Day 1: The final stretch!! I spent all day working on applications for Jesse’s part of project #1. I met with James and Alyssa in the morning and then I met with Alyssa a few times throughout the rest of the day for feedback. It felt strangely normal and I had almost forgotten that my time working with all these wonderful people was coming to an end. 

Day 2: The final day!! I spent the morning sitting in on a pre-production meeting for an ad project. It was interesting to see how much planning went into shoots. I spent the rest of the day wrapping up project #1. James was busy so I just plopped the items I wanted feedback on into our Teams chat and met with Alyssa a couple of times throughout the day. I had a brief chat with Erica about wrapping up practicum and exchanged thank yous with everyone. Friday was sort of my official send-off day and so today was actually very anticlimactic. At the end of the day, I packaged my working files and posted a final thank you message in the PSDDB Teams channel. 

Final thoughts: Overall, my practicum was super fun and challenging! James was a great host, I got to meet and work with the immensely talented Jesse and I got to meet some incredible people as well! I got so many book recommendations I could start a small library and everyone was so welcoming and patient! They also accommodated my interests by letting me sit in on advertising project meetings.

Although my last year of school was done fully online/remote, I’m so grateful for the experience. It was full of struggles but without my long commute and outside distractions, I was able to really sit down and get my work done and improve my organization skills. It forced me to pay attention to my health and integrate proper self-care. It also helped that the instructors worked really hard to make the transition from in-person to online practically seamless. Everything was well organized and I felt very supported even though we were apart.

I’m extremely grateful for my class (SHOUTOUT TO IDEA 21). Since our class was already super tightly knit from our years together on campus, we were more comfortable working and meeting together online both in class and during our personal work time. We also put in the extra time to play online games together after classes or in the evening on weekends. I still miss all of the people from IDEA 21 dearly and I’m waiting for the days where we would be able to see each other in person.   

Bonus: My family and I adopted a cat! She’s officially my sister’s cat but we all play and take care of her. Her name is Luna and she’s a super photogenic ball of sunshine who loves chin scratches and says hello doing a trill + meow combo that makes her sound like a Pokemon.

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Day 1: This week marks my first week since Jesse went on paternity leave! I spent most of the morning working on project #2. James, Jesse, and Monica had finalized their decision for the photography style for the overall branding and so I spent most of my time finding images that fit their vision and applying them to the project. I also made finishing touches to the layout in order to prepare for the client meeting on Wednesday at around noon. In the afternoon, I worked a bit on project #1 to prepare for the client meeting that was taking place on Wednesday in the late afternoon. It felt weird to not have Jesse around for quick feedback since James was getting busier in his absence.

Day 2: I started my morning by chatting with Toby, one of the project managers. He gave some great advice on how to sell yourself and knowing your worth. Specifically, he said “don’t be afraid to glorify your achievements and don’t hesitate to name drop clients you worked for or connections you have.” We also shared music and tv show recommendations, which caused us to go way over our scheduled time. I spend the rest of the day working on both projects #1 and #2. In the afternoon, I hopped on a quick internal check-in for project #2. We were concerned with some of the images effectively representing the information on each page. We were also worried about certain specs potentially interfering with the design. I was more concerned with the images as they were more time consuming so I worked on finalizing those for the rest of the day. With all the flipping between projects, lack of human interaction and time outside, my days were starting to blend. 

Day 3: I woke up from a wacky dream where my teeth and hair all fell out. It really set the mood for the day because my morning started in a panic!! I realized that I had made a big mistake by not testing out the specs for project #2 yesterday. The spot where we needed to punch a hole cut right into the design! I hopped on a call with James and Alyssa, rambled about the problem and James just said “ I think you got the measurements wrong”. And thank goodness he was right. I fixed my mistake, placed the marking for the hole in the right place, and finally finished project #2. Although James previously told me that he would still get nervous during presentations, he presented project #2 and communicated all of our ideas in a super effective and coherent way. The client was fairly happy, gave some feedback and I sent it off, wrapping it up nicely and throwing my anxiety away with it. My day ended with James presenting the revised project #1 to the clients, who were super happy with it! What a great end to a chaotic day.  

Day 4: I started my day with a regroup on continuing Jesse’s work on project #1 since he was on paternity leave. I had to somehow create more brand applications than I did for my part of project #1 but with much less time. It was exciting though because Jesse had created great work to build off of. I also had my end of practicum check-in with James. We talked about how it was a shame that I couldn’t be in office but how it was a great experience nonetheless. It was really interesting to get to know everyone in their homes, where they’re the most comfortable. It made it much less intimidating than going into a great big office with all these huge industry professionals. That and everyone’s great personalities at PSDDB. I was just starting to feel like I was more a part of the team and it was just hitting me that my time there was ending soon. 

Day 5: I started my morning by shadowing a casting callback for an ad campaign. It was really interesting (and funny) to watch people act things out over zoom. It was also interesting to see how the selection process happened and what factors made the actor the right fit (ex: look, personality, ability to quickly integrate feedback). I hopped out early to chat with an industry professional who found me on the grad show website and spent the rest of my day in a slight daze from screen fatigue. I ended the day by attending my final PSDDB’s Friday Shout-outs session where I almost cried happy (and sad) tears. I was (and still am) so grateful to the entire team at PSDDB for making this practicum a special experience despite all the struggles of working from home.

Day 1: I started out my morning by making revisions to Project # 1 (the logo design project) based on client feedback. I also tried to continue tweaking and applying the layouts for Project #2 in the afternoon but I found it really hard to stay productive throughout the day. I was still feeling anxious from the grad show website launch and I was still nervous about booking chats with the people at PSDDB even though it’s been going pretty well so far. I’m starting to get really tired of doubting myself. But I also think it’s important to be self-aware. It’s all really hard to balance. I’ll get there someday. Hopefully 🙂 

Day 2: I had another internal meeting to review my revisions for Project #1 in the morning. We picked the top 2 versions to present to the client. I also was assigned to create a few applications of the #1 top pick. In the afternoon, I sat in on the meeting for Jesse’s part of Project #1 (another logo) and had another internal meeting about Project #2. All the meetings were mostly meant to show James and Patty updates since they came back from their vacation week. It felt super reassuring to get more eyes on my projects and get a better sense of direction for improvements.

Day 3: This morning I met with the super lovely Rob Newell to discuss how strategy works in the industry. He gave me some great recommendations for books and people to follow on social media (I might just build a library at this point with all these amazing recs). It was also great to review what I learned in class and see what gets applied in the industry. In the afternoon, I had a chat with Asha, the project managing intern from BCIT! Although everyone has been super patient and lovely to me, it was so nice to meet another intern who could relate to my anxieties. I was mostly answering questions she asked though but we agreed to meet again though I’ll be able to turn the tables and ask the questions next time… *evil laugh* >:) 

Day 4: I spent the morning working on applications for Project #1 and met with Alyssa, one of the project managers. It was nice to chat with her since we hadn’t had the chance for a 1 on 1 until now! It was also nice to chat about our love of cooking and baking. Also got to chat with Carolyn Jia, yet another IDEA grad! We talked about the differences between agency and in-house work and the benefits and downsides of both. She also gave me some great audiobook recommendations. Today was also the last check-in I had with Jesse during my practicum/before his multi-week break. We talked about what we’ve learned from this experience, exchanged thank-yous and music recommendations!! It really hit me that practicum was ending soon and that as challenging as it was, I didn’t want it to end quite yet.