Summer of Learning: Beginning My Career & Pushing Through to the Fall Semester

As I packed up my dorm for the last time, I couldn’t help but reminisce with my suite mates and friends from over the years. While they’d be walking the stage and getting their degrees, I would be staying behind for another semester at Quinnipiac. In the fall, I’ll be wrapping up my degree requirements with three classes- a continuation of each typography and web design, and portfolio. Switching majors as I entered junior year of college guaranteed I wouldn’t graduate on time; however, I was fortunate enough to power through most of my requirements and landed myself with a single, part-time semester tacked on to my 4 years of college. While I’m excited for the final classes to begin, I have a summer of work ahead of me, and more importantly, I’m beginning my career as a graphic designer.

From January to May, I spent hours applying to internships. I read dozens of postings and lists of requirements. I threw resumes and cover letters together for any and every company I could. Just as a regular job search goes, looking for an internship was no easy task. There’s tons of qualified students out there, and being over an hour away from major design hotspots, options are pretty limited when you have to keep your responsibilities in mind. Luckily, I heard back from a local non-profit, and from the first interview, I knew I had found the internship. After two interviews and a briefing, I was hired as a graphic design intern. I also accepted a summer position at my school, continuing the role I have worked for the past 3 years. Between 12 hours of interning a week and 24 hours of answering phones and running errands, life hasn’t slowed down since I wrapped up finals.

Currently, I’m working on building comps for a mobile app, creating social media posts, and sifting through pre-existing material to get some ideas. I’m also still taking commission work, and just wrapped up an awesome project for a candlemaker. This summer will surely be a busy one, but it’s all for the future, and I can’t wait to share the ideas I come up with.

Transformation of Tattoos

A historical story with a personal touch.

Tattoos have been dated as far back as 5,200 BC when the mummified body of Otzi the Iceman was inspected, revealing 61 geometric tattoos. Though the origins are not 100% clear, we do know this- tattoos have been around for centuries in many cultures, and their meanings have evolved over time.

A handful of Otzi’s tattoos, which were discovered after he was found mummified in a glacier in 1991. The 61 tattoos are made up of horizontal and vertical lines and divided into 19 groups. | https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/scientists-have-mapped-all-of-otzi-the-icemans-61-tattoos

Early tattooing was done using mallets and piercing equipment made from sharp objects such as bones, thorns, and shells. They marked headhunters, prisoners, slaves, and both the lower and upper classes. They were also done as a display of religious worship, for healing purposes, to tell stories, and to protect against bad fortune and illness.

Tattoo equipment made from bird and human bones about 2,700 years ago, found on the island of Tongatapu, Tonga. | https://theconversation.com/worlds-oldest-tattooists-toolkit-found-in-tonga-contains-implements-made-of-human-bone-109427

Today, tattoos are commonplace, and there are tens of thousands of shops across the world prepared to ink their paying guests. The United States alone hosts 21,000 of these shops, which generate approximately $1.6 billion in revenue each year.

Today, 43% of American adults have at least one tattoo compared to 21% in 2012. Less than 40% would rule out getting one. People get tattoos to commemorate loved ones, to honor their heritage, to pay tribute to a moment in time, such as a trip, and simply for fashion; 43% of people get tattoos with a personal meaning. Unfortunately, 3 in 4 people who get tattoos regret them, and services for the removal of tattoos have increased in demand by 32%. That isn’t stopping Americans- and citizens around the world- from getting inked, however.

People get tattooed everywhere- from arms to legs, face to feet. Not all tattoo locations are held equally, however. Hand and face tattoos are often affiliated with gang activity and have the most stigma against them. Hidden tattoos are more accepted than visible tattoos, with 70% of United States and United Kingdom employers finding visible tattoos unfavorable. Luckily, 72% of adults have tattoos hidden by clothing.

