Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Esente Today

Well its getting close to the end of the internship and I have grown as an artist, and an all around complete designer by working for Esente. I have worked on many different projects that will help round out my portfolio, and that will help me in my future job hunt. I am currently working hard on the re-works of the facebook ads that I have gotten feedback on for the various applications/businesses/blogs for Esente. Today I am doing the normal various sections of leads for OnPoint. Time to buckle down and finish all the pending projects and work hard for this company so that I can move forward to a company and hopefully they can see my efforts in my portfolio from Esente.

Jon Rose
Esente Graphics Intern

Lately At Esente

Valerie Nelkin
St. Lawrence University '10
Graphics Intern 2013

Seems like we're getting down to the final weeks here at Esente, which means crunch time for many of my posters and other artwork.  Thankfully, I've done some reading up on how to properly use typography, so hopefully my use of text has improved.  Got quite a bit done/improved over the weekend, hopefully when we eventually get feedback the changes I've made turn out to be good ones.






Breath Again

It's crunch time, as my junior year of college is coming to a much needed end. Today I had my last critique for a Form/Design class I've been taking. It went pretty well, not that it wouldn't have. But I received some nice feedback on my 3D representation of Picasso's "Three Musicians". I've been going insane trying to finish papers and projects. This past week or so I've been up late many nights mornings til 1, 2, 3 in the morning trying to get one thing finished, before moving to another. Anyways, tomorrow is my last day of classes, and then next week I have finals. Can't wait to have the weight off my shoulders, and take a nice deep breath for the first time in four months. Breathe.

Today I'm here at the Esente office until 5. Started right in on Internet research shortly after arriving. I finished two small lists in Saugus and now have moved onto Lexington, MA. I have an immense list of businesses to look through so I'm hoping my numbers are up there today. Fingers crossed.

Once I finish conducting leads for OnPoint I would like to refine some of the graphics that I've been working on for promotional uses. Two of them are completely finished, but the other two have minor details that I need to work out before calling them complete. Time to be productive and jump into some leads and then some design later in the day.

Joe Wing
Salem State University '14
Esente Graphic Design Intern

Social Media Ads- Renee Breau


4/30/13- Today, I collected 42 leads in Somerville, Ma for On Point, one of my best numbers lately.  While eating lunch Ron was talking about the basketball player who came out gay this week.  Then started talking about Rocky Marciano, wrestler from MA, and could not believe I did not know who he was. Then after lunch I continued to find articles for 2 blog and write a summary of them, so Amanda can use them for Right Now against bullying and Stop Drunk Driving Now blogs.  Then after finding an article for Right Now Blog, I decided to make an Ad for the blog which I then sent Amanda before leaving.  The concept was to attract the eye with the image of grave stone, showing what bullying can in end.  I also finished the Ad for Buzz on Bullying Blog.   

-Renee Breau 
Graphic Designer
reneebreau.com    







4/30/13

I was able to find 42 leads for OnPoint Media during my research today. After lunch, I completed 3 articles that I was working on for the bullying and drunk driving websites. Upon completion, I began another 3 articles, all for the Buzz on Bullying website.

-Robert Skolnik, PR Intern, Esente Music Group

Rio Dupris 4/30/2013


I have about 30 leads so far. I'm so very tired today; I've been staving off a migraine with the help of some nifty pain killers and I'm struggling to resist curling up under the table and snoozing for the rest of the day.
My son wont be able to make it to my graduation ceremony because the air force is deploying him to afghanistan about then. I'm way bummed about that. I won't see him again until he gets back. I hope to the gods he comes home safe and sound!

Winding Down, Cranking Up

I got a bunch of editing done on the different Right Now posters I have been working on during this internship. A couple of weeks ago we had a critique of all the work done by all the interns and Ron gave us his ideas and what he wanted changed in each poster. The changes were all easy to make, he wanted a clear easy to read font and a sort of contained composition. I ended up just using the font he had already been using in a lot of the different social media promos and put borders around the images with a black background.




Since we are in the last few weeks of the internship I need to start finding something else to blog about. I did some research online and found that when you are looking for a job it can be helpful to be blogging about the career you are interested in and take a stance on some issues involved in the field. It won't be very difficult to talk about graphic design and social media since I am surrounded by it all day but I'm not exactly sure about how to take a stance on it. That will hopefully be something that comes as I start to write. 

When the internship is over my job search will be kicked into full gear. My website is just about finished and my resume will be fully loaded with more real world experience. My portfolio will have some work that wasn't done as a student which will just add to its credibility I still have some time left here though, so I will still have to be focused on that. 

Tim Pietrasik
Graphics Intern

Monday, April 29, 2013

Back to Work


Today is my first day back after needing two weeks off to deal with family issues. To my surprise, there were no other interns here. I was under the impression that the internship continued for another two weeks but I guess some people got to leave early, either based on merit or lack of merit. I assume their departures were legitimate seeing as the end was so close, you'd have to be a moron to quit. While I was out, I was still able to write some descriptions for Becca Levy and Jayna Lininger's YouTube videos and continue regular postings in the Rock Report.  The Rock Report still hasn't gotten old, but I am starting to run out of clever plays on classic rock/pop references and may have to resort to blander entry titles. Last I checked, the PSA/music video I worked on was up to 50,000 views.  Not too shabby. It's refreshing to be doing leads again as I have spent the past two weeks wandering the internet without aim or purpose. It's good to be reminded it serves a function other than fact checking trivia and staying up to date on things I don't especially care about.  

