THE SEARCH

The hunt for information has come through mostly learning by doing; my mentor has provided a student trial with creative software such as Photoshop, InDesign, and Adobe Illustrator, all of which have been used in my tasks of designing for him and for myself. I created all of the designs that were used in my end-of-year presentation, including a cut-out stand, a booklet, and my own business cards, using Adobe Illustrator and printing out of Brandywine. Through this kinesthetic form of learning, I’ve tested my own knowledge of color, layout, form, shape, and how digital design affects the mode through which an artist creates. The way detail shifts changes; for example, none of the software I use is particularly made for “drawing” per se, so the way I achieve the visuals of changes in tone and color differ. In one of my designs, which can be seen in the gallery below, I aimed to get a stippling effect. In art, stippling is the use of dots to create a change in value, which is the degree of darkness to lightness, in order to make a form look more three-dimensional. So I could not use a pencil or pen and make dots, so instead I had to manually create thousands of circles to create my piece.

Through my internship, I’ve also learned how largely a chunk of graphic design is in part the mode through which it is printed. My mentor considers his business “custom manufacturing”, which he considers difficult to run as a business because there’s no assembly line—there can’t be, because each product is different. So it takes a considerable amount of care and attentiveness to deliver what the customer wants. There are numerous ways that the style or paper of what you print on affects the design; texture can be added to the paper, or it can be thinner or thicker, and that depends on the use of the product, the intended duration, et cetera. The method through which the design is printed ultimately affects the effectiveness of the design too.

My one-on-one conversations with my mentor, Derek Brooks, have been of incredible use to me in discovering what’s important in a design. In my interview with Derek, as seen below, we discuss graphic design as a business and how he sees his role in a business of custom manufacturing. My questions, written by me, are emboldened, with Derek’s responses italicized and my comments and reflection on his answers written in regular font.

• What interests you most about your career? 

I get to help people. That definitely Is what is my driving force… I think it’s cool to create something that originated as an idea—create a tangible product that started as an idea.

I think that this aspect is definitely alluring to graphic design; it’s primarily a people-person job, as it is a service industry. Graphic design is being able to discuss with a client what idea they have and being able to put that into a visual form to satisfy your client and your client’s clients. The interesting part of graphic design is how everything starts as an idea and is brought to life through the physical design; in that way, it is a very artistic form.

• What aspects of your personality or background equips you to perform your job well?

I think I’m a glass half full kind of person so my optimism and positive personality, I believe, have allowed me to succeed. Because more than anything I’ve done sales. 

What I learned from this, as well as getting to know my mentor through my months of interning with him, is that being a glass half full and an optimistic person is great for customer service, which he claims is a large bulk of his job. From being optimistic, he can say to a client who has an issue with something, “Okay, I recognize that, now let’s move on to fix it.” There’s no discussion over trivial things, just a positive movement forward to fix the issue. 

• Why did you decide to get involved in graphic design? I didn’t decide; my dad started this company, and I tried other things, and this at the time was the least amount of the work for the most money. [What made me stay was] that I got good at it, and I learned how to help people. I didn’t start out wanting to do this, but as more people came to me for solutions, I learned how to use my skill set in order to help people, which is why I stay. 

This is comforting because it shows me, a student who is about to go into college for another four more years of being a student yet again, that life brings opportunities as they come and to not necessarily always have an idea of exactly where you might end up. My internship has been an opportunity to see what I’m good at, what I’m capable of, and what I’m interested in, so it gives me a better idea of my goals. 

• What do you like most about your job?

It comes down to helping other’s succeed—that’s our mission statement, to help people succeed. That’s not an accident; it’s what our product intends to accomplish. 

This to me exemplifies the amount of satisfaction that comes from his career as a graphic designer and a business man. To me, this translates towards being satisfied with the end product or service of your job, whatever that may be. If you are satisfied with a job well done, or a goal completed, then that’s what can fulfill you in life.

• What do you like least about your job?

When someone doesn’t appreciate the work that we do, that’s upsetting. We put all of us into what we do, so if someone doesn’t appreciate it, it’s personal, and it hurts. 

As a service provider, this to me shows the downsides of working hard towards something and not getting the credit. For example, one of the issues I’ve seen with my internship is that people complain about prices, which to my mentor translates as not appreciating the value of their work. As such, my mentor has shown me that regardless of if they value it, you as a service provider must still put forth your best work regardless of the credit.

• How often do you learn new things during your job?

Every day. But I’m a student, I love to learn. I look for things to learn. What I like to tell people is that we’ve learned a lot of ways not to do something. 

In this response, I see how learning and in turn making mistakes is a way to improve and progress. Through finding of ways to not do something, he’s found the most effective and efficient ways to produce designs and end products that best satisfy his customers.

• In what ways does your business expand or strengthen?

We’re always reinvesting into the business. In 2017, we added one team member and three vital pieces of equipment to our business. We also, in late 2016, added the Etsy store to open to that market so we send our products all over the country—actually, all over the world, the UK, Australia…

Again, this response shows how businesses progress and expand. As he invests in more opportunities for his business, he gets the end result of greater success, profit, and personal prosperity. 

• What’s the most fulfilling aspect of your job?

When people ask me what we do, I don’t tell them I’m in the printing business. I tell them I sell smiles; seeing people light up when they see their physical vision in front of them, that’s what’s most fulfilling.

From this response, I gather a lot about the business I’m interning for. I see that they are a business focused on the satisfaction of their customers; from interning there many months now, I know how frustrating customers can be, asking for numerous amendments to their designs right before it needs to be printed or something like that, but my mentor and his team always resolves to make it work in order to provide those smiles. 

​

• How much of your occupation is creativity, business, and customer service, and which is greatest at Brandywine?

Creativity is about 10%; 70% customer service; 20% is business. Because everybody’s people—and people make it all work. Customer service goes beyond customers—it’s serving people. Our first customers are inside this building—I serve them to serve the customers that give us money. 

It was interesting to me to see how my mentor views his job as more customer service than creativity. Perhaps it’s because sometimes people outsource the design aspect of the job to primarily design services and go to Brandywine just for the printing aspect. Regardless, this shows to me how my mentor views his company and fuels what he’s said before about what makes his job most fulfilling in providing satisfying products. 

• What is the culture surrounding Brandywine Printing?

Fun, family-oriented culture. It’s something important to me. 

This is something that my mentor and I had discussed before; he has always emphasized to me that he prefers loyalty over all else. When looking for a customer service worker, he chose the candidate with the least experience because she had been with the same company for the longest time. He values that loyalty in a company, and that is reflected in how he views his employees as a team, a unit, not just workers.