Tattoos are found on millions of people worldwide. Despite negative connotations, the industry is growing more rapidly than ever. People of all careers, nationalities, genders, sexualities, lifestyles, and walks of life get tattoos to commemorate something; a person, a moment, a memory, a pet, and more. Tattoos are here to stay, and more and more people are giving life to this ancient art.

October 2011 Nor’easter

‘Snowtober’ left New England residents buried in up to three feet of snow and millions without power. One of the most powerful storms in modern history, the road to recovery was bleak.

Data Sources: https://www.weather.gov/phi/10292011wss & https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/snow/201110

The storm spanned from the Virginias to Atlantic Canada, forming from concurrent weather events. A cold air mass from Canada and a cold front from the Ohio Valley moved eastward towards New England states, meeting northbound precipitation from the Carolinas. Two low-pressure areas formed: one off the coasts of New Jersey and Long Island, and one off the coast of Louisiana. The storm produced heavy snowfall in New England, precipitation in surrounding states, and high winds off the coasts of Maine and Cape Cod, ranging from 69 to 79 miles per hour.

Data Sources: http://www.glenallenweather.com/historylinks/2011/Oct29part1.pdf & https://www.weather.gov/media/phi/StormReports/October292011.pdf

Peru, Massachusetts held the maximum snowfall for the storm at 32 inches. New Hampshire trailed closely, seeing a maximum of 31.4 inches. Additionally, Connecticut saw up to 24 inches, Pennsylvania and Maine up to 20 inches, downstate New York up to 18 inches, Vermont up to 16 inches, Maryland up to 12 inches, West Virginia up to 14 inches, Virginia up to 9 inches, and Rhode Island up to 7 inches.

Data Source: https://www.weather.gov/media/phi/StormReports/October292011.pdf

Data Sources: https://www.eversource.com/content/docs/default-source/storm-updates/isaias-30-day-report.pdf?sfvrsn=4584d162_2 & http://www.ryanhanrahan.com/tag/power-outages/

Connecticut was hit particularly hard by the storm. With upwards of 1 million power outages, and snowfall ranging from 8 inches to 24 inches, life was put on pause for residents. Halloween events were canceled, schools were closed, and millions were left in the dark. Generators were sold out in stores across the state, produce was left outside to maintain freshness, and many workers were unable to make the commute to work as their cars were buried, roads were blocked, and trains services were suspended.

Data Source: https://www.eversource.com/content/docs/default-source/storm-updates/isaias-30-day-report.pdf?sfvrsn=4584d162_2

Connecticut alone had over 1.3 million power outages, 807,228 of them occurring during the peak of the storm according to Eversource. Over the course of 11 days, power was slowly restored to residents. The storm beats tropical storms Isaias (2020) and Irene (2011), as well as superstorm Sandy (2012), for most outages in Connecticut.

Across New England, train, bus, and plane services were suspended or canceled altogether. Roads and highways were closed due to deep snow, floods, and downed trees. Connecticut saw 10 of the 39 deaths directly caused by the storm, the most in one state. Central Park and the New York Botanical Garden together saw 3200+ trees damaged or destroyed, with 2200+ from a historic old-growth forest. The storm caused 3.2 million power outages across 12 states, and the damage ranged between $1 billion and $3 billion.

Testing

“User feedback is priceless; without an understanding of what users need in order to carry out specific activities and tasks, the iterative process will fail. Each stage should provide new insights to inform your understanding and help you define or redefine the various problems that the users might face. Therefore, you must seek feedback whenever possible, use real people for testing purposes, and analyse results in order to determine what is right and what is wrong with the product, (Interaction Design Foundation).”

The test stage of Design Thinking allows designers to collect user data and improve upon their product. Prototyping and testing often go hand in hand, as prototypes are used to test unfinished versions of a product to improve it as much as possible before the final product is released.

“Testing, in Design Thinking, involves generating user feedback as related to the prototypes you have developed, as well as gaining a deeper understanding of your users. When undertaken correctly, the Testing stage of the project can often feed into most stages of the Design Thinking process: it allows you to empathise and gain a better understanding of your users; it may lead to insights that change the way you define your problem statement; it may generate new ideas in the ideation stage; and finally, it might lead to an iteration of your prototype, (Interaction Design Foundation).”

