9/18/09

I went into Element this morning to sit in on their little seasonal directional meeting. It was a good opportunity to see how the company comes up with a general direction for the season. The season most departments are working on is Fall of 2010. The only department that is a little different is the shoe department. I guess it takes longer to produce shoes so they are almost a year ahead. I'm not really sure if I'm at liberty to discuss all that went on today. I don't want to divulge any information I shouldn't. It was just nice to see the thought and research invested into the vision they have for the season. I got to meet Johnny (the pres) and Kim (vice pres). After the meeting I cruised up to a local basketball court to watch the final game between the Element design group and the Billabong warehouse group. Element slaughtered!

9/15/09

Today was a little better than my first day. Again I don't know why. I think I just got more of a feeling of the creative process today. It wasn't just making small changes on already existing files.

When I first arrived the receptionist (Genevieve) informed me that Josh wouldn't be in today and that I was to report to Heather Gibby (women's accessories designer). Heather seemed a little shocked but after a few minutes she came up with something for me to work on.
She had a few pictures of a backpack that she wanted redrawn in Illustrator. Once I was done with that I could come up with a few colorways* for that pack. She also wanted me to look around on the internet for some girls backpacks that I thought were cute. I don't know if I would recognize a cute backpack but I told her I'd give it a try.
Redrawing the pack was a little difficult. I'm not use to translating something to the computer to scale. I feel pretty confident in my Illustrator knowledge but this project took me a little while, most of the day in fact. It all worked out in the end though. Heather had to leave around noon so there wasn't any other assignments for that afternoon. By the end of the day I had everything requested, where it done right or wrong I'll have to wait and see. I had the pack redrawn with two colorways and also I had a few pictures of other packs I found on the internet.

Vocabulary:
*colorway - the color scheme of a certain product. One product could have many possible colorways.

9/08/09

First day! Maybe not what I thought it would be. I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting, perhaps I got the feeling that this is just another computer job, not as "hands on" as I might of expected.
When I first arrived I met with the HR lady over at Billabong and signed a few release forms and received a sign in number for keeping track of my hours. I then met up with Josh and he showed me around the place a little and got me situated on a computer. Most of the design process takes place with Adobe Illustrator. Josh had me open a few files to get an idea of what a finished design looks like. There seems to be 3, maybe 4, different types of file names for one product, depending on what stage its in. I'm still a little unclear on the differences but the names I'm getting for the files are Tech Pack, Matrix, Cads, and then maybe a basic sketch up. There's sub files sometimes attached that give examples of patterns at scale. Anyways, as I learn more about the differences I'll be sure to make a note of it. Josh had me open and work with some hat designs.
For lunch Josh showed me around Irvine a little and then we ate at a Peruvian food place, first time and pretty good. I got to know Josh a little better. He has background in graphic design, has been working with Element for about 3 years and has a 5 month old baby. I get the feeling that he will be a good mentor for this Internship.
After lunch one of Elements team riders, Levi Brown came in looking to have a hat made up. Josh introduced me and we talked about what kind of hat he was looking for. Josh then had me play with some sizing of an Element logo for the hat. The finished product should be pretty killer. Before taking off I played around with a belt design.

09/01/09

I met with Kathy Nolan, Josh Riessen, and Heather Gibby today to discuss the opportunity of working in the accessories department with Element. We reviewed my portfolio and things look good for me to start interning next week. I liked the "vibe" I got from meeting with the above mentioned people as well as the environment. There's a feeling of family and respect which is a breath of fresh air. I'm sure I will learn a lot with this company. I can't wait to start!

Internship Form

I turned in my Internship acceptance form today. Listed in the form(pictured) are 3 different objectives I hope to address in my blog while working with Element.