Final Weeks

This is another short day for me at the Esente office, and actually a short week in general as I have finals Wednesday and Thursday this week. Wish me luck! Next week will also be a short week, as the final days of the internship are nearing.

Today I jumped right into leads for OnPoint Media. I was given several lists in Concord, MA to scour for potential clients. In total I was able to find 47 today. I must say, the last few days of me collecting have been considerably well in terms of numbers. This doesn’t always happen, but the last three or four days, my numbers have been “up there”.

As I mentioned, next week on Tuesday, I believe, is the last day of the internship. It’s been an incredible experience here and unfortunately it has to come to an end. I have learned so much during my time here and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I learned a lot about the music industry and other industries as well that I didn’t know prior to my internship. I’ve gained incredible insight into the music business, and business in general. It’s been such an amazing opportunity to have gained this experience and work with some incredible people as well. Once the internship finally comes to an end next week, it’ll feel a little weird, as I’ve been here four days a week for the last four months. Overall, my time at Esente has taught me a lot and taught me well.

Joe Wing
Salem State University '14
Esente Graphic Design Intern

Fully Rested

Yesterday was my last day of class in my junior year of college! Wa-hoo! So ultimately, that meant I got to sleep in today instead of going to my 3 hour Form/Design class. I actually feel refreshed and fully rested after an intense year. My body doesn't hurt like it usually does, probably because I passed out at 8 last night and slept til 10 this morning. It feels good to be rested..for once.

Today I'm in the Esente office for several hours, until 5. Currently I'm looking for more potential clientele for OnPoint Media. I've been working on one list for about three days, only because there are about 600 businesses listed under it.  But the upside to this, is that there are many companies and businesses who actually have websites or Facebook for us to contact them. My numbers have been pretty good the last week or so, as they've been in the 40-50 range on average each day. This definitely makes it worthwhile, when you can see a list building right before your eyes. It keeps you motivated to keep going to, unlike when you find very few and become somewhat discouraged.

Once I finish conducting leads for the day, I plan on working on the fan art for Jayna Lininger I started the other day when I was here. I have a pretty good amount of it done, although it is relatively simple. I believe I had mentioned that I was going to incorporate one of her original songs into the design. So far it's coming out pretty good, but there are some more changes and additions that need to be worked out.

I also would like to put the finishing touches on several of the promotional graphics that I had been working on. All four are basically finished, but I just need to tweak a few things before I will call the complete. I'm quite satisfied in the way they all came out, so hopefully others will like them as well.

Joe Wing
Salem State University '14
Esente Graphic Design Intern

Exhaustion

Thankfully today is one of my short days here at the office, considering I was up until three this morning finishing some designs for an electronic illustration class I've been taking. And later finishing a paper into the early hours of Wednesday morning. I've gotten about twelves hours of sleep over the past three nights, so I'm pretty exhausted. My body doesn't want to move, to work, to keep going. Luckily, today was my last day of classes so I can sleep in tomorrow and hopefully restore my body back to tip-top shape.

Yesterday while I was here I was cranking out leads as fast as possible. I've been trying to challenge myself to find more leads each day, in roughly the same amount of time. Yesterday was a pretty good day, my numbers were in the lower 40's. Today I'm not sure how many I've collected to far, but the number should be exceeding 30 or 40 today.

After a lunch break and after I completed the leads for OnPoint Media, I was working on some posts for several of the blogs that they run. I summarized three articles in total. One on drunk driving, another on bullying and the third one business related ideas. It wasn't too bad, I feel like I go overboard writing sometimes. But it's better to have more than not enough.

Ideally I wanted to finish touching up some of the promotional graphics for social media usage, but instead I decided to work on some fan art for Jayna Lininger. I was browsing around her website and started listening to some of her original songs, which are incredible. I had to write down the lyrics to one of her songs, because the lyrics themselves weren't posted anywhere I could find. So I planned on using some of the lyrics and incorporate them into the fan art. I wanted to use one of her own original song as a basis for the creative direction. This essentially dictated the creative execution of the design but also it relates to Jayna on a more personal level, than say using one of the songs she has covered. I'm not finished with this just yet, but will post as soon as all is complete.

Joe Wing
Salem State University '14
Esente Graphic Design Intern

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Punch or Tickle

Today has been a day, to say the least. The usual Internet research for OnPoint Media for leads isn't going as well as I had anticipated. Yesterday I had hoped to surpass a number I collected the previous day, but I was unable to reach the quota I had set for myself. And I thought yesterday was a bad day. Today has been the worst day of leads I have done since I started them. I finished up a list of "other business services" in North Reading then continued onto several lists for Georgetown, MA.

