It's Official

Hey everyone!

Well for all of my curious readers out there I have successfully secured a place of residency for my internship in Orlando!

I'll be living with a family in Winter Park which is about 15 minutes or so from Alden Road which is where Relevant's offices are located. The family consists of Hannah who is 13, Justin who is 20 and in college (the same age as my brother Jason) and Preston who is my age and is getting married right before I move in. I will also be accompanied by two chihuahuas.

I'll be keeping this blog updated so you can keep tabs on me during the summer. I hope to post pictures as well.

I will move down to Orlando on the 19th or possibly the 18th, then begin work on the 20th. I'll be in the office from 9am to 6pm Monday through Thursday and 9am to 1pm on Friday. I have connected with the other intern as well. Her name is Sarah Qually and she's from Gran Rapids. She's a sophomore studying design and I think we will get along quite smashingly.

Come visit me while I'm there! I mean Disney World, and me, it could be the best vacation EVER.

So it's official. I'm a design intern for Relevant and I will start in 25 days!

Thanks for stopping by and I'll be sure to keep you updated in the next couple of weeks.

Are you RELEVANT?

Hey everyone!

So, I have precisely 13 days left in my semester which means that life around here has been complete chaos as I'm doing my best to keep up with the last few projects. I'm finished, including my last final, on May 1st which is pretty crazy because I typically have the last final on the last day of the exam period. Oh man I'm ready for this semester to be OVER!

I have some good news to announce so, drum roll please....

I was accepted as a design intern for Relevant Magazine starting at the end of May!

I have met with 3 of my professors and each were eagerly excited about the opportunity. There will be 2 other interns and one will begin their internship on May 19th which is hopefully the same start date as me. In all there will be nine of us - three in design, three in marketing, and three in editorial. Evidently, there is a guy from Auburn who is an editorial intern so I'm hoping to catch up with him in the next couple of weeks.

There is only one more thing I need. Oh you thought that getting the internship would be the end of it, but not quite. I'm still trying to find a place to live. We do have one option, but if you know of anyone in Orlando that has an extra room or needs a summer sub-leaser PLEASE let me know! I'm clean, friendly, responsible, great with children and pet friendly so - tell your friends, family, or anyone that this awesome AU girl needs a roof over her head for the summer!

So yay! The internship search is over! Finally.

In other news, I went to Passion last weekend and man...the word "awesome" just isn't enough to describe how Passion was for me. For those of you who aren't familiar, Passion is a Christian conference for college students. This year we met in Atlanta and over 9,500 people came to worship and learn about God. The 2 speakers were Louie Gigglio and Francis Chan while David Crowder, Chris Tomlin, and Charlie Hall performed and lead worship. If you want to see more about the weekend check out the link: http://www.268generation.com/2.0/splash5.htm

I'm headed to Mobile on Saturday for an area wide meeting of youth groups in Mobile to see our drama group Speak perform. We are having a full day of hanging out with the teens, eating together, playing games, performing our skits, and teaching classes. It should be a good learning experience for Speak and hopefully God will use our time and silliness to reach out to the youth groups that attend. Also if you're free on Tuesday night at 7pm, and are aching to see Speak perform, come to devo at the ACSC on College Street! We're performing skits based on the themes of Acts which should be entertaining so I hope you can make it there!

Well that's about it for now. I better get back to my classes! As always, thanks for stopping by.

Happy April!

I can't believe April has already arrived. We have about 5 weeks left in the semester and that is quite intimidating. A lot has been happening in Auburn so I wanted to give you guys an update (and continue procrastinating on my website!)

Ah the internship hunt. Well, after all of that leg work beginning in November I have 2 offers on my plate at the moment. The first is with Adventures in Missions - I would be doing tons of design work for their new program Sound of Hope which connects sponsorships for orphans with musicians and their fan bases. I would also focus on the design aesthetic for the World Race.

The second possibility is with a firm in Birmingham, Details Communications. They focus on church and mission media. The rare bonus about Details is that they pay. I am still waiting on a phone call to inquire about a few things, but it does sound like a great place.

As far as Relevant in Orlando goes I was e-mailed last week. They said I made it to the "second round" for the internship. I had no idea there would be rounds...but I was thrilled to have made it through the first cut. I should hear from them sometime this week but honestly that would be my first choice at the moment. Granted I have no idea who I would live with or where, but from a design perspective I feel like they would have the most to teach me which I feel is the main purpose for having an internship in the first place.