Travis Long
Esente Music Group
PR Intern

Another Begins

Today is my day back in the office since last Wednesday. Last Thursday I wasn't feeling very well so I stayed home instead of coming into the office. Today I jumped right into conducting Internet research for OnPoint Media. We've move onto a new list for Saugus, MA. Some of the lists that I've been searching through include computer hardware and software, electronics & appliances and consumer services. I'm not entirely sure how many I have found so far, but the numbers seem to be adding up nicely.

This is my last week of classes of my junior year in college, and it's crunch time. I've been working early into the morning hours trying to get papers, projects, and other assignments completed before it ends. Next week is my finals week, but thankfully I only have to show up for three finals, two of them are completely online.

This semester has gone by incredibly fast. I can't believe that my junior year of college is coming to and end. And also my first internship here at Esente will also be coming to an end within the next two weeks. I'm excited for everything that I have accomplished in and out of this environment. I wouldn't change a single thing about the experience I have gained over the last few months here wit Esente Music Group. All things must come to and end, but with the end of one journey, another begins.

Joe Wing
Salem State University '14
Esente Graphic Design Intern

Esente Today

ahhhhhhh good old case of the mondays. Its a normal day at the office, leads for OnPoint and casual talk about tv shows. Finding educational services leads is proving to be tedious when all the schools in the town use the same website.... (sadface) hard to find leads for the schools for websites when they all use only one website. As far as art goes for esente, I have made a few changes to the facebook ads for stopddnow.com in photoshop to meet the wants of the critique we had on all of the interns artwork.

Jon Rose
Esente Music Group Graphics Intern

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Goodbye Esente! You Have Taught Me Well

Today is finally the day. After this afternoon, my internship with Esente Music Group will be concluded. It has been a long, fun, and interesting working experience that I have learned quite a bit from. Before I began work here, I was involved with only a few aspects of music as a profession. I was attending shows, playing shows, organizing shows and working with bands, but working at Esente has strengthened my existing skills and turned me into a well rounded individual. I now know how to conduct behind the scenes operations that may be small on the surface, but contribute to a much larger picture that keep this company moving. I have further developed my research skills, my organizational skills, and my creative problem solving skills through working on various projects. These projects include list collections of artists and bands, development of marketing letters, and pulling together details on large music events. This has been an experience I will not forget and my desired future to work in the music industry will be far more likely due to the skills I learned at Esente.

This concludes my final blog post in the most interesting work experience of my career.

Thank You Esente!

Bradley Simonsen
Wentworth Institute of Technology
Spring Semester 2013
Public Relations/Marketing Intern  

Writing for Blogs


4/25/13- Today, I collected 34 leads in Mass for On Point.  Then I moved on to writing 2 articles each for Stop Drunk Driving Now and Buzz on Bullying Blogs.  I finished my posters by putting the logos on them.   

-Renee Breau
reneebreau.com 

4/25/13

My research for leads for OnPoint Media yielded 26 businesses in Revere MA. After lunch, I began working on 3 articles; each article will be posted on a different website. So far, I have only completed one. It will be posted on the RightNow Against Drunk Driving website. As the month of April comes to an end, so too does the first half of my internship here at Esente. A few interns have already ended their time here, and I am excited to begin the "intern 2.0" extension of my internship. It will allow me to work from home (which will save me an arm and a leg in gas money) and to focus on further developing my writing.

-Robert Skolnik, PR Intern, Esente Music Group

Short and Sweet


After all the research we did trying to figure out how to contact bands via Reverbnation we finally had success using the ask a question feature. Because the space to ask is so limited we had to shorten the url to the One Night Stand and keep the message extremely brief. I think this approach will be really hit or miss just because some bands will assume we are a scam and just ignore. But you would think if the band is interested in playing a show they would at least respond to a message. Even if they are just swearing at us thinking we are spam.

I began work on a Buzz on Bullying social media promo banner yesterday afternoon. At this point I think it looks too similar to the first one I did. I'd like to make some sort of vector illustration to accompany the Becca Bee of some sort of bullying event. I would use a photo but the style of the Bee is so defined I want any other imagery to look similar and fit the style.


Still needs some work and it will probably look a lot different by the end of today. 

Tim Pietrasik
Graphics Intern

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

The End is Near

Once again,  I am at the plateau of the parabola that is my work week. Tomorrow I will not only be coasting downhill in the weekend, but into the summertime. As of this Thursday, my internship with Esente Music Group will be concluded and my summer semester of courses will begin. Sigh. I have to make these last two days count for they will be the final note that I have to show for a full semester of work with Esente. Anyways, my typical morning routine went as well as normal. I collected about 33 business contacts for OnPoint Media mainly in the Consumer Service sector in Jamaica Plain, MA. Yesterday afternoon was slightly different than normal because the interns were assigned to troubleshoot ways of messaging bands for One Night Stands without being spam blocked. I was able to come up with two possible solutions for messaging using ReverbNation, which seem possible, but the message body length will be significantly limited. Nonetheless, short messages are better than no messages. This afternoon I have been given normal blog detail which I look forward to because I have got the blog posting down to a science. It seems that there are no shortage of new drunk driving and anti-bullying web articles to choose from, making my tasks all the more painless.

I'll be checking in tomorrow with my final intern update.

