Making an Impact in My City
When I first started at Little Giant Creative, I didn’t expect to fall in love with Philadelphia any more than I already was. Since beginning my internship in Center City and seeing City Hall from above whenever I came into the office to work, my love for the City of Brotherly Love has grown threefold. Every new project I am put on at work, I know it affects the city and the dynamic that is created around me because of the work I am continuing to do with Little Giant.
One of the most notable projects that I’ve worked on is probably a project that a lot of people don’t know about right now but will know about in a year when it opens. Little Giant gained Cherry Street Pier as one of their clientele at the very beginning of my internship, starting back in May. Since then, my boss and I have been working hand in hand to create branding guidelines as well as an experience for attendees. Cherry Street Pier aims to be similar to Spruce Street Harbor Park, but more geared towards local artisan crafts and shop owners compared to the more commercialized businesses that appear at Spruce Street Harbor Park. They also want Cherry Street Pier to be available all year round, featuring different events in the spring and summer months versus the fall and winter months.
When I started this project I didn’t realize how much influence I was going to have, since Little Giant is a relatively small agency. At the beginning of my time with Little Giant, I was the only other designer besides my boss. Since then, we’ve added a quarter of the number of people, gained two other interns, and a new full-time graphic designer. In the first few weeks, I was picking color palettes and drawing logo mock-ups for Cherry Street Pier, not even realizing that my boss liked my ideas enough to show them to the client themselves. While it wasn’t the one that eventually came into fruition as the official logo, my work was still brought into the light of a real client’s eyes, which still gives me the chills because it’s such an incredible thing to have your own work shown in real time to a real client. Branding has become such a huge part of my experience at my internship and I can honestly say that when I walk into my office, I get excited every time I’m given a new task or assigned to a new project. Being part of a design project that eventually is going to be seen by the public is exhilarating and very rewarding after all the hard work is done!
Cherry Street Pier is set to be open to the public officially in Spring/Summer 2018. When it finally opens, I can’t wait to see my own design choices come to life and hopefully, others will enjoy it too since it’s going to be apart of Philadelphia’s history!