Academia is beating me into the ground at the moment. I only got about 1 or 2 hours of sleep and for the past week it has been less than 6. If you know me, I always say that in a perfect world I would sleep 12 hours a night - when is the sun goes down till it rises again but that is ideal. I'm running on empty, and I am really behind in my classes. I have had so much going on outside of school from tons of freelance and other things with the ACSC that it has been hard to keep my head above water.

I have a printmaking critique today and it could be dreadful. I also have a biology test tomorrow that I just started studying for. If I could have any super power it would be to not require sleep.

I registered for my FINAL semester when I got back from Spring break. Isn't that insane? I will never register again. Soon I will be able to say "Oh when I was in college...." I'm going to be a "real" adult soon and that's intimidating. Even so, I will be excited to have a job where I can go to work and then leave my work AT work. No more sleepless nights. No more working in studio alone covered in staining ink.

As Frank Sinatra says "The best is yet to come and babe won't that be fine!"

That's about all I have to update. I've been pretty consumed with school and design which doesn't make for too much excitement.

Well I better study for biology and work on my website and my logos for San Diego and the logo for Sound of Hope and send off the Speak T-shirt and send mail to Casey in Chicago and check on my internship and prepare for my reader today and go to critique and take photographs of my projects for my professor and figure out why the IRS is sending me letters and go over my checks and...oh sleep.

Ha. Everyone have a splendid day, and if you a resting do a little for me. As always, thanks for stopping by!

Excuse me...

Dear design firms, organizations, non-profits, churches, and any other manifestation of businesses,

I would like a design internship before May.

Just in case you forgot.

Love,

Megan

Drum Roll Please...

Yesterday was the opening of Auburn's Graphic Design Juried Student Exhibition in Biggin. The show was awesome and full of tons of talented student work. I'll let it explain itself:

"Each Spring Semester the Graphic Design Students put their best school work from the past academic year on display. This year we are hosting Auburn’s own Chad Bottcher as our guest juror and lecturer. Chad is the principal of MindVolt, the absolute finest, full-service design and advertising agency in North Alabama. Work from sophomore, junior and senior level students will be shown in Biggin Hall Gallery for the week."

The reception and opening was yesterday at 4:30 in the Biggin Gallery. The show will be up until Friday. Jessica Sabo, Daniel McCoy and Katie Rhea all had pieces in the show. I had a total of 4 get in as well.

After looking through all of the work each category was given an award (usually a sweet and expensive design book) as well as merit awards basically the runner up. The judge went through each category and in my head I though "Eh, not me." Then he got to the last category and talked about how he couldn't help but love this particular project and how practical it was in a business sense. He looked down at the book and said "Life Straw by Megan Forrester".

I was like "Whaaat?"

I won Best in Show for the Exhibition! How insane is that? I got to talk to the juror, Chad Bottcher after wards and he was extremely complimentary of the piece. To be honest I didn't even consider that to be one of my best pieces. I remember having a complete emotional break down the night before it was due! Just goes to show that God can turn even the smallest bad things into something good.

The project itself was re-designing the identity of a German product called LifeStraw. Basically it is a personal water filtration system in the shape of, you guessed it, a straw. We were assigned to create a complete identity and ad campaign then assemble it into a book aka an ID manual.

I will have pictures of the work up on my Flickr site soon!

In other news, the internship hunt is still ongoing. I have no heard a word from Relevant in 2 weeks. I have decided that if I don't hear a yay or nay after Spring Break then a follow up e-mail will be in order. I did hear from Erika and AIM and within the month, hopefully, we will get to meet and have coffee to discuss the possible internship opportunity.

In the meanwhile, I am doing some non-profit projects with Collaboration Reverberation (CR) in San Diego. It's been pretty sweet so far and I'm working on a logo identity for Elhelo which is an umbrella organization based in California that supports mission efforts. I'm also doing a T-shirt and banner design for Jireh Mission.

On top of that I'm finishing up a logo for Harding in Memphis as well as a new T-shirt design for our drama group Speak and more sign-age for my grandparent's auto shop in Opelika.

Busy busy busy!

Spring Break also begins this Friday. I'm headed to the lake with a group of my closest friends. We'll be back on Monday afternoon then I'm going to Birmingham on Tuesday to hang out with some people I haven't seen in ages. On Thursday I shall return then head off to Destin, Florida with my family until Saturday.

Well I better get back to work. I have a super hard lab practical in a few hours that I need to stuff as much information into my head as possible! As always, thanks for stopping by!

Auburn's Loss of Lauren Burk

Hey everyone.

