Putting it All Together

In the final week before break, I spent a lot of time piecing together elements of my final project. I changed the focus from graphics back to sales slightly as I have almost all of the pieces together for the portfolio. I am utilizing the marketing elements from the Wright Place Hair Salon since they have advertised on radio, television, and newspaper with me. Below is the television commercial the business runs on the Westminster Cable Network.

I sent various pieces of the portfolio and my resume to my alumni contact Bobby Fisher so he could send me some feedback from the sales world. I have also sent my resume and some examples from my graphics portfolio to a contact I found through Mr. Weaver - Brad Grandon, and Doug Sicchitano of PCN.

I'm very excited to put together a compilation of my work at Westminster, but it's also surreal because on Monday, it will be exactly two months until graduation. It's a great feeling to know I have a lot of quality work to show to employers, but I can't believe it's almost over.

In those next two months, I look forward to making improvements to parts of my sales and graphics portfolios and putting the finishing and final touches to my work at Westminster. For now though, I'm going to enjoy spring break!

So Much to Do....

Instead, I want to play. Of course, that means playing with Photoshop, and I've been doing a lot with it lately. First of all, my professor Dr. B. has asked me to present a lecture on the basics of graphics in the Commercial Production class. I needed examples so I have been looking at my work with Westminster Cable Network and cleaning things up and fixing others.

Also, I spoke with the graphics director from WPXI earlier this week, who gave me a lot of great advice and resources to use. When I'm not insanely busy upstairs at my internship in the sales department, I will spend some time downstairs just shadowing the designers. The director is being gracious enough to look at my portfolio as well, so I need to put the finishing touches on that and put together a reel of my live remote work.

In addition to all of these projects, I am doing a sort of freelance job for my father. I am creating a press guide for his high school baseball team. The entire design and creation will be my responsibility. If all goes well, I may be able to get some sales work too because we will need to approach businesses about placing ads in order to pay for the printing of the guide.

The images that accompany this blog entry are examples of pieces in my portfolio that I recently improved upon. There will be more to come in future entries.

One More Time...

It's really hard to believe that in a little over two months, I'll be graduating from wonderful Westminster. What's even harder for me to comprehend is that last night was my final live remote broadcast.

I started as a remote crew member during basketball season of my sophomore year. I was simply on crew because I had to be thanks to remotes practicuum. By the end of that semester, I was committed to being Chief Engineer Chuck Chirozzi's work study student for the following school year and a permanent fixture on Titan Crew.

Out of all the activities and projects I have worked on through the department, I feel like the live broadcasts have been the most beneficial. Number one, I feel like there is no substitute for working during a live event or show. It's impossible to predict anything which really tests your skills and how you can adapt to different situations. Also, the remotes fulfilled my passion and love for sports since I usually ran graphics for at least thirty events in a single year. Finally, although it was fun, being a member of the crew was very demanding and time-consuming, but I feel like this prepared me for the real world. No matter what path I take after graduation, and especially if I go into the sales area, it's going to require a lot of hours and persistence because it's hard when you're just starting out. I still say working as crew for the live remotes was well worth the time and effort.

So thank you to fellow seniors Pamela Marlowe and Chris Norris for helping our last remote go so smoothly, and thanks to Chief Engineer Chuck Chirozzi for three years of great times and experience.