Bradley Simonsen
Wentworth Institute of Technology
Spring Semester 2013
Public Relations/Marketing Intern   

Internship week 13, Weds.

On Monday at Esente, I had a particularly short day. After class at Montserrat, I had my internship seminar meeting with a small group of students and our internship advisor. We passed in reflection papers, activity journals and other paperwork, as well as talking briefly about our experiences. The talk went from 11:30-12:30, so I arrived at Esente about an hour later than usual.

When I arrived, I had more bad news to deliver to Laura. I would have to leave early, around 3:00, so I could attend my friend's wake. Sean Collier was the MIT officer who was murdered Friday night by the Boston Marathon bombing suspects. He was shot multiple times while he sat in his cruiser, and the reasoning behind the shooting is still unknown. Sean was an old friend of mine, though I hadn't seen him in a couple of years. He went to school with me in Wilmington and was a year behind me. I had a few friends in that graduating class and Sean was one of them. We had many great times together and I'll always remember him fondly.




What's going on...

Valerie Nelkin
St. Lawrence University '10
Graphics Intern 2013

Worked on leads today, got plenty of them.
Video has gotten about a 100 more views, and of course scrolling through the comments we are already seeing an inevitable internet fight... why people feel the need to give their extreme opinion just to start a heated argument is beyond me.
Got some more work done on one of my blog graphics, the Stop Drunk Driving one, which I scrapped and redid, hopefully this one is a bit better.
Seeing it smaller now, I see that once again I need to adjust the text to make it more readable.  Seriously need to work on my typography.

What's New with the Interns


4/24/13- Today, I found 39 companies in Boston, Ma for On Point.  Then after lunch I worked making a flower for the Social Media Ad and still need to finish it.  I sent bands a message on Revernation about seeing if they wanted to pay to play in the One Night Stand event.  It seemed to be working and had no problems with the amount I was sending out for the day.  

Renee Breau 
Graphic Designer
Reneebreau.com    

4/24/13

Today I was able to find 35 leads for OnPoint Media, mostly from the Jamaica Plain healthcare list. After lunch, I wrote 3 article summaries for the Buzz on Bullying website. All were interesting, but the one I found most interesting was about when teachers become the victims of bullying. It was an interesting look at a topic that is often seen as taboo among teachers, who fear that their reputation would be tarnished if they were to report such incidents. At the end of the day we figured out how to overcome the problems we were having with ReverbNation, and I was able to contact and handful of bands before leaving work for the day.

-Robert Skolnik, PR Intern, Esente Music Group

Midweek Update

So far today I’ve been working on more leads for OnPoint Media in hopes of finding future clientele. We are looking throughout Jamaica Plain, MA. I had gone through several lists of businesses including energy/resources, fabrication, food, machinery, and several others. I’ve had a hard time finding promising leads from many of the businesses that are listed, but I’ve managed to scrounge up at least thirty of them so far. I don’t know what it is, but it seriously irritates me when 90% of these companies don’t have a website. I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ve been coming across it a lot more lately for some reason.

Yesterday while I was here I was able to work on a fourth promotional graphic for the Buzz on Bullying blog. I borrowed the color palette from the original source of the blog, yellow and black elements which are incorporated into the design. I’m still working on the design, as I’ve come across some issues with legibility on some of the text against the dark background. I like most of what I have done to it, but there are still a few things that I need to tweak before I call it finished. If interested in seeing the progress so far, I posted it in my blog from yesterday. As soon as more changes are made to increase the eligibility and overall design, I will post another update.

Joe Wing
Salem State University ‘14
Esente Graphic Design Intern

2 Minute Drill


After hitting a few snags while contacting bands for the One Night Stand campaign through Reverbnation and Facebook we needed to try and find a way around their messaging systems. In order to message a band directly through Reverbnation you must first become a "fan" and wait for them to accept your fanship. Facebook will just straight up block your account as a spam profile if you send too many direct messages too quickly. I was put in a group to find a solution for Reverbnation. We discovered that you could ask the band a question in a Twitter style format with a limited amount of characters but without having to become a fan. The only problem with this is that it really lends itself to spamming and after reading a few articles about RN online I noticed that users are wary of this and might be hesitant to react and abrasive if they do respond. There were other services set up by the site designed to contact and manage bands, but you must download apps to do it and fan the bands anyway. So really in the end the site gets in the way of itself and getting bands noticed and on stage.

The rest of the afternoon I started work on a new social media banner for the OnPoint BizBuzz. It is almost done just needing a couple tweaks to make it look just right.


Today leads have been going pretty slow. I think part of it might have to do with listening to sports talk radio after every Boston sports team got obliterated. I'm just trying to keep plugging away so hopefully I can get my numbers up for the day. 

Tim Pietrasik
Graphics Intern

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Road Blocks

Upon arrival of the Esente office, I began diligently working on more Internet research for OnPoint Media. Today I was searching for businesses throughout Hanson, MA. Some of the lists I was assigned include computer hardware and computer software, consumer electronics, among a few others. It wasn't the greatest day for me for leads, but I managed to scrounge up a total of 22. This was one of the least successful day for leads for me. Many of them look promising, but ultimately come up short on some vital information.

