Summer Intern Post #1

My name is Daniel Nelson and this is the number one lesson I learned this week working as a summer intern with Mike at Inkspot Graphics. To be a successful free-lance graphic designer with your own business is a extremely active endeavor. You must be always thinking about the next project but be present at the same time to complete the project at hand. As a student in the PSU graphic design program in Portland, Oregon I had been introduced to the concept of producing projects for clients but I didn’t know the reality of how the industry works. 

Watching Mike for the few days has shown me that if I was ever to own my own graphic design business I would be consistently in motion. Working out deals with clients, going to meetings, and of coarse the doing the design work. In my college courses I am taught the mechanics of designing and how to do such things as matching colors, spacing and sizing solutions with text and imagery, popular and unpopular forms of imagery, how to work with type and much more.  All of these pieces of information go into designing every single piece of design work but in Mike’s world it goes much faster. For instance I am used to three plus weeks to work on usually two projects, one for each class I’m taking. That workload for me is difficult at times especially when it gets close to final rounds (the finished work). Mike as at times eight or nine projects moving at one time and needs to have them finished on dates he and his clients have agreed on. So that means he has to know his own work style and schedule well enough to be able to give a educated guess on when he can get something completed for them.

So much goes into that thought process, like starting the project, learning its details and background/story or figuring out one if one doesn’t exist, first rounds second rounds and final rounds, getting pricing for the prints/production of the project from vendors, setting the files up for the vendors, and meeting with clients throughout the whole process and there are other steps I know I am neglecting to mention. The point is he has to know the amount of time it is going to take for this process for eight to nine projects. Just in the first few days of working with Mike has made me respect this field of work immensely more.