That's A Wrap

     It feels like yesterday that I was starting my first day at AmeriCheer. I cannot believe where the semester has gone. In a matter of 4 months the seasons have changed, designs have been made and I have started and ended my very first job that I have ever had while being a college student. I am happy I chose to work for a cheerleading business for one of my internships. Not only did I do it because I enjoy cheerleading but also because I knew I would be some fantastic and cheerful people along the way.
     Throughout the semester I have learned so much through the marketing and business aspects at AmeriCheer. I have learned that not everyone works the same and likes the same things you may like. There will be times when work can be hard because of other people's opinions, but it's just something that everyone must work together for in order to succeed. Co-workers must work together and communicate clearly to reach their goals. I have also learned about various websites that has helped AmeriCheer that I can possible use in the future. One of those is Constant Contact. When I first learned about this website I didn't quite understand it but now that I am familiar with it I think its a great site for businesses to keep organized and it's easy to work with.
     As the end of the semester drew near I learned that it takes more than just emails for any business to be successful. While working for AmeriCheer I learned and saw all of the various aspects that makes a business work. I saw (and worked) mainly in the marketing part of it but I also saw the other aspects run, for instance the camp coordination, the design, the logistic, the first desk as well as the presidents view on things. Every single area is very important because that is what makes the business run. After looking at these aspects through AmeriCheer I can do put this into realization with any other business.
     It takes a lot to make a business run and I have now experienced this first hand with working at AmeriCheer. I have learned a lot and met such nice, wonderful co-workers that I know I can look to in the future if I need them. I look forward to using these experiences that I have learned in the future and will not forget my time at AmeriCheer.

20th Anniversary

   School is about out and summer is right around the corner. It's about that time to start thinking about what cheerleading camp middle schools, high schools, as well as college teams want to attend this summer. If you haven't found one yet for your team to go to, check out AmeriCheer's. This year they are offering 18 different summer camps for cheerleaders (not counting the home camps if your team is interested in that.)

   So with camps right around the corner it was time to update the website so athletes and coaches could find more information about the camps. Last week I updated the AmeriCheer website, so this week I worked on the AmeriDance website. I updated all of the pages under the Camps tab and made them look similar to the AmeriCheer website. Add some new information, editing old information and got it ready for the viewers.  

   On Thursday I worked on creating an excel document that will consist of all the teams that ever competed at the AmeriCheer & AmeriDance InterNationals within the past 20 years. This document will help the staff next year (when it will be their 20th anniversary for the event) to invite all the coaches and teams to come back and celebrate. I am putting in the document the teams name, the year they competed, the division they competed in, as well as their current contact information now. As of right now I only have a few years done and I already have a long list! I am looking forward to seeing how many teams total competed there in the past 20 years. 

Are Visuals Essential?

     Do visuals to a company or organization matter? Do people really see them and are then affected by them? As a communication major and an interest in graphic design, visuals are very important..in my opinion. When I look at graphics on billboards, websites, posters and magazines I am constantly looking at them and thinking about how the message is being received to viewers.
     This week I look that thought upon my work duites. This week I was to make a program cover for the All Star Nationals competition that is happening April 20. Just like the Internationals program cover I made before, this one is the same thing but for a different competition. 

     As you can see on the the left I added pictures from other Eastern competitions and put the date, location and name of the event in the middle. I think it turned out well, the only thing I don't like about it is that there is a lot of color in it but I think it works.

     The other thing I worked on this week was the AmeriCheer website, the AmeriDance website as well as the Eastern website. I had to update most of the pages under the Camps & Clinics (which there is 20 different pages). Some of them I simply had to copy and paste the information from the AmeriCheer website but others I had to create all type in all new information for the page, and other pages I didn't touch at all.
     It was a very different process when working their website because I am used to creating it and then uploading it while for AmeriCheer the site is already created all you have to do is decide what pages and link you want where. At first I didn't understand it but then after a while I got it. Now I am capable of adding documents, PDFs, pictures as well as text to any of their websites. I'm happy that I know how to do this because this can possible help me in the future if I am working for a company that uses the same website setup.
     With adding and editing things on their websites I also brought in my skill that I knew, and that was I know from taking the AGCOM 5530 Website and Design class that information on the web needs to be easily read and short in words. So I took that into consideration and tried my best to make the information worth reading on the AmeriCheer, AmeriDance and Eastern's websites. 

CAP Discounts

    After a week off for spring break it was back to reality this week. The AmeriCheer and AmeriDance staff were coming back this week from their long cheerleading adventure at Orlando, with their InterNationals competition.

    Though I wasn't coming home from the Sunshine state like most of the staff, I was still put to work. Tuesday at the office I was busy making two documents for the summer camps that will show the CAPs discount. CAP stands for Costumer Appreciation Program and its discount/reward program that AmeriCheer and AmeriDance offers to Coaches Athletes and Parents. So my job Tuesday was to create a document that costumers can look to see what kind of deals they can get if they attend an AmeriCheer and AmeriDance summer camp. So I made one document for cheer (the one on the left that is in yellow) and one for dance (the one on the right that is purple).