The interns and myself also began trying to find ways around certain road blocks that we came across when contacting bands for the One Night Stand. We encountered issues on both Facebook and ReverbNation and were trying to find solutions to these issues. I'm not entirely sure how we will get past these problems, but it should be interesting. As with anything, you learn the more you do something. Our reaching out to bands to perform at the One Night Stand events was no different. Hopefully we will be able to find a definitive solution to the road blocks we have come across.


I was also able to work some more on another promotional graphic for one of the blogs. Specifically, I was working on a promo graphic for The Buzz On Bullying. I retained some of the aesthetic qualities of the original blog site, but took it in my own direction. I'm not entirely finished with the graphic, but I had made some good progress in reaching completion. Below you can see what I have done so far, but changes are inevitable.

Joe Wing
Salem State University '14
Esente Graphic Design Intern


What's up at Esente

Valerie Nelkin
St. Lawrence University '10
Graphics Intern 2013

Got through a lot of leads today, which is always a good feeling.  Keep checking up on the Fix You video, it's currently at 49,459 views, which I think is incredible!  541 more and we'll be 50,000!  Whoa!!
In other news, so much art to do!

Feel pretty much finished with this one, and I like it's simplicity.  Just seems so much cleaner, which is fitting for a business blog graphic.

Interns- Research


4/23/13- Today I was running late and therefore only collected 13 leads.  Then after lunch all the interns were assigned a research assignment on collecting band for One Night Stand.  I was trying to find how we could not get block from Facebook by sending messages to the band.  One of the ways I found was to have more friends then the messages you are sending out and to spread the messages over the course of the day.   Then I found some other helpful hints and some sites to get more band then the ones we have.  After researching I moved on to working on Social Media Ad for Biz Buzz Blog. The concept is to create flowers and have the bee biz to the flowers and have text saying “learn how to grow your business”.  


Renee Breau 
Graphic Designer
reneebreau.com

4/23/13

My search for leads yielded 30 businesses today. During our intern meeting, we discussed issues that we were having with the ReverbNation website in relation to contacting bands for the ONS project. After the meeting, I conducted research on a new resource/tool that we will begin using called SonicBids. It is a great website that connects bands to gigs, as well as promoters to bands. I am excited to begin using it, as it will most definitely prove to be an invaluable resource now that we can no longer use ReverbNation. I finished out the day by continuing work on 3 articles for the Buzz on Bullying webpage.

-Robert Skolnik, PR Intern, Esente Music Group

Lead Them


Last week I finished a couple more of the social media promotional posters for the different blogs Esente runs. I enjoy doing these because we are given a lot of freedom with them and I can bang them out pretty quickly. I am working on another Buzz on Bullying and BizzBuzz at OnPoint as well but they are just in the beginning stages.



Today I have just been plugging away at leads. So far I've done very well working my way through several lists getting good numbers. Since day one of the internship I have definitely improved at leads and at this point I enjoy doing them. As much as I do like them now hopefully this afternoon we will continue to contact bands for One Night Stand or be able to do some work on art.

Tim Pietrasik
Graphic Design Intern

Monday, April 22, 2013

Last Monday at Esente Music Group

Never thought this day would come, but today is the last Monday I will be spending with Esente Music Group. Starting next Monday, my full course load for this summer semester will be starting and my schedule will no longer allow daily trips from Boston to Beverly for 6 hours a day. If I could have it my way, I would continue working here over the summer rather than be stuck with 3 classes a day and homework in the meantime, but that is the way my program works. On a separate note, my typical morning routine yielded normal business contact collection for OnPoint media, where I collected 33 businesses in Belmont, MA. Afternoons this week could be different than last week, either due to the conclusion of my internship, or the necessity of sending more marketing emails to bands for One Night Stands concerts. As I mentioned in last week's posts, those marketing messages have not gone very smoothly, largely due to Facebook's spam blocking technology, so needless to say, I would rather post on a few blogs instead.

This concludes the first of my last week's blog. I'll be back tomorrow.

Bradley Simonsen
Wentworth Institute of Technology
Spring Semester 2013
Public Relations/Marketing Intern   

Toothpicks In My Eyes

Considering I didn't go to bed until 3 this morning, I'm pretty exhausted today and can't wait to go to bed later! I'm in need of some serious sleep action when I get out of my classes later on in the day, or I could always sleep in my classes. Never really understood how people can fall asleep in a class. Or I could always find some toothpicks to keep my eyes open for the remainder of the day. Hmm..decisions, decisions.

Anyways I arrived at the office today shortly after 9:30, after dragging myself to my 8 o'clock class this morning. I jumped right into conducting more internet research for OnPoint Media. I still actually am working on these as we speak. Started looking throughout Belmont, MA today and had several lists to look through. Today is actually another good day for leads, for myself at least. I'm not entirely sure where my numbers are at this point, but I believe I've exceeded at least 30 or so, or at least that's what I'm hoping.


As today is one of my two short days here, I haven't had time to start working on my fourth promotional graphic for the Buzz on Bullying blog. I completed 3 already so for the three other blogs, but wanted to create one for each of them. I'm still kicking ideas around my head for the creative direction of this fourth promo graphic. I have to admit it was easy coming up with an idea for the other 3 that are already completed, but this one has put up a creative road block. I was on the blog, itself, to help get inspired and draw some inspiration, but with little success. Maybe I'm over thinking things, so perhaps I should step back for a while and see where I am. Tomorrow I would like to have the new graphic half completed, or ideally completely finished. We shall see where things are tomorrow afternoon.

