Day 1:
My first day was easygoing overall! The 123w group has a great atmosphere that makes me feel welcome. We start Mondays off with a group meeting to go over what everyone will be working on for the week. In the call, the team felt bigger than I expected, but partly because I’m used to only seeing 19 people in Zoom for class.
Afterward, I got briefed on a few projects, and I am set for the rest of the week! One involves ideating social media animations, another is finding art direction photo examples for an alcohol TV advertisement, and the last one is updating the photos on a client’s website. It sounds like a lot of art direction and photo sourcing for this week,
Previous IDEA alumni John Larigakis (IDEA Grad 2010) is my support mentor, and I’m working on a project with Kim Ridgewell (IDEA Grad 2007). IDEA represents, woohoo!
Day 2:
Today felt slower because there were no meetings, but it was a nice day full of ideation, image sourcing and focused work time. It’s been a while since I last brainstormed for abstract prompts, but I’m hoping to get at least 50 ideas out before my critque session. I realized it’s super important to set time limits when working at home. Holding 30–45 minute sprints have been helping me keep track of my time and remind me to take breaks.
Side note: I introduced myself via email this morning to the entire group and attached this GIF I made before. I found out there is a fellow cheesecake enthusiast in the group and some gamers.
Day 3:
I’m just continuing the day where I left off yesterday. I’m starting to hit a wall in ideation and I’m unsure if I’m finding good enough photos for image references. Nevertheless, I am glad I was just thrown in the deep with the projects; now I can see how I float. And it’s a total coincidence, but image sourcing for reference photos is probably one of my least practiced skills, so it’s great I can work on it.
Another side note: I finally figured out how to join the 123w Strava club. They do monthly physical activity challenges and reward gift cards to the most active people. Glad to see teams are staying healthy together while working remotely. Now I’m more motivated to take walks after sitting at a desk all day!
Day 4:
Big relief to get through my first critique session with my mentor for my animation brainstorm. I was worried I wouldn’t have enough ideas but it sounds like my ideas were good. The next step is to polish my top ideas, decide on the art styles for each idea, and make detailed descriptions of how the animation will play out.
One thing I’m still uncertain about is how to improve the website photography for my third project. The brief sounded vague, so I spent quite a bit of time yesterday trying to understand the client’s current website and branding and how to mesh it with their request. I got a better grasp of how to go about the project after asking some questions today, but I’m still steeling myself for tomorrow’s critique session.
Day 5:
Friday started a little rocky with a rescheduled meeting and a missed call, but overall it was a lovely Friday, chatting with different people. I had a check-in and a little mentorship session with John in the morning. We went over my portfolio and had talked about his journey after graduating.
In the afternoon, I had a regroup for the website project I was uncertain about. I expected the worst, but Kim said it was a good start to the project. Unfortunately, we couldn’t meet up earlier, but I did as much as I could by Friday and handed it off to her to finish since it was due at the end of the day. I’m excited to see where Kim takes the project. I definitely think seeing the final presentation will teach me how to go about future art direction projects like these. If anything, this will become a good learning experience to see how to handle vague client briefs.
I ended my first Friday at 123w with virtual drinks with some people from the team (and sushi for myself!)—a beautiful wrap-up to the week.
