The second week of my creative and communications internship at American Pool Enterprises was mostly a continuation of the first. That being said, I was not assigned any new projects. Instead, this week consisted of further critiques of my work from my first week, and the creation of additional design samples to Guard For Life’s Lifeguard Appreciation Week giveaways and awards. These samples were mainly focused upon “Lifeguard of the Month” awards, such as a Bluetooth speaker and a lifeguard t-shirt for the awarded candidates. I also continued creating samples of temporary tattoos and performed multiple miscellaneous tasks around the office.

While performing these tasks, I demonstrated brainstorming and teamwork skills to effectively produce quality design samples to the marketing team. I began each day receiving feedback from the team to determine which direction each project should impact the recipients and how the team felt each design should look. From there, I set out to brainstorm a few possible layouts and executed them in a timely manner. Once I produced a few samples, I then forwarded them to the team for further critique.

 

My participation in the design of these projects provided a positive effect towards the department. In the development of these design samples, I was sure to consider and implement the current theme of the project into a professional visual component. As a result, I was able to further contribute samples of my work to represent the company during the upcoming Lifeguard Appreciation Week event.

 

During this week, I was ultimately successful in the completion of each sample, although I did experience a few issues along the way regarding certain designs. For example, one of design ideas for the Bluetooth speaker involved me resembling the Lifeguard of the Month award certificate. The challenge with this was that the certificates feature a very intricate and creative background that was hard to fit into the speaker so that it would completely cover the design area. I was able to overcome this issue by making the background its own layer and zooming it so it would fit the entire display. As for the logo and typography, I had to break them up and rearrange them so that they would fit onto the speaker and remain legible.

 

When I forwarded my work over to my supervisor, she seemed quite pleased towards the work I was producing. She gave me very reasonable feedback and I was then able to incorporate such feedback into the project

 

As I continue my internship at American Pool, I will continue being a collaborative team member and do my best to produce the highest quality work possible to successfully contribute to the organization. I have noticed throughout my time there that teamwork is very important to the department and in turn allows for the best possible result for each project. Each person there seems to have a very significant role in the production of assignments, so I am sure to make each piece that I contribute amount up to the organizations standards.

As of June 6^th 2017, I have begun my internship with the marketing department of American Pool Enterprises Inc. During my first week at American Pool I was able to become familiar with their Owings Mills office; meeting mostly the entire staff and getting to understand the flow of operations between each department for particular projects. As soon as I arrived for my first day, I was greeted by a marketing assistant and immediately received a tour of the office. I got to see how each department was organized within the building and eventually got situated at my personal desk. Following the tour the marketing assistant walked me through the company’s database and how to navigate through the Google Suite. At American Pool, the Google suite is their main source of file sharing and communication between departments. After becoming familiar with the facility, I was then prompted with my tasks for the day and sent to work.

 

For my first day as a creative and communications intern at American Pool, I was provided multiple tasks designing and branding free giveaways for Guard For Life’s Lifeguard Appreciation Week. Guard For Life is a branch at American Pool Enterprises that focuses on the employment and appreciation of lifeguards stationed at public and private pools that American Pool operates. The giveaways I was assigned to design and brand were temporary tattoos, a tumbler cup, a Frisbee, and a Bluetooth speaker. These items will be used either as a giveaway or an award to lifeguards.

My second day was composed of a continuation of projects from the first week along with assisting the marketing team brainstorm ideas for the design of Lifeguard of the week, month, year and national awards. These awards are to be given to select lifeguards who have displayed a strong work ethic and represented the American Pool and Guard For Life brand in positive manner. This day also marked National Best Friend Day. In celebration of this event, the marketing team and I traveled to one of the company’s pools to film a Snapchat video to display the importance of safe pool etiquette while having a fun, relaxing time with your best friend. For this project, I was the camera man and filmed the team representing a fun time at the pool as good friends.

In performing these tasks, I used a number of independent and teamwork skills. At first I designed multiple prototypes for each project to provide the team various ideas for the concept of the project. Once I prototyped the designs, I critiqued with the team and provided input towards which concept would be the best fit for the final outcome. The design we chose to be the final output will be used to represent the brand during the Lifeguard Appreciation Week giveaways.

 

Generally, the concepts I came up with were successful because we were able to choose at least one of the designs to use for the giveaway. Having some of my work being used by a company is an uplifting accomplishment personally.

 

During critiques of my work, my supervisor provided mostly positive feedback for each project. She seemed to like the work that I put in to each project and ended up approving some of my ideas. One, in particular, was the design of the Lifeguard of the week, month, year and national awards.

 

Overall, my first week as an intern at American Pool was very successful. I learned how a typical day of a graphic designer looks and how different departments within a company collaborate effectively to produce the best outcome for a project. The office in general has a fun, productive environment and everyone seems to enjoy working together.