Summer Internship
It all begins with an idea.
My work term was a partnership with the Calgary Journal and Homegrown Arts and Media Collective. I worked as a journalist and a Media strategist. Through this partnership, I worked on a variety of projects ranging from Articles, newsletters, and graphics. I was able to work with both organizations, utilizing the skills I had learned and the skills I already possessed. Both organizations pushed me in different ways. Homegrown and the Calgary Journal taught me new skills; it wasn't just about the finished project, but rather what I learnt, the challenges and the growth that came along with my work placement.
With my Internship at the Calgary Journal, I was writing articles, which felt like a continuation of what I have been doing through my degree, so research, interviewing and writing, which I was thrilled to do. The only difference these were not assignments, but my job. I spoke with sources, edited my stories and published them. I adapted my tone and structure with each story; some stories required depth, while others required empathy. The First article I published with the Calgary Journal, I wrote about Calgary’s society of independent filmmakers (CSIF) who were hosting an international flavours film series through their cinema club, showcasing six films from each continent, minus the seventh, I really liked this piece because Calgary is not very known for its film scene compared to other metropolitan cities like Toronto and Vancouver, This cinema club showed 6 different niche films that were described as life changing. I also have two other articles coming out pretty soon that will be released before the end of August.
One of my tasks for Homegrown was behind the social media scene, more specifically, Instagram. My role was building and maintaining Homegrowns' online presence. I worked alongside Andrea McKay, who was the Strategic Marketing Lead, and Guillermo Barraza, who is the Executive Director of Homegrown. I mainly focused on marketing strategy and visual design. I interacted with followers to create engaging content, whether that was videos or graphics. My responsibilities included planning posts, scheduling content and writing captions to match the homegrown arts and media collective's overall branding. With this role, I was given creative freedom, so I experimented with stories, posts and reels to connect with Homegrowns followers. Running the Instagram account, I created a lot of Graphics that pushed me in ways I never expected. I took one class on visual design and never really got into it after I completed the class. This role helped me relearn the things that I was taught.
My design with graphics needed to catch the attention of users right away. I liked to put my own little spin on graphic design, I tried to appeal to the demographic of homegrown, it was never really done but, one of the graphics I did in a way that looked like it came from a magazine catalog using magazine cut outs and bold images this post did bring in quite a bit of engagement I also I used bold colours like yellow, fonts I never really use, all to create a style which gave it a creative look but was still professional.
Homegrown is a fairly new organization, so building its online presence to see what worked and what didn't. Running the Instagram, I took into consideration timing, so which days provide more engagement, which I worked alongside Andrea McKay when it came to timing.
Another one of the roles and responsibilities with Homegrown was to create a newsletter each month. Homegrown creates a newsletter which wasn't just telling one story but curating a mix of information in one blog; each content was different, and bringing them together was something that was new to me. This newsletter was the first newsletter that was published. The Homegrown team and I collaborated with each other. Another intern created the outline of the newsletter while I wrote the contents with the executive director, Guillermo Barraza. In this newsletter, we introduced ourselves and explained what Homegrown is all about, talked about ways to get involved, introduced upcoming events and also added images to the newsletter.
Another part of my internship was planning events. Earlier in July, Homegrown planned a fundraiser, and for the fundraiser, my role was to bring awareness to the event, which included posting on social media. Another event that is happening that I worked on was planning a short film festival happening in October. In this event, my role is to create video content that includes interviewing filmmakers and the homegrown team, developing a content calendar from August to October to bring engagement and to bring people to the Homegrown short film festival.
My entire work term from June to August, I did a number of things: I interviewed sources, wrote articles, met artists who wanted to work with Homegrown, I was behind the scenes on social media and planned events. All these things pushed me to grow and become a better journalist and a media strategist.