Joe Wing
Salem State University '14
Esente Graphic Design Intern

Artwork

Valerie Nelkin
St. Lawrence University '10
Graphics Intern 2013

Finding myself nearing the end of the internship with TONS of artwork left to do... guess I'd better get on that.  I have got some more artwork to post up here though:
This will eventually be a part of my final drunk driving poster, with a slogan along the lines of "Your drink is frosty... But there is nothing cool about driving drunk." Hopefully it'll be as effective on paper as it seems in my head.

This one will be my final bullying poster (gave up on the video game one because of the potential politics behind it).  This one is going to be about cyber-bullying, hopefully to demonstrate that its just as bad and scary as physical bullying.

Esente Today

well, gotta love mondays. Started the day by looking for leads for  Belmont MA, under the Ecommerce, and Educational Services. Leads are going pretty well today educational institutions always have their information plastered all over their websites, mostly because they want your money and your kid to go there, but either way I like it for the ease of doing leads. I am still working on a few graphics projects for the company and will post the end results when completed.

Jon Rose
Esente Music Group Graphics Intern

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Scrap It

Today has been a good day all around. As always, once I got into the office this morning I jumped right into conducting leads for OnPoint Media. It was interesting today finding leads considering we were searching throughout my hometown of Woburn, MA. I was given several lists, and then some more as I kept going through them quite fast. Some of the sections that I was looking in were food, furnishings, housing, insurance, among others. Today was one of the best days for leads for myself, as I was able to collect 64 in total! Woo-hoo! This may have been the most I have found at a single time or very close to it.

Upon completion of leads for the day, I began working on another promotional graphic for one of the blogs. This one was for the Stop Drunk Driving Now blog in particular. I had begun working on this several days ago but I was unhappy with the outcome so I decided to scrap the idea all together. I believe I posted an update of this graphic the other day (along with one for BizBuzz) but please disregard that one all together. Instead, I began from scratch today and I was actually able to finish it considerably fast. I'm a lot happier with the way the second third version resulted. You can see the completed version below. Now to start a fourth promo graphic for the anti-bullying blog! More updates coming soon!

Joe Wing
Salem State University '14
Esente Graphic Design Intern


Cubed

So far this week leads have been going extremely well for me. It has gotten to a point where I bang them out so quickly that I can't even keep up with my tally. Today I got to take a break from leads and help assemble the cubes for the sales group of One Night Stand. The sales people will be working over the summer replying to the bands which have responded to our initial contact trying to sell them a slot in one of our concerts. So far the initial contact of the bands has been challenging. The majority of the bands have Facebook for their contacts and when multiple messages are sent Facebook automatically blocks that account assuming it's spam. Hopefully we can figure out a strategy to get around it and make some real progress on contacting bands.

Tim Pietrasik
Graphics Intern

Disrupted Band Marketing

Referring to my parabola bicycle analogy from yesterday, I'm cruising downhill with the bottom of the hill (the weekend) near insight, just a few more hours to go. This afternoon's commute home should be interesting, even challenging, because President Obama will be in Boston mourning the tragedy at the marathon on Monday. Unfortunately, I wont be able to attend because he will be gone by then, but lingering traffic will certainly remain. For the working part of the afternoon, I will probably be sending more One Night Stands marketing emails to bands, which still has not been going as smoothly as expected. Facebook keeps blocking our progress with security accusations of spam or fake accounts based on our IP address. It has seriously deterred our progress and I was only able to send out around 5 messages yesterday. This is not nearly enough. It will be interesting to see how we handle this process differently today than in the last two days.

That's all for this week.

Bradley Simonsen
Wentworth Institute of Technology
Spring Semester 2013
Public Relations/Marketing Intern
   

4/18/13

Today has been a very productive day. My research for finding leads for Onpoint Media yielded 38 businesses, primarily in the Woburn MA area. After lunch I finally had a chance to finish several articles that I was working on for the BizBuzz website. I am excited to see them posted! Upon finishing my BizBuzz articles, I began work on 3 more articles for the Buzz on Bullying website. Hopefully I will be able to get those done sooner rather than later; the deciding factor will be how much time I end up spending contacting bands for the One Night Stand project.

-Robert Skolnik, PR Intern, Esente Music Group

Social Media Ads


4/18/13- Today I collected 40 leads in MA for On Point.  Then I worked on creating an Ad for Rock Report blog.  The idea was to use circles, creating a feeling of music coming from the speakers, and the same font used in the logo.  The Ad will be used on Facebook to drive more traffic to the blog.  

Renee Breau 
Graphic Designer
breaurenee@gmail.com


Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Send to Bands

Valerie Nelkin
St. Lawrence University '10
Graphics Intern 2013

So yesterday we started sending emails to bands about the One Night Stand event.  For the bands that had emails readily available the process went on without a hitch.  For the other bands, however... Facebook seems to take issue when someone sends message after message to different people in a short space of time, as it kicks you off and asks you to verify your identity.  So that slows things down considerably, though many messages do go through.  On ReverbNation, you can directly mail a band, so long as you have an account on ReverbNation, become a fan of the band, and can say everything you need to say in 140 words or less.  So, as yet, ReverbNation's direct mail is not very viable, or not at least until we have a shorter message that still says what we need it to.
Other than that, business as usual, more leads, more artwork.  No new art ready for posting yet.

