I’m Nick Rolph and I’m an intern in the Bay Area. Summer 2011

MEZ DESIGN June 13

HEALTHLINE NETWORKS

MEZ DESIGN

HEALTHLINE NETWORKS

MEZ DESIGN

First day on the job. . . and they forgot about me. I showed up to work today just before 9:00am and no one showed up until 10:45am. Kira, a freelance designer, informed me that Rob (CEO) was on vacation and his business partner Maria, and designer Alison were not going to be coming in to work today. She suggested that I should show up on Wednesday and try again. No joke.

First day at Healthline Networks. Great first day. I was taken on a tour of the office and introduced to nearly all of the team members in my department (approximately 50, but over 100 company-wide). I filled out my tax forms and was led to my very own desk, complete with a name plate and a 20 inch monitor. I had a free lunch with people from my depeartment and plunged into stock photo requests.

First day (take two). Ah, today was better. No free lunch, but I still have my own desk with a brand new iMac. I was immediately put on web content edits and updates for the Marin County Fair website. I have a feeling that my position at Mez will be more along the lines on a freelance design position rather than an ‘internship’.

Today I sat down with Matt Sperling and Nelson Hernandez, my supervisors and directors of the visual department at Healthline, in order to discuss the goals of my internship. Main two goals: get Healthline up to date with their stock photo requests and develop a filing system for their stock photo library. After our meeting I started picking up the stock photo slack!

The Marin County Fair is getting closer and the work is really pouring in. I spent today making content updates and formatting new pages to accommodate them. The daily schedule were extremely messy, so I was put on damage control in order to clean things up a bit. I’m looking forward to getting to work on some new projects like Black Angus or even the Houghton-Mifflin-Harcourt children’s workbooks.

June 14

June 15

June 16

June 17

I’m Nick Rolph and I’m an intern in the Bay Area. Summer 2011

MEZ DESIGN June 20

HEALTHLINE NETWORKS

MEZ DESIGN

HEALTHLINE NETWORKS

MEZ DESIGN

Another day of Marin Fair work. Maria has really had me working hard on all of the Marin County Fair web updates/edits. It’s a ton of work, but it’s great because I always have something to do and it shows me that they count on me and trust my creative decision-making. I work fast, but careful. I have to say that Cal Poly’s design courses/assignments have truly prepared for this kind of task-work.

Today was a very full day of reading through articles for Healthline and General Electric and pairing them with stock photography that matched the target audience as well as the online viewing portal. Healthline has a very soft and welcoming look and GE’s Health Ahead site is very bold and bright...they also have a slightly younger target market too. Oh, did I mention the company has Giants tickets?

Well, the Marin Fair is really going to be prepared for high site traffic and picky attendees. The site might not be the best looking thing you’ve ever seen, but it’s fine-tuned right now. I think the last of the major edits have been made and it’s looking like there will only be simple content updates from here on out. I’m crossing my fingers to get on to a new project soon!

Just wrapped up my day here at Healthline and I’m going to hang out at the office until the Giants game with a big group of people from the company. Healthline’s company structure is absolutely flawless (no, it’s not just because they take me to lunch and baseball games). They encourage and positively push the team to do better everyday and they take great care of them for their hard work.

More Marin Fair work, but I finally got to get to work on a new project. Mez is currently work on a series of pre-school, kindergarten and first grade workbooks for Houghton-Mifflin-Harcourt . There are two series: Reader Rabbit and Curious George. Today I worked on designing/editing covers for the Reader Rabbit series. Relatively simple production work, but great to work on something new.

June 21

June 22

June 23

June 24

I’m Nick Rolph and I’m an intern in the Bay Area. Summer 2011

MEZ DESIGN June 27

HEALTHLINE NETWORKS

MEZ DESIGN

HEALTHLINE NETWORKS

MEZ DESIGN

This is going to be a busy week with the Marin Fair. The fair opens on the 30th of June and ends after the 4th of July. I made a ton of content updates today and worked my way through designing pages for each ‘main event/performer’. Currently the fair is my priority, but after I finished my updates I got to move on to making requested edits to the Reader Rabbit workbook covers.

Today was a great day at Healthline. I was asked if I could start working overtime because of my of my work rate. They said that if I can keep working as quickly as I have been, I can get them up to date with their current editorial photo requests. It’s not exciting work, but it’s nice to be noticed for your efforts. Plus, the people here are great. Very friendly, helpful and appreciative.

