Insight, advice, news and chit chat

Oscar Dial

Oscar's Tasks, Tips and Tricks from a 4 week internship at TLD

Hi, I’m Oscar, and I worked at TLD for one month. I recommend anyone reading, who is planning to apply for or who is going to work at TLD as an intern, to at least read these tips.

This is knowledge that I have accumulated throughout the internship.

It will give you a head start and trust me when I tell you this, anyone who can impress Keren is worthy. I also think that if you are reading this, you should read the blogs from my fellow previous intern brothers and sisters.

So here we go, here are my tasks:

1. Organisation

Although this isn’t a task, I consider it one since it was part of every task I had. With the 83GB of data stored in the local office server, it is necessary to keep documents in files organised within files within files etc. It also helps to keep your head clear.
“Your mind is like this water my friend, when it is agitated it becomes difficult to see. But if you allow it to settle, the answer becomes clear.” – Master Oogway.

2. iPhone Mock-ups

If you don’t know what they are, look them up. I’m sure you’ll recognize them. IPhone Mock-ups are posters where people hold or there is an IPhone positioned so that a company can put their website onto the screen so that people can see how it would look like formatted onto a IPhone screen.
iphone-mockups

3. Featured images

At the bottom of every blog page, there are links suggesting related blogs. My job was to insure that every ‘square’ had an image. I think I did all of them, but if not let me know. This was a more important task as it required to change what the public can see physically on the TLD website. So there was less margin of error.
social-media-valentine-featured

4. Event Manager software research

This task consisted in researching the best Event Manager program that fitted the criteria of a client. The overall winner was EventPro although it is arguable.

5. Word Counts for a website

Counting words doesn’t sound like much fun and too be honest it wasn’t really, I must admit. However it was important because establishing the word counts in each section of a website (which is done with a mixture of copy pasting from Photoshop design files and MS Word’s in built word counting feature) would allow whoever is writing the text for the website to know approximately how many words can go in each text box.

6. Photo Library

Finding photos is not what it used to be anymore. You would have thought you could use Google (my life saver), but in reality, there are many legal rights that can be attached to a picture that must be carefully monitored. Or else, the person who took the photo or drew it can sue you for quite a lot of money. So there are Photo Libraries online that sort out which photos from google you can use.

7. Blog Post

Obviously, this task was my last TLD. As I’m writing this I feel nostalgic of the time I spent here and I truly meant it. Looking back on all the things I did here and all the experience the TLD crew gave me was a breath of fresh air.

8. HTML updates

Although HTML is like learning a whole new language, the task Chris gave me, updating few different pages on a website with SEO related content, was very doable by anyone’s standards, believe me.

Now for my Tips:

  1. Posture – One can’t imagine how easy it is to forget to maintain a good posture. It helps maintain focus and prevents back problems. I can’t say I’m perfect at it, but at least I try
  2. Small dose of caffeine in the morning – It has been proven that a small amount of coffee in the morning is healthy. Don’t believe me? There are many articles on the health benefits of coffee and some are even science backed)
  3. Entente – As I’m French, I had to use a French word to express what is essentially, don’t be rude.
  4. Efficiency – This point also links in with the following tip. Maybe music helps but maybe it doesn’t, try to find your zone and stay in it.
  5. Breaks – It’s better to work at 95% efficiency for one hour than 50% efficiency for 3 hours. Although you could think that working more looks good, what looks better is getting the work done but also learning from it.

So there you have it.
I wish you the best of luck and remember to have fun!

Update: Check out Adobe’s guide right here: How to Apply for Your First Job or Internship.

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