    On Thursday I created a registration form that athletes, coaches and teams will fill out for summer camp this year. This registration form is strictly for college teams. The form will be available online and every college/university team will fill one out. I made this form in InDesign and it is shown here to the right.

Countdown to InterNationals

   With less than one week till the 2013 AmeriCheer and AmeriDance Internationals, the office was busy getting ready for the competition, including me.

   Last week I made DVDs that will be shown at the competition. On the DVDs there are videos that promote summer camp, promote the InterNationals competition, and videos of some cheerleading teams that have dedicated their time to help the community. Since most of those videos were from YouTube I had to convert them to MPEG4 files so they could be put onto a DVD. Though it took a while to find the right program to do such a thing, it all worked out and the DVDs are made!

   I also had to change the color on some of the badges that the vendors and the sponsors will be wearing. Each person at the InterNationals competition will be wearing these badges and I had to change the colors in the psd file for each one, vendors and sponsors. The red was for the vendor badges and the green were for sponsor badges.

   Since Ohio State is on spring break this week and Thursday the office staff with be in Florida for InterNationals, I am not working at AmeriCheer this week. I hope all the staff and workers at AmeriCheer and AmeriDance have a successful turnout at the competition. Good luck to all the teams competing! 

Learning to be Considerate

   This week I was busy as a bee working on the Internationals program. This program that I have been working on will be sold to athletes, coaches and spectators who attend the event. The program is filled with ads from various cheerleading companies, a list of the teams that are competing and a list of teams that won the event last year.
   I have learned from this project that everyone has their own opinion. Though you may like one certain design, another person may not and in the end it all depends on what the company or organization whats. Being an intern, it is not about my opinion and what I think. Instead it is about what they want, with me giving my opinion and thoughts on the side...taking it if they want. But this is how life works, you cannot always get what you want. Instead you have to realize the opinion of others and take that into consideration.
   With designing this cover of the Internationals program, (shown below) I made a few of different versions. The first is on the right, then the second and then the final one. The first one I really like but the marketing coordinator didn't care for it and wanted a different background, but that's okay because I'm learning. This internship is about learning how to A. work with others in real life situations and B. do projects in the area I enjoy doing (designing) in real life situations. I am learning a lot through my time at AmeriCheer and enjoying creating the designs that I am in charge of. 

InterNational Time

With the AmeriCheer InterNationals right around the corner, the office is very busy. From designing the Internationals program to promoting the other competitions that are coming up and starting with summer camps my job has been busy.

    I started the week off by creating two promotional slides for competitions that are in the near future. One for EDA Dance Nationals in Myrtle Beach, SC and one for All Star Nationals in Hershey, PA. I created these to put up on the AmeriCheer website to promote the competition. 

    As you see the designs to the right and below, I created them in photoshop. I added pictures, textures, and played with the drop shadows and inner drop shadows.

    After I created these I started on working on designs for the InterNationals program. In this program there are ads for various cheerleading companies, a list of all the teams competing, and various other promotional pages. So far I have completed 1 page and in the process of creating two more. With InterNationals being in three weeks, it's time to get busy!

Blasts & Designs!

This week at AmeriCheer I sent more email blasts out and was able to design another cover photo for AmeriCheer Facebook page.

The email blasts were once again to thank the competitors and coaches for participating in the most recent cheerleading competitions. It is just a curiosity thing that AmeriCheer does that shows they truly do appreciate the support they give to AmeriCheer.

The design I made for the Facebook page was done in Photoshop. As you can see below I added three team photos from SHC. Added their team name, strips to match their bows and incorporated the colors of their team into the design. I also added a texture look to the background to dont make it look so flat.

Photoshop Fun

   This as been the fifth week I have worked at AmeriCheer and I'm continuing to learn more skills and enjoying working in the industry that I love, cheerleading. 

   Tuesday I sent multiple email blasts out through Constant Contacts. I was able to design them from scratch, which was exactly pretty fun. It was the first time I got to create them in my own way. So I started with creating some graphic designs in photoshop. The email blasts were about promoting some cheer and dance competitions that will be coming up in the near future. So I choose cool color arrangements, different backgrounds and added some graphics. They turned out well and hopefully the customers think so to. One that I made and put in an email is:

   Thursday I did some more graphic stuff...I designed a small picture on photoshop that had 4 pictures of 4 different teams from one gym, Cobra Cheer Extreme. (See below.) They wanted to post something on the Facebook page featuring a small gym and this week it was Cobra Cheer Extreme. So I put together a cool design, add the pictures and put their gym name on it. I loved creating this because I got to match the colors of the background and the text with the teams colors. I loved how it turned out and was really happy with it!

