The following is an article written by Sean, one of our 2015 summer interns, about his experience as a web designer at Lumina.
It was awesome! From an intern perspective it was great and I learned a lot, and I was able to experience new things that I hadn’t experienced before. Working at Lumina felt no different from home. Everyone at work was very kind and friendly, so I was able to get comfortable really fast and easily. And we can leave and get lunch anytime we want. 😀
“718smiley.png” by East718 is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
First 2 weeks
For the first two weeks of work I got to pick my seat, however it was changed later on because they had a computer all set up for me. Right away, Bryan (my supervisor) gave me my task. He sent me some articles about web design and told me to start reading them, and then create an outline or summary of what I learned. Using the knowledge I just learned, I had to critique 12 different websites on their layout and functionality. This task may sound just like any other school project, but it gave me a jump-start into web design.
Then, I started working on non-representational / abstract images in Photoshop and/or Illustrator to be used on Lumina.nyc. The goal was to create as many abstract images as I could, that I thought would fit the Lumina website. This task allowed me to experience a little bit of what it would be like to be a designer, which was to create something that had a requirement(s) rather than solely based on my creativity. It was not an exceptionally hard or simple task, but the task did got harder as I created more and more images. I started running out of ideas, not because I ran out of designs to create, but because most of the designs did not meet the requirement or fit the website. So I started searching for some more inspirations, and after that I started creating more images like there was not a problem. I worked on this throughout the weeks, but it was not my only task.
Next 2 weeks
The next two weeks I was still working on images, moreover I got another new task to do alongside with: to create a web design infographic. First, Bryan told me to come up with the top 10 most important concepts for web design (in my opinion). Then we went over it together and he told me what he thought the top 10 most important concepts would be, which were almost the same concepts I said. That meant I did my research right.
After we established the 10 concepts, I went back to researching. I had to find 3-5 subtopics for each main concept. This was the easy part of the task, because I knew most of it already. The hard part was finding proof and statistics to support the subtopics.
Then came the designing part of the project: creating a thumbnail layout for the infographic. Basically, it is putting in your content, and planning out where the pictures and text would go. However, at the time I did not know that; I thought it was just creating a basic design that I would be using.
Last 2 weeks
For the last two weeks I started working on retargeting banners for the main website Lumina.nyc and the service site LuminaRockets.com. A retargeting banner is an image that is used as an advertisement on websites, but it’s only shown to people who’ve already been to the site. Creating the banners was really fun, and it was something I was hoping for. I had to fit certain amount of text in a 300 x 250 pixel-sized box and have it send the right message. It was a good challenge to measure my design skills, and I got some really good feedback. I had a lot of fun creating them, and now I have a taste of ad designs.
by Enoc vt, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Interning at Lumina taught me many things. For example: how to create a proper thumbnail layout, how to create an eye-catching website, and how to create a retargeting ad. It also gave me lots of work experience; now I know how it feels to actually work at an office.
A little taste of my future.
