All Star Nation (linked in text) is a wonderful graphic design company solely focused on cheer apparels. These things include training kits, sizing kits, uniforms, sports bras, team t-shirts, bows, whatever you name it for cheer, they have it. They have done designs for teams all over Europe, as well as Team England, which recently represented us at cheerleading worlds in America. All Star Nation also does designs for Westminster, which is how I came into contact with them for my month-long internship.
The office is set in a quiet little house in Golder's Green, with a wonderful backyard. I'd also like to mention that I've donated a portion of my 160 Yorkshire tea bags to them so I can brew tea whenever I like. My day consists of waking up early, shovelling an apple and peach yoghurt down my throat before making my way to the office for a day's worth of work.
For the first two days, I mostly dabbled in physical illustrations and artwork. Below are some of the templates I've worked on.
I basically had to work around drawing things that would appeal to clients. For example, if the team wanted lightning, wings, diamonds, bows or fire, we had to have a set of workable vector templates for us to choose from when we want to start designing to be able to give a wide scope of proposals to them.
I then moved into scanning my work onto the computer and using image trace to turn them into vector images. I'd also like to mention that up until now, my Illustrator skills have deteriorated because of my very fearful relationship with it. I'd much prefer Photoshop, which usually makes me shy away from the slight difference in techniques.
I revelled in the image trace tool like it was a god. I am a hands on type of designer, I love working with pencils and graphic pens and the recent discovery of image trace has made my world all the more better. I was also able to increase my knowledge in how to correct things that I didn't like with the pen tool.
Next I was asked to work on drawing physical models that fit each uniform template for both men and women. When it came to proposals, it's obviously hard for the client to imagine what the uniforms would look like on a person and my task was to provide them of this service. I used the same type of techniques to generate a 3 vector bodies and heads for the three different types of uniforms, male, female competition uniforms, and female training kits.
I also had to work within layers on Illustrator, (which was something I had no experience with) to ease the design process of looking at skirts and shorts at the same place without having to change windows. I also had to work with filling colour to each model, which was quite a challenge. I worked with the gradient and colour picking tool from images online to help me stay within a realistic range of skin tones.
The entire process I've gone through so far has been very rewarding. I see myself taking these Illustrator techniques with me a long way into the future and it's helped me venture out from the comfort zone which is Photoshop. It also opens my eyes to the amount of detailing in paperwork and documenting that goes into each set of shipping.
On top of free Oreos and home made cookies, freshly brewed tea 2-3 times a day, getting all the inside gossip about cheer world, and modelling for the samples shipped into the office, I'm having the time of my life. Maybe going to a bigger, more established graphic design company would've let me to open my eyes to what my work life would eventually be like, but I always feel like starting small and working in such close groups will always lead me to learning more at the start.
Here's to me, looking forward to another 3 weeks of my internship here at All Star Nation.
