Norwalk, CT
Cottages & Gardens Media Group is a sophisticated lifestyle, design, and home publication company serving Connecticut, the Hamptons, and New York City. I was an art intern for this group twice, first being hybrid during the summer of 2023 and second remotely during the spring of 2024. Both times, I worked closely with the Art Director, Joe Ulatowski, as well as the Art and Editorial Departments. During my return to C&G, I explored other fields and departments such as the Art, Digital Media, Editorial, and Sales Departments.
I was given several various tasks such as: making contact sheets, designing and organizing certain chapters and cover designs in upcoming issues, writing social media posts, writing snippet articles on the website, and reaching out and keeping track of sponsors and photographers for special upcoming events.
I truly came to understand the several moving pieces of a smaller, local media publishing company and the daily responsibilities required. Experiencing the wall walks for every upcoming issue to sitting in on several different types of meetings to collaborating one-on-one and/or with the team(s) for such multiple daily tasks to even meeting and talking one-on-one to the CEO, Marianne Howatson, I have gained lots of real skills and knowledge in such a fast-paced and exciting industry.
Connecticut Design Guide 2024
Given a bit more of leeway here, I was given this task to review past design guides, more specially in our Connecticut publications, and to come up with cover design options to be reviewed by the Art Director and Editorial Director of CT (DJ Carey) in order to choose one to use and publish. In fact, they choose my first option for the Design Guide, which is shown below, as well as other other options that I felt were great alternatives.
As this design guide looks back at the most exciting and trending features in the company's past year, I would be looking at specific home features and photographs used to truly express the design guide as well as brand and image of C&G Media Group. Through using Adobe InDesign, following certain criteria's of what the cover for the design guide should include, I was able to play more with the photographs while creating options.
Application is no longer available.
CTC&G: July/August 2023:
This is one of the many examples of work that I was tasked with while interning at C&G. For this specific section in this issue, the CTC&G, also known as the Connecticut Cottages & Gardens, this specific feature was also featured in the CTC&G Design Guide 2024. The original title of this issue's feature was "Love At First Shimmer" in the CTC&G July/August 2023 issue.
I was given certain guidelines and was shared and sent examples by Art Director from past issues as well as from the Editorial Director. I had to follow certain fonts, colors, design layouts, text, etc. The idea for this specific featured sections, in which there are a few for each of the magazine's monthly publications, was to emphasize the theme. For this chapter, the theme was to show the latest trends in decorating your own living spaces. This was all shown through a specific local Connecticut house being showcased in this specific issue and chapter, in which we included the owner(s), designers, architects, builders, and photographer(s) who worked on this specific project.
Application is no longer available.
CTC&G: May 2023:
Another of many other examples of work that I was tasked with while interning at C&G. Similar to the other example above, this section/chapter of the CTC&G May 2023 issue is emphasizing the unique ways to decorate and use your outdoor areas of your home. This specific feature was also featured in the CTC&G Design Guide 2024. The original title of this issue's feature and chapter was "Positively Pastoral."
Again, I was given certain guidelines and shown and sent examples by Art Director, from past issues as well as from the Editorial Director. I had to follow certain fonts, colors, design layouts, text, etc. The idea for this specific featured section was to emphasize the theme, which was all about decorating and using your outdoor space. This was of course all shown through a specific local CT house being showcased, including the owner(s), designers, architects, builders, and photographer(s) who worked on this specific project.