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ALEXIS MARTINEZ

5148 Jetsail DriveOrlando, FL 32812

anm.martinez@yahoo.com(321) 278-7195

May 21, 2011

Renee BurkePublications AdvisorBoone High School2000 Mills AvenueOrlando, FL 32816

Dear Ms. Burke:

A publication of such magnitude would need staff members and especially editors capable of working towards the same goal and able to work together as a team. I am capable of being one of those editors and I can also work independently to get work done. I have more strengths than weaknesses and I can pinpoint my weakness to fix it immediately.

As an advertising staff member for my high school yearbook I am qualified to work with Adobe InDesign and Photoshop. I also have experience writing stories and taking photographs. I am able to work on deadline and help out. I would be an asset as ads editor because I have experience in design. I was forced to change some layouts due to different pictures I was given and I made my pages based on what the student and parents were asking for.

I make designs to catch the attention of the student body and think of what they might like. As ads editor I would make the design different by taking what people would complain about and wanted to change and try to incorporate that into my design. I already have experience working with parents and students because of my position on staff this past year and I know how to deal with them in a polite and professional fashion.

I have done my best to explain to you in writing my qualifications and capabilities but an interview would show you my qualifications and abilities more than words could. I feel that meeting at a convenient time for you would let you understand what I am saying and give you the opportunity to see my qualifications first hand. I appreciate your time and look forward to hearing from you.

Respectfully yours,

Alexis Martinez

Enclosed: resume’

Resume

ALEXIS MARTINEZ

5148 Jetsail DriveOrlando, FL 32812

anm.martinez@yahoo.com(321) 278-7195

OBJECTIVETo obtain knowledge of adobe software, design pages for advertising and using teamwork to put together an award-winning yearbook.

EDUCATIONCompleted three years at Boone High School.Graduation date: June 2012.G.P.A.

EXPERIENCEYearbook Staff Member, Boone High School

• August 2010 – present. Yearbook staff member. Experience taking photographs, designing layouts, and writing stories and captions.

RELEVANT HIGH SCHOOL STUDIESComputer classes providing knowledge of adobe software and computer design; video production.

HIGH SCHOOL ACTIVITES• August 2008 – May 2010. Boone High School Crew.• August 2010 – present. Yearbook Staff Member.

Personales

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Journalism is fun and I love it. It’s always a good time taking pictures and finding a way to write a story. Having the ability to feel like I’m important at a game or event is a great feeling. Being on yearbook gives me the opportunity to be a little bit in control of what students will look back on their whole life and share with others. Information from yearbook is a whole other level of knowing something in high school because students in yearbook know so much about kids they’ve never even met and I like that. It is weird but it’s something other people can’t do. I take pride in being a journalist, even if it is only a high school experience. Being a journalist is a great experience. I learned more than I thought I would being in journalism and on the yearbook staff. All through middle school I loved doing things on the computer and I always wanted to be a part of yearbook. When I entered high school I wanted to do something that involved computer skills and I still had a yearning to be a part of yearbook. My friend was in journalism and told me I had to take that class in order to be in yearbook. She told me it was a fun class as well so I signed up for it. I loved the class, it was interesting and I liked learning the computer skills. After some thought I applied for yearbook and got myself further into journalism.

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This year I have learned a lot about advertisements and boys lacrosse. From the first deadline to the last I tried to make deadline faster than the last. With ads, I learned how to manage my time and figured out which way I should get my pages done that would take the least amount of time. I learned to make sure I was doing everything correct, making sure I had what the parents wanted while not making one page differ too much from the next. I had two other people doing what I was doing and if I needed help or was confused I asked one of them. If I was done and had time on my hands, I helped whoever needed help. We worked as a team, splitting jobs so we didn’t put too much work on one person and it helped us get things done faster. The only way this could have been done is if we helped each other in the best way we could. After ads deadlines where over I shared the boys lacrosse page with Stephanie. We split the page into varsity and lacrosse. She did the varsity story and pictures while I did the junior varsity story and pictures. We went on interviews together when it was an option and we weren’t separate in the things we did. We helped each other if we needed it and it worked out well. In the beginning of the deadline I couldn’t be there after school but she was so she was able to fix whatever needed to be done. When she couldn’t be there when we had a three hour period of yearbook I was and got through as many editors as time would let me. We took each other’s advice and knowledge and made it on deadline. Our teamwork worked well. The teamwork I experienced this year is what I can bring with me for future use. I learned how to be a team player and to not resist helping anyone. I can also take what I learned about getting to deadline and managing what I have to get done. It’s an experience that will never be forgotten and many things will be taken and used in future cases.