Tomorrow is the big day for the Marin County Fair. Thus, I spent today going through a lists of content updates/requests from the fair coordinator. The second half of my day was consumed by running a full back-up of the site and saving it to a remote server, in the case that the site traffic is too high and crashes...which it did last year. Only a few more days and I’ll be free of the fair.

Another usual day at Healthline. Rapid stock photo research. I’m sure iStockPhoto loves rapidly growing ‘dot coms’. Companies like this publish content so quickly that there is no way to meet all of their editorial needs with in-house photography. Plus, that’d be one pricy contracted photographer, food stylist, and props for days!

I made it in to work to day, happy to see that the fair’s website didn’t crash. However, I did still have a large list of photos to post to the gallery as well as videos and performance updates. The fair has been a hit the first two daysand it’s not even the weekend yet. After I made the updates for the fair, I moved on to finish the Reader Rabbit covers. One more round of revisions and they should be good to print.

June 28

June 29

June 30

July 1

I’m Nick Rolph and I’m an intern in the Bay Area. Summer 2011

MEZ DESIGN July 4

HEALTHLINE NETWORKS

MEZ DESIGN

HEALTHLINE NETWORKS

MEZ DESIGN

FOURTH OF JULY HOLIDAY

Well, it’s only a four day week, but both Mez and Healthline have me working extra hours. It’s looking like a 40 hour, four day week. Lots of requests today at Healthline, but I think that by the end of Thursday I will have officially caught them up to their current requests! No Healthline-specific article requests today, just GE’s Health Ahead (younger, fun, colorful).

The fair is over, but the news articles aren’t. Since I last wrote, I have entered over 25 articles to the fair’s ‘In the News’ section. It was a busy weekend of extra hours for Mez, but it’s paid off. The Reader Rabbit cover revisions came in and I made the final edits. They’re ready to print! My next step was Curious George covers. After that...384 interior pages of workbook formatting.

Rooftop cocktails with the design team today (for an in-house photoshoot of course). However, I see it as a reward for my hard work on getting caught up with editorial photo requests. I now go from strictly stock photo researching/editing 100+ photos a week to 20-30 photos, library filing and intros to complex CMS systems, SEO and advertising/marketing tactics. Great summer so far!

The Curious George covers are almost done, so in the meantime I am getting a head-start on the inside pages of the workbooks. It’s proving to be a pretty tricky process, considering Universal Studio’s Curious George style guides only have about 200 Curious George images/characters/scenes for nearly 400 workbook pages. Houghton-Mifflin-Harcourt aren’t very fond of duplicates.

July 5

July 6

July 7

July 8

I’m Nick Rolph and I’m an intern in the Bay Area. Summer 2011

MEZ DESIGN July 11

HEALTHLINE NETWORKS

MEZ DESIGN

HEALTHLINE NETWORKS

MEZ DESIGN

Well, it’s only a four day week, but both Mez and Healthline have me working extra hours. It’s looking like a 40 hour, four day week. Lots of requests today at Healthline, but I think that by the end of Thursday I will have officially caught them up to their current requests! No Healthline-specific article requests today, just GE’s Health Ahead (younger, fun, colorful).

I got approval on the ‘Kick it up a Notch!’ type for the Black Angus dinner menu. They went with the boot (it’s even getting printed with silver metallic ink). The Curious George workbooks are also finished! We are currently awaiting approval...a day early. Due to the early execution for HMH Rob asked me to help him out with some logo ideas for a pitch to Grid Dynamics. Great ideas so far!

Lucky me, it’s the last day of my week. Sat through several meetings today, most of which were about SEO (Search Engine Optimization). It’s really a fascinating subject, or maybe that’s because I’m a nerd. Either way, cool stuff. And it wouldn’t be a day at Healthline without some stock photo searching. Finished up a few cool articles and slideshows. Time for the early weekend.

The Curious George covers are done and we have until Thursday to finish all of the interior pages. Not to worry, I finished two books today and even had time to work on some custom type treatments for the Black Angus dinner menu. ‘Kick it up a Notch!’ Fun type to work with. I explored type-oly solutions, the use of a boot and also a horseshoe. Awaiting approval.

July 12

July 13

July 14

July 15

DAY OFF