Learning Process

Where to begin, where to begin? Yesterday was a pretty good day overall at the office. It was, however, a horrible day for leads for myself. I was only able to gather 19 in total, which I believe is my worst number to date. What am I going to do? Move on.

Today was slightly better, I managed to find 30 all together. It becomes very tedious after researching all these different companies and just about none of them have a website or even a Facebook. What is this? Some of these businesses need to get with it and update, or create,  some page where people can find them. If they haven't noticed, the Internet is a pretty huge platform for reaching customers and other people. So it just blows my mind they don't have even a free Facebook page or some other free site. There are plenty of tools for people to utilize, I suppose it's just a matter of finding it and using it to your advantage. But I guess, some people don't have time for these things.

Anyways, yesterday we began sending out information about One Night Stand to bands in Tampa, Florida in hopes of receiving some feedback. Each of the interns had a list of bands that we were to contact via various methods including email, Facebook, and ReverbNation. Emailing the bands who had actual email addresses was pretty easy. We did run into some issues when it came to using Facebook as a platform for reaching out to these bands. Because so many of us interns were signed into the same Facebook page, we were eventually locked out as the sight thought it was spam. I believe several of us tried to make other accounts in order to send them the details of the One Night Stand. Even with ReverbNation there were some limitations that impeded our efforts. If you wanted to message the artists or bands there was a character limit (what is this Twitter?). The character limit prevented us from sending the same message to all the other bands. I'm not sure if we will end up reaching out to these bands using the same method or if another system has been suggested, but it was a learning process for all of us. 

Towards the end of the day I was able to work on some more of my promotional graphics to drive more people to the blogs. This marks two completed promo graphics! Wa-hoo! I started working on another for the Prevent Drunk Driving Now blog (progress can be seen below). It's no where near being finished but it was just some beginning stages of the development. More promo graphic updates will be coming soon. Stay tuned!

Joe Wing
Salem State University '14
Esente Graphic Design Intern



Esente week 12, Weds.

On Monday, I spent the first hour and a half of the day collecting leads for OnPoint Media, researching companies in Peabody on Manta. After working on leads, I went back to touching up all of the artwork I've made so far. On Wednesday of last week, we had a group critique where we showed everything that we've completed so far. I've been working on adjusting the pieces I already have according to feedback from the crit, and have also started working on a few more blog ad designs.

While we were working (at around 2:45-3:00), we realized that there had been a terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon. I watched a live stream of the news for a while, completely distracted by the chaos that was unfolding at the finish line in Copley Square. Two pressure cooker bombs filled with ball bearings and nails were detonated in quick succession alongside the finish line of the race. Three people were confirmed dead with over 170 reported injured. Many of the injured suffered from shrapnel damage and hearing loss, and some even lost extremities or had to have amputations done at the ER. It was a truly tragic day for Boston and the United States as a whole.

We walked over to Ron's apartment as a group and watched the news on TV for a few minutes. When we came back, it was nearly impossible to get any work done. When something that intense and horrific happens, how can anyone focus on anything else? Ron decided to close the office early and invited us to dinner at a local Italian restaurant. I declined the invitation because I'm swamped with schoolwork and wanted to take the opportunity to go home and get a head start on it.

Ian Corrigan
Graphic Design Intern
Montserrat College of Art

Jayna Liniger Fan Art Final


4/17/13- Today, I collected 34 companies in Mass. for On Point.  I felt under the weather and decided to leave early.  After taking a nap, I finished fan art for Jayna Liniger.  I choose a peace sign because I saw in another image she was wearing a peace sign.

-Renee Breau
Graphic Designer 
reneebreau.com 


4/17/13

Today has been a fairly laid back day. We spent some extra time on leads, so I was able to obtain 47. After finding leads, the rest of my day was spent messaging bands, in the Ann Arbor area, on facebook.

-Robert Skolnik, PR Intern, Esente Music Group

Parabolic Plateau

I like to think of each work week as a parabola. I also picture the work I do is analogous to riding a bike. That being said, today would be considered the parabolic plateau, and I'm about to be coasting downhill into the weekend. That's how I picture things anyway, if that makes any sense, but it helps me break up my days into manageable sections. All trigonometry aside, business contact collection for OnPoint Media seems to be unanimously behind due to certain distractions and meetings going on throughout the office. From a personal standpoint, my collections are slightly down as well, at 26, but we're all asked to spend an extra hour today closing this margin. Yesterday afternoon was a bit different than normal due to sending band marketing emails for One Night Stands music events, which also was less effective than expected. Multiple people were sending on one Facebook account that eventually got temporarily blocked as spam. Whoops. However, the process seems to be smoothed out today after yesterday's test run.

I'll be checking back tomorrow for more updates.

Bradley Simonsen
Wentworth Institute of Technology
Spring Semester 2013
Public Relations/Marketing Intern
     

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Slight Distraction

Slightly distracted today by the nice weather outside. But I suppose there will be plenty of nice days to enjoy in the near future. As today is one of my two longer days at the office, I plan on buckling down and finishing several things today. Shortly ago, I had just started conducted my Internet research for OnPoint. This is the first task that I need to finish before jumping into another task. Today I was given a handful of different business markets to look throughout Wilmington,MA. Some of them include environmental markets, financial and furnishings. Yesterday was a pretty good day for leads, so hopefully today I can come close to reaching the same number, if not more.