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I believe my best work is a page that really changed form first draft to final submission. It wasn’t an ad page because they look too much alike to pick one from the rest. This was my story about the game announcer. I had to write it, get pictures for it and do my ad pages for that deadline. Since it wasn’t a student or teacher I could find on campus I had to go to the games to get interviews. I went to the homecoming game to get pictures and find out when I could get an interview. I went to another home game and interviewed him during half time so there wasn’t much time. I got enough information to start my story and I got an interview from Patterson. When it was time to get more information from the announcer I had to get contact numbers to call him. I found this page one of the hardest because I hadn’t written a story in a while and it wasn’t the most interesting thing I could get. I picked the story because I feel it really changed from beginning to end and the outcome wasn’t that bad. I used what I had and wrote the story to the best of my ability. I got help from Sam and Ms. Burke and used there help to get my story going and finish it. I also used a student quote to add emphasis to my story and I tried to bring the man behind the microphone to life. In the end what I liked about my story was the photo and how it came out. It’s a readable story and I’m proud of it. I know it’s not on the most intriguing topic but I think it has good information. I like the photo because I didn’t have very much space to take a picture and I couldn’t get directly in front of him. From the angle I could get I think it shows his action and face pretty well.

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Page 272, the Checkers ad and my first quote page is a page I am proud of but needs work. There’s too much white space on it because I didn’t know how I was supposed to change the quote page to make it take up more space. So half of the bottom is a lot of white and I don’t like that. The Checkers ad is on the top half and it is alright but it could use work as well. I didn’t have a design and by the time I got a design to work off of I didn’t have much time till the end of deadline. I did what I could and made it as similar to the design she gave me as I could. What would have made it better is getting pictures for it that would work and were better than the ones I could find. When I was making the page I had to recreate a design and for the most part it was easy. What wasn’t easy was finding a Checker burger that had a high enough resolution and a Coke cup that would work. If I had more time to look for what I needed there might actually be a Checker burger on the page, but there is not a Checker burger on the page. And there isn’t a Coke cup but rather a Coke logo. For the quote page I had diversity in all areas, the pictures were all COBed and the questions were answered in full but I didn’t know how I should spread it to take up more room. When I placed the pictures and quotes in the boxes I didn’t really have much time to get suggestions on how to change it. It was my first page that wasn’t an ad and I didn’t know what my deadlines were so I didn’t get that page done on every deadline. The first draft and final submission of this piece is not much different. It went from a blank page to basically what it is now. But if I could make changes to this I would ask how to recreate the question and reposition it so that it takes up more room. I would do it so that the page doesn’t look so blank and white. Then I would look for a Checker burger and Coke cup with good resolution so I could COB it and use that instead of burgers not from Checkers.

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I chose this picture because the other one I wanted to choose cut off part of his foot. I like this picture because it shows action and its showing the lacrosse goalie in good light. He’s saving the ball doing his job and not letting the other team score. Although the front of his jersey in completely visible his face is only visible form the side so that’s not very good. One thing I really like about this picture is that the ball is visible in the net and it shows length. The goalie is not dead center and neither is the net with the ball so that is good as well. I did not get to put it on the page because he was already pictured. I don’t know which CD is could be found in but it should be in the JV-Varsity Lacrosse_3-21 folder under sports.

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On the yearbook staff for 2010-2011 I was a staffer and a part of the advertisement staff. As a staffer I participated in theme and story ideas in the beginning of the year and in deadline six and seven towards the end of the year. I did everything asked to the best of my ability and worked with ads most of the year. In the beginning of the year I went to the school to meet with parents and students about their ads on Thursday nights. I learned what I had to do and met with parents by myself so everyone had someone to work with and time could go by quicker. As the year started and we received our printed pictures back we put them where they were supposed to go. Sam gave us our first deadline pages and explained what we were to do. I did my share of the pages and looked to Sam when I needed help and made sure I was doing what the parents were asking for. I did my pages and quote page in deadline one, my pages and a story in deadline two, extra pages in deadline three, and my pages and a quote page in deadline four. When ads were over I got quotes and pictures and COBed them for deadline six. After that I shared the boy’s lacrosse page with Stephanie and was able to get that done on deadline because she came after school when she could and I came for a three hour period and was able to get a day ahead. When deadlines started I didn’t know how I was supposed to get so many pages done in a week but I figured out ways to work around my time limits in class and bring my work home to get it done faster. I was able to use time from seventh period to work on pages and I took the copy home to type it up and not waste class time for that. When I was able to I stayed after school and got done as much work as I could. I was also able to bring a laptop home to get my pages done faster and on time when I needed it. Getting my pages done early gave me time to help with whatever needed to get done. I took that time to help Sam with anything and get ready for the next deadline.