Now I'm not sure if the other interns were having a similar problem, but it seemed that any of the businesses I was looking for didn't have a website or even a Facebook page. Really? Are these businesses just not able to afford a website or are they just ignorant to the times? Having a website or even a Facebook is HUGE in driving revenue for any business. The times have changed, and the means of reaching out to potential customers and clients has changed as well. Time to update and at least set up a Facebook page for people to check out. Pretty sure it doesn't cost anything to have a Facebook page, so some businesses could at least do this in order to attract some more attention.

Anyways... So I haven't had such a good day for leads, not entirely sure of the unimpressive numbers for today. I don't even want to think about that.

We also had a small meeting today with Ron who wanted to talk about the extent of our promotional doings yesterday. One of the points that he wanted to make was gaining the attention of someone who could be beneficial to our progress. The case yesterday was that one of the interns received an email urging them to stop spamming the Coldplay Facebook with messages. Ron wasn't entirely dissatisfied with this as he said if you want to attract someone's attention you can either punch them in the face or tickle them. Now of course, he didn't mean this literally. Rather you need to be aggressive in your approach or you chip away at at them until they acknowledge your efforts. Essentially we succeeded at what we were attempting to do, get someone's attention.

We started doing some promotional work for Becca Levy's cover of Coldplay's "Fix You". All of us interns were using various social media outlets in order to reach out to more people and drive traffic to Becca's YouTube video. We were utilizing Facebook, Twitter, blog sites and even reaching out to our own family and friends to get them interested in what we are working on.

So far the outcome for our efforts have paid off, as we were able to drive several thousand more viewers to the video and seem to be attracting some attention for Becca. I was able to gain the attention of an Anti-bullying page on Facebook and they had requested an Mp3 of the song to play on a radio show they host. This was pretty exciting to see that someone was genuinely interested in helping Becca spread her message. I can't wait to see what other results our efforts are able to bring.

Joe Wing
Salem State University '14
Esente Graphic Design Intern

Buzzin'

Yesterday was one of my two short days at the Esente office, so I didn't get much done in terms of design materials. Of course I conducted leads for at least an hour and a half. I was given several different lists to work from, which can be a godsend when you have one long list with no promising leads to enter into the spreadsheet. Yesterday I was able to collect a total of 34 leads. Today I am hoping to surpass this number. Maybe I'll see if I can make it to 50 by the hour and a half is elapsed.

I did get some of another promotional graphic started a few days ago, and made some more progress on it yesterday. However, there is still some more details that need to be worked out before I finalize the design. This promotional graphic is designed in order to draw more traffic to OnPoint Media's BizBuzz. I pretty much kept the whole idea of the buzzing/bee and incorporated it into the design. The background looks like a honeycomb, so I think it might catch peoples' eye and hopefully direct them toward the BizBuzz. There's still several pieces that need to be worked on. Today I would like to finish this promo graphic, and ideally start another one. Here's what I have completed so far.

Joe Wing
Salem State University '14
Esente Graphic Design Intern

Rockin'

 Today I started off by finishing up a list of leads from the last week. I had a page left of businesses classified under consumer services in North Andover, MA. From the remainder of this list, I was able to collect 18 in total. Not too bad. Once I finished off this list, I began researching several different business services including computer hardware and software, consumer electronics and consumer services in North Billerica. All together I have found 34 leads in total for today so far.

Last week I had begun working on some promotional graphics that will be used to drive more traffic to various blogs. I am in the middle of working on several of these graphics, however I only have one finished that is for the Rock Report. I like the way it came out, but I may play around with some of the details a little more. I'm also working on one for BizBuzz which is playing off the idea of buzzing and bees. I wanted to create these graphics with some unifying theme from the original blog or source that could be brought into these designs. My design for the Rock Report can be seen below. I will update with more graphics as soon as they are completed!

Until tomorrow.

Joe Wing
Salem State University '14
Esente Graphic Design Intern

Another Week's End

Yesterday was another short day for me at the office, but it was another productive day to say the least. I conducted more Internet Research for OnPoint in hopes of seeking out new clients. I was searching for businesses in Chelmsford, MA under several different lists, as they were all relatively short. Some of the lists included food, furnishings, insurance and pharmaceuticals, among several others. My numbers for yesterday totaled 33.

After finishing up some of these lists in Chelmsford I briefly worked on the school lists for the Right Now campaign. I'm not entirely sure when these lists should be complete, but I do believe Becca was going to be touring around sometime closer to the summer. The list is growing significantly longer each day as tens and hundreds of contacts are added daily by each of the interns.