Since I have more time today in the office, I plan on working on some more promotional graphics to drive traffic to some of the blogs. Two are completely finished, and I wanted to create at least two more for each of the blogs. I have some ideas swirling around my head about which creative route to take. Hopefully I don't draw a blank when I actually go to start working on the next two. I need to be productive today, in hopes of keeping the momentum going so I can finish some homework later in the night.

I have just broken the surface of my leads for the day so I better start clicking away and see how many I can get today. I will also probably post some updates on the progress of the promotional graphics.

Joe Wing
Salem State University '14
Esente Graphic Design Intern

Rio Dupris 4/16/2013


I have officially finished school! My senior portfolio show was Friday and it went really well. I actually had a good time. All I have to do is walk down an isle in a cap and gown. I did it! Yay! :D
24 leads so far and counting. Bummed about the marathon bombing, going into Boston is going to be even more of a pain in the ass than it already was now because everyone's on high alert. Someone always has to mess it up for everyone else. Not to mention the pain caused to everyone there at the time. The world can be a messed up place.

Tragic Impact

Today is a less than normal day, not related to changes in the office, but changes in attitude after yesterday's tragedy at the Boston Marathon. Things are beginning to return to normal throughout my city, but the evidence of heightened security is obvious on every block. Fortunately for myself, I was minimally impacted by the event other than small commuting delays this morning, but my heart goes out to all who were less fortunate.  On a lighter note, business contact collection for OnPoint Media went smoothly, collecting 36 manufacturing businesses in Peabody, MA. This afternoon could either consist of blogging as usual, or marketing requests to bands for our future music events. Regardless, pace should be kept and goals should be met.

All for today.

Bradley Simonsen
Wentworth Institute of Technology
Spring Semester 2013
Public Relations/Marketing Intern

Yesterday

Valerie Nelkin
St. Lawrence University '10
Graphics Intern 2013
 
Worked on leads as usual, got quite a few in a short space of time.
So the Fix You video is now at over 38,000 views!  Whoa!  I must say, I never expected it to be that successful, so I am ecstatic that it has been.
Also started on another poster, this one for antibullying, I've given up on the video game poster because of its potential political connotations.  So here is the beginnings of it:
Evenutally, it will look like a computer in a dark room with a monster creeping up behind it, going along the lines of cyber bullying being just as scary and hurtful as any other kind of bullying.
My Biz Buzz graphic is also in the works:
Though now I look at it I feel like I should probably just use the laptop from the above poster instead, it looks more interesting...


One Night Stand- band contact

4/16/13- Today, I collected 39 companies in Mass for On Point.  Then after lunch I started sending the bands I collected in the past week.  First we started to send the ones with emails first, which was successful.  Then we started to send messages on Facebook, but we got blocked because we had multiple users sending messages at once.  Tomorrow we are going to start to have one person send on Facebook in a slow manner.  After that we tried to send using Reverbnation, but you had to become a fan to message them and there is a 140 character limit.  Amanda told us to hold off until they revised the letter.   I sent 22 emails, request to become a fan on Revernation, and 3 facebook messages.  The band that reply and are chosen will be used in the anti-bully concert series, One Night Stand. The sales team will response to the band and chose the ones to be featured.


-Renee Breau
Graphic Designer

Distractions


With all of the reactions and news coming about after the horrific events at The Boston Marathon yesterday I have been more than a little distracted while doing leads this morning. Knowing that my cousin was standing in between both blasts also drives this issue a little closer to home than just being from the Boston area. Luckily he was only knocked over by the second bomb and was able to seek refuge in the basement of a hotel until he was able to make his way to a friends apartment.

Oddly enough the only thing I could think of yesterday was how easily I can get distracted. It seems all day that I am at work making lists of things that I need to get done when I get home. All day I have so much energy and I can only think about how I want to get home to get everything done or at least started. At this point I am trying to get a business card designed and printed, design a website to use for my resume, portfolio, etc, update my resume, and update my Linkedin profile. Since putting this to do list together I have been able to get each item started, but none are finished.


This is the design for my business card as of right now. It has no information listed because I haven't finished my website yet and I am not sure what the exact url will be. But since every item on my to do list depends on another item getting finished it's time I buckle down and get everything done.

Tim Pietrasik
Graphics Intern

4/16/13

I began my day by obtaining 31 leads for Onpoint Media. After lunch we began contacting bands for the One Night Stand campaign! In total, I contacted 8 bands. We need to iron out some issues with our methods for contacting bands, but once we do we should be able to reach out to many more bands in a more efficient manner. I finished out my day by continuing work on several articles for the OnPoint Biz Buzz website; I will have those finished by tomorrow, allowing me to begin work on 3 articles for Becca's Buzz on Bullying website.

-Robert Skolnik, PR Intern, Esente Music Group

Monday, April 15, 2013

Monday!

Today is another one of my short days at the office, but so far it's been productive in collecting potential clients for OnPoint Media. As soon as I walked in the door, I began conducting more Internet Research.  I had the hopes of collecting far more leads today than I was able to at the end of last week. Last week wasn't exactly a good week for me in terms of numbers. I probably went thru several hundred businesses only to find a handful all together. Today is a different story. Thankfully. I've already gone thru several different business lists, and I've find upwards of 40+. So this has been making me happy! :)

Currently I'm still working on creating some more promotional graphics for some of the social media. In order to attract some more foot traffic on the blogs, they wanted us to create some promo graphics that will catch a viewer's eye and hopefully direct them in the direction of several blogs (i.e. BizBuzz, Rock Report, etc).  I am almost finished with my graphic for the BizBuzz, which I had mentioned in a previous blog, I should have it fully completed by tomorrow. Once this graphic is finished I plan on making one for either Buzz on Bullying or Stop Drunk Driving Now. Actually, I will probably create one for both as both are very important and also informative in helping bring awareness to both drunk driving and bullying.