Testing should be done throughout the Design Thinking process to knock out problems early and continue to do so as user testing advances. It is also important to test throughout the process so the designer can see how users would use their product and gather information on the user experience so it can be improved each time something is altered. Testing is key to finding out what the user needs, and if the solution actually solves the problem.

“User tests work best when they are an integrated part of your work process so that you test your product iteratively and from an early stage of development onward. Early tests are what we can do on primitive prototypes—e.g., using paper; from there, we progress to more refined prototypes until we have something that resembles the final product. If you only start testing when you have an almost-finished product, you run a very serious risk in that your findings might come too late for you to make larger changes to the product, (Interaction Design Foundation).”

The Design Thinking process as a whole is non-linear and steps may be revisited. Testing is no different, and many prototypes will be made before the final product is settled upon. These tests are meant to get data, they are meant to fail and be improved upon so the designer can make a product that is whole and solves the problem identified. Testing may bring you back to the Define stage, to redefine the problem if it was incorrectly identified before, or even the Ideate stage, to brainstorm more creative solutions. The whole point of Design Thinking is to connect with your users and produce a product that solves a problem imposed upon them. It may take time, it may take multiple tries, but it is key to creating something useful and successful.

Prototype

“[Prototyping] involves producing an early, inexpensive, and scaled down version of the product in order to reveal any problems with the current design. Prototyping offers designers the opportunity to bring their ideas to life, test the practicability of the current design, and to potentially investigate how a sample of users think and feel about a product, (Interaction Design Foundation).”

Prototyping allows designers to get feedback from their audience by embodying the idea and functionality of a product, but before the product enters its final stages and is being finalized. In the article ‘Design Thinking: Get Started with Prototyping,’ the Rikke Dam and Teo Siang of the Interaction Design Foundation state, “Prototyping is about bringing conceptual or theoretical ideas to life and exploring their real-world impact before finally executing them.” Using prototypes during the ‘test’ phase allows designers to improve on their product using the feedback they receive, and to determine how successful the product will be in its current stage. Prototyping may lead to new ideas, new problems, and new areas of focus.

“Regardless of whether you have researched thoroughly and gathered a large body of information, or whether your ideation sessions have resulted in what many perceive as a world-changing solution, testing is still crucial for success. Design teams can easily become fixated on the research artefacts they have gathered during the earlier phases of exploration, creating a bias towards their ideas. By prototyping and then testing those prototypes, you can reveal assumptions and biases you have towards your ideas, and uncover insights about your users that you can use to improve your solutions or create new ones, (Interaction Design Foundation).”

Prototypes are also beneficial as they are inexpensive and can be made quickly. Because prototypes are not finished products, they can continually be refined. Designers use prototypes to “observe, record, judge, and measure user performance levels based on specific elements, or the users’ general behaviour, interactions, and reactions to the overall design,” according to the Interaction Design Foundation. Prototypes are built to fail, they are built to be improved and tested and remade, and they collect important data that can be used in producing the final product.

“Prototypes can take many forms, and just about the only thing in common the various forms have is that they are all tangible forms of your ideas. They don’t have to be primitive versions of an end product, either—far from it. Simple sketches or storyboards used to illustrate a proposed experiential solution, rough paper prototypes of digital interfaces, and even role-playing to act out a service offering an idea are examples of prototypes, (Interaction Design Foundation).”

Prototypes allow designers to explore problems, come up with new ideas, understand and learn about a problem, engage the audience, test ideas, and inspire. Dam and Siang add, “one of the best ways to learn about the positive and negative dynamics of your solutions is to take physical action, by experimenting with and exploring potential solutions, (Interaction Design Foundation).” Prototyping can help prevent wasting time, but can also further better ideas, and cut bad ones.