Thursday: The official beginning

Day two of the internship began, and we worked from 9 a.m. to midnight. We got our own breakfast and lunch but Reggie provided dinner, which was pizza from one of the local places while we hashed out the details of work and began to work against deadline. Our ideal deadline turned out to be 10 p.m., with the latest being midnight.

We settled on the actual pages, finished some of the unsettled templates and found ideas. It seemed like some of what we settled on was different than what we previously invented. It seemed like a lot of things changed and were inconsistent, typical of a short-term publication.

I did feel a little confused about cutlines, photo credits, font sizes, graphics, etc. It turned out the other page designers thought graphics were splashy and visual. They didn't realize that text boxes were considered graphics. Our advisor, however, agreed that text boxes could be graphics. The cutlines and photo credits were another aspect that the guy who put himself in charge of templates kept changing. It was annoying and unstable, and seemed like it was more tightly controlled as opposed to more creative. We did, however, build the templates from scratch. We emphasized lining up the tops, which the male designer consistently broke. When I broke it, it deserved a strict voice. When he did it, it was creative. It's annoying; mine is a mistake, his is creative. I digress.

What did I learn? Cutlines could be put in Photoshop, although they do not show up on their own in InDesign. The photographers, though, could leave cutlines and cutlines didn't have to be typed into InDesign, but copied and pasted from Photoshop. I suppose it's a matter of style, though.

I learned about straightening the text and evening up the top and the bottom. I can see why it's hard for small staff publications to do it; it's time consuming, and when someone is not paid as much, it can be annoying to sit and do it. It really is.

I'm learning to be patient.

I've noticed stuff, too.

It's hard to change styles I've been doing for a year or so and replace them with styles I don't necessary agree with, such as centering the byline and byline title. Also, apparently a lot of publications do "by and then the name" and we don't. It's important to do it, but hard nonetheless.

I've definitely learned the importance of audience and readability as I've been defending it.

My attention to detail is returning as I've been doing it.

I love this internship! It has been a great experience.