see them in the studio.

I am feeling extremely humble at the end of the fourth week of my internship, I have realized that my experience at school did not prepare me as much as I thought. We have been working on a project that has introduced me to a new realm of graphic design; refreshing a pre existing brand. This was something that seemed straight forward enough, but it has challenged me on multiple levels. In school I typically branded hypothetical companies which enabled me to have endless amounts of freedom and to design at my leisure with deadlines that weren’t applicable in the “real world”. Having to crank out solid design at a rapid pace has been the biggest challenge for me with this project, and working within many pre-existing project parameters. However, I have learned a lot and I am excited to have had the opportunity to jump into this project with both feet.

In addition to cranking out solid design at a rapid pace I have learned how much meticulous thought and planning goes into each project. Every detail counts, literally. I have been creating wireframes for a client’s website and they are much more elaborate than the thumbnail sketches we were required to do in school. Wireframes are equivalent to blue prints as the basic structure of a website – a grid is developed and general type hierarchy is established, but little design is required at this point of the process. Creating the wireframes has helped me think a lot of the details out instead of being overwhelmed by the abyss of the internet. This exercise has enabled me to organize my thoughts, thus making the process of designing a website less of a daunting task. I am really into print design and at the beginning of my internship designing for the web was not something I was particularly comfortable with, but after being taught and guided by the right people I am excited. So for all of the print heavy designers who are shy to the idea of the designing for web, don’t write the idea off until you have the opportunity to be taught by the right people.