Today while I'm here until five I hope to finish up the cities/schools that I was assigned to research for the aforementioned campaign. I'm still looking for unions and superior officers, but I have been having some trouble with this. I did find a website yesterday that listed many unions throughout the entire country but I was unsuccessful in finding any of these unions in the towns (Topsfield, Wenham, West Newbury) I am looking for. Anyways, maybe today I will have better luck in finding some of this information.

Joe Wing
Salem State University '14
Esente Graphic Design Intern

5.7 Million Youths

Yesterday was quite a productive day for myself here at the Esente office, considering it was one of my two longer days. I began conducting Internet leads for OnPoint Media, like I would any other day. After about an hour and a half to two hours of research I managed to round up 36 leads for businesses filed under several different lists including, electrical, electronics, energy/resources, among several others.

Once I served my time for leads yesterday, I moved onto the list for Right Now. I continued adding school contacts into the master spread for this future event. It hasn't been too hard to find most of the contacts, but it has been troubling to find some of the police/fire department and union contacts. Anyways, it was still productive as I was able to add at least fifty or so contacts for one of the town's school systems I was assigned.

Later in the afternoon, I felt I needed a break from Internet research and felt the urge to be a little more creative. I chose to work on another poster I have been thinking about, and got a good amount of it completed. I'm still playing around with the text, the color, the positioning, the size of the text. I wanted to create something different, so I chose generic male/female symbols that create the background with a statistic on bullying as the main focal point. Here is a sample of what I have done so far, but more changes are to come.

Joe Wing
Salem State University '14
Esente Graphic Design Intern

What I've Been Up To

The process of finding leads is beginning to pick up for myself, after doing it for several weeks now. For the past couple of days I researched and collected contact information for businesses in Ipswich, Salem and, currently, Beverly Massachusetts. Some may not find this exciting, but I actually enjoy collecting leads for potential clients.

Besides working on the leads daily, I have also been working on another state media list. I was previously working on one for New Hampshire, but then was given Massachusetts. The list for Massachusetts isn’t nearly as long as the NH one I was putting together. Again, I started researching media contacts through USNPL.com. I started looking for various contacts from newspapers throughout Massachusetts. Considering this is similar to looking for leads, I also enjoy compiling the list of master contacts. The new list for MA is a work in progress, but it’s getting there.

On top of researching and collecting leads and working on the state media list for Massachusetts, I have also been working on my anti-bullying posters. I haven’t made any major changes, but minor tweaks that will help make the design look more refined.

Several posters I have mostly completed I have also posted to my art portfolio on Coroflot.com While these ones are just about finished, I have thought of another theme for the posters that will tie 3 separate posters together with the unifying theme. The two posters shown utilize popular Internet imagery, such as memes, in order to gain more attention from the audience. The idea behind this was to play off images many people are familiar with, thus creating more interest from viewers.

Joe Wing

Salem State University

Graphic Design Intern

First Weeks Reflection

Since I started interning at Esente Music Group, I now have a better understanding of what to expect every day when I come in. Each day at Esente I spend roughly an hour and a half searching leads for a master list of potential clients. Through research I collect business names, contact information and any other relevant information that will help in reaching out to potential clientele. The first two days of interning I helped to gather information on businesses in Reading, Massachusetts. More recently I have been compiling a list for Arlington, MA.

In addition to the leads that I work on each day of interning, I have been working on a master contact list, which compiles numerous contacts in state media. I was assigned New Hampshire. For this, I have been researching contacts of various positions in media and documenting all contact information. Some of these include those who hold positions as various editors and art directors throughout New Hampshire.

Between researching leads and working on a master state media list, I have also been working on posters to promote anti-bullying. I was instructed on the size, layout and theme (anti-bullying prevention/awareness) for these posters, but learned I had overall artistic freedom in creating these designs. Designers love hearing this!

Before I began any design or visuals for at least three posters I researched statistics regarding physical, verbal and cyber bullying. Although statistics are not currently incorporated into all of the posters, it serves as a platform to build upon using design elements.

The first poster I created (seen below) utilizes a statistic on bullying in the center and is incorporated into the images that are also used. I also began working on several others to keep the creative process flowing. For these posters I began utilizing popular images to help convey the messages of anti-bullying in order to attract more interest from viewers. While this is an ongoing project I cannot wait to see what the end result will be.

Joe Wing
Salem State University
Graphic Design Intern