Well I'm coming to you with some very sad news as of late. I will let the University explain the situation from the following message we students received earlier this week:

"On Tuesday, March 4, 2008 at approximately 9:08 p.m., Auburn Police responded to a call of an injured female on Alabama Highway 147 (North College Street). Upon arrival, officers found a female, later identified as 18 year old Lauren A. Burk, an Auburn University student, suffering from a single gunshot wound. Ms. Burk was transported by EMS to the East Alabama Medical Center where she succumbed to her injuries.

At approximately 9:27 p.m., Auburn Police received a call of a vehicle on fire in the Hinton Field parking lot located on Lem Morrison Drive on the Auburn University campus. The vehicle, a 2001 Black Honda Civic, was registered to the victim and was fully involved. Personnel from the Auburn Fire Division responded and extinguished the fire.

The case is under investigation by the Auburn Police Division with assistance from the Department of Forensic Sciences, the Lee County Sheriff's Office, and the Lee County District Attorney's Office. Law Enforcement officials are continuing to follow-up on all leads."

There will be a campus wide Memorial Service for Lauren on Samford Lawn this Monday at 3pm.

Please pray for her family and those on campus who were close to her. It turns out that Lauren was a pre-graphic design student and in one of my favorite professor's classes this semester. She also had a heart for Invisible Children and attended a screening we had a few weeks ago, but I was not fortunate enough to meet her.

The campus has been on edge in the past few days so pray for peace, healing, and God to work through such a tragedy.

As for me, it's just been shocking. I've lived here for so long that I have always felt very secure and safe in Auburn. It just reminds me that life is fragile everywhere, even at home.

I have a few updates as well. I submitted 5 pieces to the Auburn Student Juried Design Show and got 4 of them in! The gallery opening is Monday at 4:30 in Biggin Hall if you would like to come. The work should be up until Friday.

The internship hunting still continues. Right now I have two options in the works. I should meet with Erika to discuss details about interning with Adventures in Missions. That's exciting and I can't wait to meet her! Secondly, I applied for the Relevant internship and I'm just awaiting a response. Another guy from Auburn (not design) applied and was accepted for a position. He was notified 5 days ago, so I'm getting anxious. I'll be sure to keep you posted on all of that as the month goes on.

Spring Break is coming up and I think it's going to be a great one seeing how it is my last "Spring Break" as a student!? Crazy! I'm going to the lake with my friends for the first weekend, up to Birmingham for a few days to see some more friends, then down to Destin with my family for the weekend. I love traveling through our grand state! Ah, good stuff.

In the meanwhile I am swamped beyond recognition with design work. I have just accepted a TON of freelance work with CR Design firm in San Diego. I'm slightly intimidated by how "official" this is, seeing how I will be working with real clients and real printers and a real firm. I think it will be a good learning experience and hopefully more knowledge about how design works in the real world, not just the student simulation.

I will keep you updated on life in Auburn, but for the meanwhile I must dive into the pit of design for the final push before Spring Break.

Keep Auburn in your prayers and as always, thanks for stopping by.

Update

Hey there everyone.

I have no idea why I titled this post "Update" because that would imply that something has actually happened therefore presenting a reason to inform you of said event. Well there is a little something that you might be interested to know:

I was offered an internship in San Diego but I can't financially make it work to move out to California for the summer. Unless I wanted to live in a box...which I decided after sleeping in one for a night would be a bad idea for my health. I really liked the firm and where their hearts were anchored. Even so, it has a possibility of employment for the future which is super exciting. Another firm in Philadelphia e-mailed me back and said they already had interns. I applied for another one in Washington DC but that was about 2 weeks ago.

I would like to say that to date I have contact/applied for at least 40+ internships.

I should hear from Relevant within the month so at least that's something to hope for.

Basically I'm playing the waiting game.

In the meanwhile I've just been doing school work and relaxing. I've had a lot time on my hands most of which I've been sleeping or working on some freelance projects. I know that sounds like a waste (the sleeping part that is) but I have been exhausted over the past 2 weeks. Perhaps my body just needs to catch up.

I started reading The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. If you haven't read it I highly recommend it. The only fall back is that I wish I had someone to talk to about it because it gets pretty deep into some serious issues of spiritual warfare. Bible study anyone?

I did get an e-mail about registering for graduation! I got really excited because it just makes that a reality. I'm graduating. In 291 days. And I have no idea what I'm doing. Or where I'm going. Or, well anything.

To be honest I would love to do ministry and design. Together. Everyone keeps telling me it's possible but right now I just need a door to open somewhere. Or just like...a crack in the door. Regardless of my doubts, God is faithful for sure.

Well I'm headed to lunch with Jess. As always, thanks for stopping by!