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The most difficult thing this year was dealing with the parents. I had a couple that wanted to change things I couldn’t do anything about but they didn’t really give me that much of a hard time. One that I remember wanted the copy exactly how she wrote it because of song references in it but all that wasn’t possible so I changed it and when I sent the proof I got a response with the copy resent because that’s how she wanted it. In the end Ms. Burke had to tell her that everything she wanted wasn’t allowed and she could only have a few things in her copy stay. But usually when parents wanted to change things and I told them it couldn’t be changed they were OK with it. What was worse than parents wanting it their way was when I was missing something from a parent or business. I had to deal with no information with multiple business ads and some senior ads. One senior ad didn’t have any copy and it took at least two e-mails and two phone calls to get the copy. On another page a student wanted a pictured change and told me I had the picture when I didn’t and took a while for her to send it. Other problems weren’t as memorable. I learned to make sure I could do what the parents were asking and let them know what was allowed and not allowed and if they don’t get it I have to mention it to a higher power so they could get the point across. I realized I have to stick with the style and make it different for every parents needs and make sure to tell them in advance. With business ads I want to make sure the designs they want are there so no one has to wait around to get in touch with them to find out what they want and let their grades be deducted because of it. I handled the situation as professional as I knew how. I was polite as I told asked them for what I needed and gave them a date to be back to me by. I tried to contact them as soon as I could and if one form of communication didn’t work I went to use others. If e-mail didn’t do any good I made a phone call. During phone calls I was able to say more than I could in an e-mail and it got to them faster than the e-mail did. I felt I was professional and polite.

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My first out of three goals from my semester exam was to meet every deadline as efficiently as possible. I did that by working diligently on my pages and planning what I needed to get done and by when so I could be on time to the section editor. I did pretty well meeting deadlines on most of my pages after the semester exam because I planned myself and worked as fast as I could push myself. During deadline seven I wanted to be on time because it wasn’t an ads deadline and I wanted to show that I could be on time when I haven’t been writing stories and doing spreads like that all year. And we made it on time on deadline day. We were behind in the beginning but we caught up and I worked as well as I knew how and we got it in on time. My second goal was to send my pages with the least amount of mistakes to the section editor. I would get marked off for little things I missed and I didn’t like that. It was simple stuff that I knew I could do and when I started to index my pages, spell check, and change what I needed to change it started to be something I just did. I didn’t forget the simple things as much when it became time for the last few deadlines. For my final goal I set myself to know what I have to get done and by when. I wanted to know everything in advance so I know how I should be getting things done. So I could set a plan for myself and make sure that everything is done and correct by the date it needs to be done. I didn’t want to be waiting for something to do or have to rush through things and be late. I figured having a set schedule would be the best plan in order to get the best grade. Since semester exams I have set a plan for myself of what I needed to get done and tried to plan it out ahead of time so I knew what I needed to get done each day. I put my house work and school work in one list and figured it out from there so not everything is getting done in one day. These were my goals that I set out to reach and I like to believe that I got there.

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I would like to enter three single advertising pages under Y38.

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I would like this piece to represent me because it has more pictures than the rest of my ads. The copy fits into the page so there’s not much white space in that area and the copy doesn’t take away from the pictures. Since there are 13 pictures instead of 11 it is different than the rest of pages and I like that because the only thing that really started to change was the pictures. I wasn’t given a layout for 13 pictures so I had to change the layout to fit more pictures and not look bad or against yearbook design rules.

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I chose this piece because of how much copy it has. This is the only page with this much copy and a quote. I couldn’t widen the copy any more so I had to raise it and I got enough room for all the copy after raising it more than once. I had to make sure the dominant was what they wanted it to be and all the pictures fit around the copy. I used the pictures to redesign the page and I think it turned out well. With so much copy and pictures I think it will be good to represent me.

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I want this piece to represent me because it is different then other pages and it has more copy then some of my other pages. Having more copy then was set for in the layout caused me to change the layout to fit all the pictures she wanted and the copy. I used the pictures she had to make sure they was I was redesigning it fit all the pictures and I like the way it turned out. I also like the fact that some of the references in the copy got to stay so the mother was partly satisfied.

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