portfolio ‘09caley brock

hope in darkness

This year my dad was diagnosed

with cancer and his determination to fight and

stay positive is the inspiration for this portfolio design. It is dedicated to

him and all those who have and continue to fight cancer, including my Nana and Deddo. This

hat was passed along to my dad by cancer survivors including Lance Armstrong and Wendy Chioji.

resume

Caley BroCk

609 Avalon Blvd.Orlando, FL 32806

caley_brock@bellsouth.netHome: (407) 481-9952

Cell: (407) 403-2234

OBjeCTIve To continue to become a better journalist and graphic designer by becoming editor-in-chief of the 2010 Legend Yearbook.

EDuCaTiON Completed two years at William R. Boone High SchoolGraduation date: June 2011Weighted GPa: 4.7 Top 1% of classRelevant high school courses: French i, ii, iii; Writing i; English Honors Gifted i, ii; Yearbook

ExPERiENCE/SkiLLS• 07-08 Legend Yearbook Staffer, Boone High School• 08-09 Legend Yearbook People Section Editor, Boone High School: experience writing and editing captions and body copy, taking pictures, designing, using adobe programs, meeting deadlines and being a leader• Baby-sitting: children ages: 2-12• Volunteer work: Green-up Boone, Project xmas, Discovery Camp Work Crew, Summer Science Camp, assist Blankner School teachers, american Cancer Society Relay for Life

aCTiViTiES/aWaRDS07-08 junior varsity Soccer08-09 French Honor Society09 journalism Honor Roll09 Quill and Scroll08-09 Math Club08 Legend Yearbook awards: NSPa all american 5 Marks of Distinction, CSPa Gold Medalist, Pacemaker Finalist, Silver Crown

REFERENCESScott and Lisa Bell SLBell90@aol.com 407-893-9800john Burke john.burke@ocps.netLisa Sconyers lsconyers@cfr.rr.com

pers

onal

essa

y

if i am going to spend all my school day in one place, room 224 is not a bad place to be.

Through the craziness, there is actually a lot of learning and growth. i pour all my time and

energy into making this book, and the more i think about it, the more grateful i am for being

a part of this program.

On the technical side, my actual production skills improved from basic knowledge to

advanced techniques. it started at Camp Orlando. This was the first time i worked on a

Mac and now i feel very comfortable on them. i also learned how to batch, use actions and

use the magic wand tool in Photoshop. i am now an expert in checking names and placing

pictures. My knowledge of illustrator was constantly improving.

i have always been a strong believer in making every deadline and i continued to finish

my work on time this year. I learned that it is much harder to make deadlines as an editor

because I was constantly helping and worrying about the staffers doing the pages in my

section. Time management and prioritizing became more important than ever.

One of the hardest lessons I learned this year involved teamwork. I found it very hard to

work together with my partner emily. We had very different design and working styles and

it was a struggle to make everything work. I learned that I need to better adjust myself to

the situations I am in. This includes being less stubborn and knowing when it is my turn to talk.

I need to keep open communication and drop the grudges.

My business advertising sales were difficult this year, because although i got a full page

contract signed, my contact was difficult to reach and it took a while to get him to pay. i

learned that sales are harder because of the economy, but we should try to get payment

when the contract is signed.

Even thought the journalism ethics rules do not change from year to year, certain things

were stressed this year. accurate research is important to a good story. Names can NOT be

misspelled in print.

as an editor this year, i saw how important a dedicated staff is to having a good year

and making a good book. if there are a few unmotivated staffers, everyone will suffer

because deadlines will be missed and quality will be low. It then falls on the people who are

dedicated to do the work. It is better to have a small dedicated staff than a big one that is

unmotivated.

The biggest life lesson I learned this year is to enjoy and appreciate the people

i work with. When our advisor told us she was planning on leaving, i was overwhelmed

because I realized how much I enjoy and appreciate her. Our whole staff should want to be

with each other that much, because when we really enjoy each other, we will want to work

together. i think that when our staff had fun things went smoothly. The more fun i had, the

better I wanted to do.

One of the most amazing things about yearbook is that everything I learn in this class

can apply to the real world. unlike what i am supposed to learn in other classes, the things

that I learn in yearbook stick because I see how they apply to life outside of high school. It is

an amazing thing.

reflec

tion 1

as my role changed from staffer to editor, my responsibility to the staff also changed.

My dedication grew with my responsibilities. i was an asset to the staff because i was an

editor of a major section and i had a significant contribution in making the book.

I got all my work done on time and I was able to motivate others to do the same. I would

not accept missing deadlines. I contributed to the design of the book by creating layouts for

the people section and always sharing my point of view and creative ideas. I did my best to

help both staffers with their pages and newspaper with interviews.

The commitment i have to the staff is what allows me to work so hard. Yearbook is a

huge part of my life. i am in the yearbook room before school, during third period, during

lunch and after school. i was always available to answer a question. Yearbook is a priority

and I could not be more dedicated to the program. This was apparent to the rest of the

staff because i was voted “Most Dedicated” for our end of the year superlatives.

reflecti

on 2

reflecti

on 2

My most significant piece of work has to be something that made a big impact on the

whole book. Of everything that i did this year, my most significant piece of work was the

quote page design because it was adapted and used for pages in the book beyond just my

section.

I started the design at the beginning of the year and as the design of the book became

clearer, we applied fonts and colors to it. Emily had the idea for the headlines and we ran

with that because it made the whole package look more interesting.