Designing Tactics

  This week at AmeriCheer I continued to use my design principals that I have learned and put my creative skills to work.

 This week I worked on designing a document for the Costumer Appreciation Program (CAP) discounts. On the document it has all the discounts that coaches and athletes can get for competitions during this competition season. 

  CAP is a program that AmeriCheer, AmeriDance, and Eastern Cheer and Dance created to benefit their costumers. It is an appreciation program that give discounts, rewards and awards for athletes, coaches and parents. It it as program that AmeriCheer and AmeriDance focuses on because if it wasn't for the costumers the company wouldn't be in business. 

 As the marketing and public relations intern I help create documents for such programs. I enjoy putting my design skills to work and making a successful piece of work that people will like. I hope I will continue to be able to make such design pieces as my internship progresses.

Busy Bee

   This week flew by at the office, I was a little busy bee working on a lot of stuff.

   Tuesday I send out multiple email blasts to the coaches and teams that competed at the most recent cheerleading and dance competitions. It's a good way to show appreciation and thanks to the various teams that support AmeriCheer and AmeriDance. It also allows them to get various deals for registering for their next AmeriCheer or AmeriDance Competition. 
    Another thing I worked on Tuesday was the U.S. Finals Bid Submission form from the Winter Wonderland competition in Sandusky, Ohio. I typed in all of the teams that competed; along with their coaches' contact information, their scores from the weekend and the place they received.
    Thursday (today) I worked on designing a PDF that will be on the AmeriCheer website. This PDF will show all the discounts that the coaches and athletes can get when attending any of the 2013 Summer Camps. It also shows the discounts that coaches and athletes can get with Victory Wear; which is the clothing line that AmeriCheer and AmeriDance deal with. This is a great opportunity for new teams as well as those who have already attended an AmeriCheer camp in the past, it allows them to get discounts and save money!

Constant Contacts to the Rescue

   Now that I have the feel of my new class schedule I have finally worked out times and days to work at AmeriCheer. Though I can only work there two days a week, I know I will still learn a lot and get a great experience.
   This week I learned some new things and also got to put my skills that I had to work. I learned Tuesday how to work with Constant Contacts. Which is a website online that allows you to save all the contacts you want in different categories. For instance say you want to send an email to 10 of your 50 contacts; instead of typing out all of their addresses in an email, Constant Contacts allows you to make a list with those addresses and allows you to create a email blast for that list. So if I want to create a thank you email blast to all the cheerleading teams that competed in last weeks competition I would add the addresses in a separate list, create a design using their templates, add words and pictures and then schedule to when I want it sent out. It's that easy!
   I never heard of such a website that allows you to keep organize like that. It was interesting to learn and was super easy! The templates are easy to work with and I was able to change just about anything.
  The other thing I learned this week was how to properly put in scores from the competitions into an excel sheet; an excel sheet that would later get passed onto the next level. I had to put in scores from the AmeriCheer Competition that was held last weekend and also scores from a AmeriDance competition.
   The other thing I did this week was I finished creating the 2013 summer camp check list for campers. I made it in InDesign, incorporated the AmeriCheer logo, the Eastern logo, the dates of the camp, the list of things and the college where it will be held that.The list will be found online and it will help the girls when they are packing for cheer camp. 

Starting Somewhere

   This week counted as number one for the semester, but at my internship with AmeriCheer it was week number two. With classes starting and practices in the evenings it was very hard to find time to go into work, but I think I have found a schedule I can work with for the semester. So let the busy semester begin!

   While I was at the office this week I continued to build up the database for the AmeriDance competition that will be happening in the future. I found other colleges in the area of Columbus and Richmond, Ohio that have dance teams. As I continued to build that up I also got to do some designing, my favorite thing! I was brought a piece of paper to work on Wednesday and was told to make it pretty. So I opened up Indesign and got to work!

   I designed a 3 page cheerleading summer camp schedule and a summer camp check list for the cheerleaders that will be attending. I really liked the how it turned out in the end and I'm very happy with what I created. I cannot wait to continue to use my skills and continue to learn new skills through designing. I enjoy creating graphics on the computer and the fact that I get to do that through cheerleading makes me one happy girl.

The Start

Today I started my first internship at AmeriCheer in Westerville, Ohio. There I am fulfilling the Marketing and Public Relations intern position for Spring Semester '13. Helping rebuild the database, keep up to date with social media aspects, and various other communications jobs.

Today I started rebuilding the database by searching collegiate dance teams within the states of Ohio, Pennsalyvia, West Virginia, and Kentucky. With the competition season getting started it's time to build a strong and supportable database that will help us in the future.

After my first day of working I am excited to get involved with AmeriCheer and the AmeriDance corporation. Being a fellow cheerleader myself I am excited to put my positive, hard working skills to work.