First web design internship — Week 5 & 6
Note: My internship took place in 2020. Lucidweb shut down in 2021 due to the Covid situation.
If you haven’t checked my internship report for the first weeks or the past few weeks, I invite you to read it so you will have all the context for what I am explaining here.
These past weeks were much quieter than the beginning. Eliana, my internship supervisor went to Columbia for the holiday season. She was still working for a week but with a 6-hour jetlag. Then, 3 weeks off would follow. I didn’t really know what to expect at the beginning.
For the first week, the meetings with Eliana would occur at 2pm instead of the morning. Meaning that if I would be finished with something, I would have to wait till the afternoon for a feedback. For the second week, Eliana was not there and so I would check up with Leen (the boss) the tasks I’m assigned. Because Leen is much busier, I had fewer meetings, more time by myself, and more feedback at once. Additionally, 2 people left from Lucidweb, and some people were on holiday. Therefore, I had less work to do and my pace of work was less agitated.
Mailchimp newsletter
Just to close the subject from last week, we finished the newsletter email on Mailchimp. We discovered a new feature on the platform. We could change the text with code, meaning that we could transform a link into a button by cheating and adding a border. I was also asked to add a banner and an animated gif. This assignment was made up of a lot of tries and errors, due to feedback from Eliana, Pedro, and Leen. It was a bit long because we had to change small details by small details but at the end, these details always make the design better. Unfortunately, I believe Eliana finished this task because it needed to be done before she leaves.
Visuals for the medium post
Once again, Charlotte asked me to create visuals for a medium post. This time it would not be for Lucidweb’s blog but for XR4ALL, one of the client’s. The article is about start-ups in Central and Eastern Europe. It’s a top 5 of the latest XR start-ups. I had to create a banner from scratch and with no references this time. I had free rein. I also had to merge three images into one like last week.
The merge was easy to do. A little Photoshop and it was done. For the banner, I chose to do something similar to last week. It was gratifying to be free to do anything I wanted. I enjoyed doing it and as a matter of fact, it showed. I finished the banner in one afternoon. The feedback was that it just needed to have a little bit more contrast and more blue/purple tones. In addition, I had to make an Instagram version of the banner.
Creation of a guide for clients
The next big assignment was to create a PDF, a guide for clients to explain Lucidweb Pro’s platform. I was given a text that consisted of a list of requirements and a list of definitions to grasp the meaning of words.
I explored the topic. I made some sketches by hand for layouts. I looked for inspiration on Pinterest and Behance and started drafts on Illustrator. I looked up references on infographics. Again, I had to create it from scratch. I was free to do as I wanted, as long as I follow Lucidweb’s guidelines. I felt like I was given more and more responsibilities and I was trusted. It also gives me space to be more creative.
For a whole day, I tried to find a good layout for the guide. It was hard to fit all the information in one page. I made a lot of tries and errors in Illustrator, but I always kept the small details that worked the best and kept on.
After 3 days of only working on the guide, I ended up finding something I was satisfied with. But it was not easy. It was hard to stay concentrated while doing the same thing the whole day with minimal feedback. At moments, I didn’t have any inspiration for new and different combinations of layout… I had to take breaks to change my mind and come back stronger with a different point of view on my design. I brought the task to an end by aligning everything and coordonate the stroke’s width of all the icons I created.
I send the final to Leen and I’m still waiting from her feedback to this day. I guess this project is on hold for now.
Online Workshop
The first Thursday, there was an online workshop that someone from the dev team recommended : “UX for XR” by Circus Stream. It’s a company that makes online courses about XR design. It was not mandatory but still, it was still very interesting. It changed from learning to practicing.
What I retain from this workshop is that there are not only 2, 3 or 4 types of extended reality (XR) but it’s a spectrum and it’s very variable. I got a link to the replay of the workshop if you are interested to learn more about it.
Investors deck
Leen asked me to redo some of the slides that Eliana was working on for the investors deck before she went on holiday. Then I would start transforming the slides that she did on Illustrator into Google Slides. As a matter of fact, Eliana took this task but she didn’t have the time so she did everything on Illustrator. Now I would have to retranscribe everything in Google Slide so it’s editable for Leen.
I started by transforming some slides with Eliana’s method, meaning Illustrator. I had to change and reorganize the structure of 4 slides with Leen’s feedback so it’s more readable. I was quite effective and I could quickly move to the part where I create an editable version.
Not having feedback is difficult because I don’t know if what I do is okay or not. So I spent a lot of time arranging and aligning everything so I don’t have meaningless feedback about small details. Fortunately, what I did was not complicated and I didn’t think it would have been a problem for me to achieve these tasks but on the other hand, I don’t learn anything and it’s too bad.
I sent to Leen my latest version of the editable deck but I think information is still coming and the work here is not done yet.
First visit of the office and Xmas drink
Just before Christmas, a team building meeting was organized with the whole team. For the event, we were offered a Xmas pack. To get it, I had to go to the office for the first time. It was quite an adventure.
I was very excited to discover the co-working space and to go to the center of Brussels. I met Leen in real life, I had a good environment to work in for a day (a good chair !!), a great view of Brussels, plants all over, I went out for lunch, and I felt like I was finally in the professional world. Leen offered to give me a pass to come whenever I felt like it. I will probably come more often in January.
That afternoon was the Christmas online gathering. It was a lot of fun. We played some games to learn more about each other. It was good for me because I didn’t know the team very well. I hope to meet them in real life before my internship ends.
Conclusion
The last two weeks were less stressful than I thought. In fact, I felt calmer because I was by myself. Because I had less feedback (once a day or once every 2 days), I had to make sure that all the small details were on point so when we would meet, we would talk about the important subjects. The fact that I had fewer assignments, due to fewer staff in Lucidweb’s team, the holidays, and Eliana being away, helped me not to be overwhelmed. I could concentrate more and be more efficient in my work.
Since I am already halfway through my internship, I also would like to give a conclusion about my experience so far. My expectations were not high due to the situation with Covid but I’m pleasantly surprised by the follow-up I was given from the beginning. I was always assigned to various tasks so I would try on a little bit of everything and I was always given constructive and interesting feedback. Eliana is very patient with me and gives me time to explore something that I’m new to. However, I’m not doing usual UX work (on Sketch, Invision, XD) but more of a graphic design job. I think that’s the only flat that I would find right now. But it’s nobody’s fault, we don’t have UX projects at the moment that would require my needs. But I’m optimistic that I’m still learning a lot about everything I do.
I think the next few weeks will have the same rhythm of work because it’s still holidays season and Eliana will not be back yet. But I’m still looking forward to trying new things and learning about it.
