Day 1

The first day at internship! Here are some photos of the site, SkinIt in Miramar.

 

My workspace! Two monitors, Adobe Bridge open, and it's in-between my mentor's work station and Michael's (a guy who helps me out a lot).

My mentor, John O'Brien, dressed casually. It's basically jeans and a nice shirt, things that I'd usually wear to school.

Some of the skins I worked on today, a Chargers skin for a Zune. I'm using Photoshop CS4, Adobe Bridge and Finder.

One of the things that first struck me--the size of the building! The SkinIt building is huge! It really intimidated me.

This is the kitchen on the second floor. They have Lipton tea and coffee in the area to the left of this picture, a vending machine, and--this is the most epic thing ever--a refrigerator. With a skin on the whole thing. Win.

Alright, now for some economic questions (for Sara):

1. Have less people been purchasing products because of the recession?

No, because it's a new company and it's not really affected. Actually SkinIt is doing really well because the product is actually relatively cheap and it's really popular.

2. Has SkinIt had to downsize?

The art department doesn't need any more or any less people to work on the designs. It's doing okay, though it gets temps in November and December for the busy holiday season.

3. Has [designers] had to work more (or less) hours to gain the income needed to live?

Graphic Designers in San Diego isn't one of the better paying jobs unless you own a graphic firm or have a broad skill set (like Flash, Photoshop, InDesign), wages aren't that good.

A description of my day:

In the morning, after my siblings were dropped off, my mom drove me to Miramar and I spent a few minutes prepping--organizing my bag, getting some change from my mom just in case, making sure my jacket was straight... the size of the SkinIt suite still scared me a bit--it was vast. Then I went into the lobby and I talked to a man who worked near the front office and he called John O'Brien for me.

He came and my internship started officially at 9:10. He gave me the full tour, and I saw the marketing department and the IT guy and the costumer service office, and everything. By 10:00 we got to the design department, Mr. O'Brien showed me my work station (a two-monitor mac setup, like I showed above), and I met Michael Miller, who helped me get started. He showed me a video about Adobe Bridge CS4, and then I watched and helped him approve some skins, and then I worked on a few of my own skins at my station. Luckily, I already know a lot of the elements of design and Photoshop, so I didn't need too much tutorial on that so I got started almost right away.

I got 4 skins (Daily Production, or Dailies) done before I went to lunch at around 1:40. I went to the second floor kitchen and heated up my lunch (that my mom packed for me in the morning, like she usually does on a school day) and ate it, and I met someone from the marketing department too. I got back at 2:20, and I worked on 4 more skins, and I signed off and left at about 4:00.

The whole day was mostly independent work, and I got Michael to critique the skins I did occasionally and it was awkwardly quiet in the beginning of the day--someone who walked even commented about how silent it was! Though in the later half of the day, and some of the beginning, people were walking in and out and talking to Mr. O'Brien and Michael--their communication was casual and friendly, and they were bouncing ideas off each other for bundles and other things with the website and designs and such.

I hope that when I get back to work on Friday and from there on, I can work faster with the dailies and I hope I can design my own skins as well. Hopefully I'll be able to design skins that will stick around for a long time! I'm really excited about doing that, because ever since I confirmed the internship at the beginning of the year I've been thinking about all sorts of designs, but I'm also kind of nervous that people won't like them. Mr. O'Brien offered his critique, so I hope it won't go too badly.