Even though i did not create this myself, i had a big part in designing it. it was much more

fun than difficult to make this design because it was one of the first things that i got to design

as an editor and i was excited about it. One of the advantages of being a people editor is

having the opportunity to design creative secondary coverage for the whole book.

if i could do anything differently, i would make the quality of pictures better and put the

layout in a library. When i gave the pages to the journalism kids, i learned how important

details are. It was very hard to keep track of the details without having a library.

I was very happy with the way the quote pages looked in print. I love the use of color

and the interesting and funny questions we asked. I think the design is different from the

year before and I enjoyed working on this design.

reflection 2b

reflection 2b i cannot put into words how grateful i am for yearbook. Not only have i grown

immensely, but i can actually see the growth from year to year.

This is the first year i was presented with real challenges. Most of these tended came with

being an editor and I tended to get emotional. I think it is okay to be emotional because it

shows i care, but i do need to learn to calm down. Last year everything went smoothly and

yearbook was relatively easy for me. This year’s challenges made me stronger and I have

definitely grown because of them.

My actual portfolio design is more complex and sophisticated this year. i was able to

be creative with photography and show how my Photoshop skills advanced by applying

different effects and brushes to the pictures. Although last year my job was doing content

and this year my job was design, the quality of my work has improved. it is apparent to me

that this year i have a better handle on the “yearbook rules” with regards to writing, design

and photography. I was able to show my creativity this year and that shows a lot of growth.

This year I was presented with new challenges which forced me to grow. I had to learn

through experience all about being an editor and working with others. i became more

absorbed with the cult known as yearbook because I was more responsible for the end result.

My friendships and the way i handle myself has also changed. i grew into someone who

knows how to handle difficult situations, including unexpected computer and staff problems.

reflection 3

When we started designing pages my designs were all over the place. at first, we

wanted a clean grunge style, but i had no idea how to translate that onto paper. i started

with the profile pages.

This first profile i designed was very simple (and very boring). i tried to make it look

“good” by overlapping a picture and using a drop cap in the copy. i quickly realized that

this was not up to par with the “Boone standard”.

after Burke got completely frustrated with our lack of creativity, she showed the editors

some magazine scans she had on the server. as she quickly flipped through examples, i saw

one with a huge cob of a person, angled text and a graphic on the bottom. it was perfect!

Emily and i got to work on adapting the layout for yearbook. Once we finalized the

fonts, it looked great. The hardest thing was getting the right cob to fit the space on the

page. The cob on the jenny Chen page worked out really well.

Because of this process, i learned how great magazines are for design ideas. i also

learned that the picture and graphics can make the page. I think the whole process was

worth it because i really like the profiles now. They fit the style of the book much better than

they did when we started working on them.

reflection 4

My plate was completely full this year. if it is true that what doesn’t kill you makes you

stronger, then by the end of this year, i will be superman. i was not expecting such a crazy

year. although it took me some time to sort out my problems and i do get emotional, i tried

to handle the situations I was in to the best of my ability.

My first yearbook problem was an underlying tension between me and my partner Emily.

We did not get along. We both wanted to do different designs and then we would vent to

our other friends instead of talking to each other. This was not a good decision on my part

and i will take the blame for that. The sad thing is that it took us to the end of the year to fix

it. i am glad that i talked to her because we have to work together next year, but i should

have done it sooner. I learned that communication is vital to working with people and that

sometimes it is best for me to change the way I work so that I can accommodate and work

better with others.

The next thing that left me distraught was when Burke told us her plan to leave Boone. i

completely understood her reasons, but i still wanted her to stay and i was so upset. Since

the beginning of freshman year, i wanted to be editor-in-chief with Burke as my advisor. i

was so invested in the program and I could not believe what she was saying to me. I really

should have tried to calm down, but i could not. i learned how much i love and appreciate

yearbook and Burke. enjoying the people I work with is so important and I am so lucky to

have her stay.

i also had a lot going on besides yearbook. i have six other classes with homework and

pressure. My dad was diagnosed with cancer at the beginning of the year and he is always

on my mind. It is hard because I do not always have enough energy to do everything.

at the beginning of the year, i thought that the hardest thing that i was going to have to

do was place pictures. Was i ever wrong. The people section was a challenge, but it was

pretty simple task compared to everything else that I had going on. I grew a lot as a person

this year and I think that I have gotten stronger. I got through the year and I learned from

the experience because of the people who helped me get through it all.

reflec

tion 5

Half way through the year, i set four goals for myself for the second half of the year.

Goal #1: Make every spread special. I think that all the pages were different but some

pages stood out more than others. To me, it looks like i ran out of creativity or that something

was missing on some of the pages. The pages that turned out great were the ones that I used

content design or i put some extra work into. The profile of Jenny Chen was what the profiles

were supposed to look like. The college guide page and the foreign exchange student

page stood out as some of the more interesting and creative pages. I think that the spreads

improved from where they were before winter break, but not all of them were special.

Goal #2: Get everyone to make more deadlines. I met this goal by spending my class

time with the staffers. each time my pages went only one person did not make deadline. At

the end of the year Olivia told me that the only time that she made deadline was when I was

her editor. She congratulated me on being a part of her moment of yearbook success. To

me, that meant i made my goal.

Goal #3: lead by example. I was very accountable and always got my work done on

time. i always had a sense of urgency, but it was frustrating to try to get the rest of the staff

to have the same sense of urgency.

Goal #4: Have better communication with emily. This was the hardest goal for me to

meet. My communication did not truly improve until about a week after we got back from

Phoenix. The tension between us kept getting worse until we talked and worked it out. i had

better communication with Emily, but it was way too late.

c b

people section: underclassdesigns

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