July Musings 2020
July 31, 2020
In these kinds of blog posts, I talk about what I’ve been up to for the month. The topics may include design work, hobbies, and more. At the end, I include the top five songs I listened to for any fellow music lovers out there.
Two-Month Break
When I graduated in May, I started job searching but there was not a lot out there. After talking to a friend about not being able to find jobs, she said maybe take an intentional break so that you are not guilting yourself for not being able to find a job. I took that advice and it has been great to take a mental health break after graduating college. I am fortunate to be in a situation right now living at home and not having to pay rent right now. I have not been super optimistic about finding a job, but I am hoping that the job market will slowly open up again in the fall. It is almost August now and I am ready to start job searching again.
Freelance Work for a Past Supervisor
Over the month of July, I was able to do freelance work for a past supervisor, Melissa. Melissa and her daughter, Natalie, came to me to create a brand identity for their small business. It was going to be an Etsy shop, but she moved it to the website with Square. I created a logo, business cards, and stickers. I researched the prices of printing business cards and stickers. I ultimately chose Jukebox Print because of their various stocks and I have ordered business cards from them before. It has been fun to work with Melissa again. She was such an amazing supervisor for two and a half years at my university.
The AIGA Portfolio Festival
I found out about this festival on LinkedIn the day before it started. It ran from July 14 to July 18, at 11 a.m.–1 p.m. It was pretty amazing and inspiring. I heard from famous designers each day who gave lectures for 30-45 minutes. The ones who stood out to me were Ellen Lupton and Michael Bierut because I read their design textbooks in college! I loved seeing their personalities on Zoom and getting to hear their advice for designers. In addition to these lectures, there were three students per day who got to present their portfolios publicly on Zoom and get feedback from those famous designers. It was awe-inspiring to see other students’ and experienced designers’ work and hear the feedback so I can better my portfolio presentation. This gave me the push to redesign my portfolio website which I talk about in a different blog post. There was also a chance to network. As you can imagine, there were about 1,000 people on the webinar each day. There were some Google Docs going around where you could put in your contact info and find other designers by your state or by job title. It was good for me to start networking outside of my current social circles. I added about 20 people on LinkedIn by the end of the festival.
Top 5 Songs of the Month
- “if this is the last time” by LANY
- “Home for the Summer” by Sara Kays
- “Husavik” by Will Ferrell & My Marianne
- “Decimal” by Novo Amor
- “mirrorball” by Taylor Swift