That's all for today folks!

Joe Wing
Salem State University '14
Esente Graphic Design Intern

More Art!

Valerie Nelkin
St. Lawrence University '10
Graphics Intern 2013

Plenty of leads done today, and the Fix You video is nearing 30,000 views!
I managed to work much more on some art work, including my Becca Fanart, which is very close to the finish line, and some outline work for two drunk driving posters.
 As always, my text needs some serious work, but other than that I really like the way it's coming together.
will probably feel the same about these as I get more progress in on them - like the imagery, but probably will have to work on the text a ton.

Internship week 12, Monday

On Wednesday of last week, I spent the first hour and a half of the day conducting internet research for OnPoint Media, collecting leads for businesses in Groveland, MA on Manta. During the afternoon, the graphic design interns were asked to pull up all of their finished work on screen for a group critique with Ron. I had a lot of things to show and was first in line. Ron wasn't shy about giving realistic constructive criticism which led to more of the interns putting in their two cents, which was good to see. I think my work was well received by pretty much everybody with only minor details needing adjustment. Seeing everyone else's work was also a great experience. People had a lot of great work, but a recurring theme with a few people was poor typography. I think schools tend not to focus too much on type, which is a shame because it really has the power to make or break a piece.

After the critique, I spent some time promoting Becca Levy's "Fix You" video on Facebook groups and anti-bullying blogs. When I looked at the video on YouTube that morning, the views had jumped from ~3,000 to about 20,000 since last time I looked, so all this promoting must be doing the trick. After the promoting, I spent the rest of the day making adjustments to my graphics based on the critiques I received earlier in the day.

- Ian Corrigan
Graphic Design Intern
Montserrat College of Art
So I'm finishing up some of the ads I've been working on. I've made a few for the Stop Drunk Driving Now Website.
Just a few simple ads. I took a bit of inspiration from the æsthetic choices the OnPoint uses for some of the websites they design.

Like most of my work I'm trying to keep it simple without a lot of filler in the design it self. Making sure that message can be easily read before all else.


Tim Olech | Graphics Intern

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Happy Birthday Becca!


Happy Birthday Becca! 

4/11/13

Today we spent an extra hour and a half collecting leads for Onpoint Media; I was able to find 47 by the end of the day. The rest of my day was spent on marketing Becca's youtube video. I did this primarily via e-mail and text today. Feedback has been few and far-between, but all of it has been extremely positive! As far as I am concerned, the video could be viewed by one person or a million people; as long as someone has benefited from its powerful message, I consider our work a success. Midway through the day, between collecting leads and marketing Becca's video, I was able to speak to Ron about extending my stay with Esente to "internship 2.0." I am excited to continue developing many skills during the 2.0 extension, primarily my writing.

-Robert Skolnik, PR Intern, Esente Music Group

What's New with the Interns?


4/11/13- Today, we extended the time spent on leads to make up from yesterday.  I collected 45 companies in Gloucester, MA.  Then I spent the rest of the time finding more organizations on Facebook and blogs to post Becca Levy’s video.  

-Renee Breau
Graphic Designer 

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Elephant Walk Photoshoot


4/10/13- Today, was different then every other day because I got to go on a photoshoot with Jenny the Photographer and Graphic Designer for On Point.  Our client is the Elephant Walk which has three locations and all with different décor.  First off was going to the Cambridge location where we met with some of the owners, managers, chiefs, cooks, and waiters of the restaurant.  Jenny was taking photos of the façade, interiors dining rooms, the cookbook, and the food which the chiefs where preparing as the other shots where being taken.  The food smelled and looked so good, we both wanted to eat all of it, as the chiefs where preparing the food Jenny also took photos of them in action.  I was assisting Jenny with writing down the dishes and the order in which she photographed them.  Also I helped with switched out the food and bring the items to different locates to shot.  After the foods had their close ups Jenny then used them in the live action shots in the dining rooms with models/customers. She also had them drinking at the bar area to show what it would be like.  As Jenny was taking these shots I was breaking down the equipment used to take the close up of the food.    

Then with everything packed up we went to the next location in Boston.  There we took the same shots of the façade, interiors, chiefs, and live action shots of cooks.  Here we got to taste some of the food, I order Jus de Boeuf, which was so good and filled me right up. The interior of this place was brighter and more open then the first location which was more dark pink, red, and purple wall giving it a more Indian feel with the elephants. 

After finishing in Boston we travel to the Waltham location which was very different then the other locations.  In that the menu had a few different items and different interior as well.  The interior was more retro looking then the others.  The cool items displayed where the lights made of metal, an art piece of there own, and the pictures of life in Cambodian.  Jenny took some live action shots of the cooks, close ups of the dishes, and pictures of the owners and managers. 

The highlights of the trip where seeing all the different art displayed at the locations and the food.  Also seeing the different statues and ways in which they display elephant throughout the restaurants. The people we met where so kind to let us into their kitchens.  

-Renee Breau
Graphic Designer 
reneebreau.com