Allen Bunting

Penobscot Bay Press, Blue Hill, Maine

This past summer I interned at a Penobscot Bay Press, a community information service that publishes three weekly newspapers: Island Ad-vantage, Castine Patriot, and The Weekly Packet. Penobscot Bay Press is a small company in Maine that provides local news, updates, and events to the coastal towns of Castine, Penobscot, Stonington, Deer Isle, Isle au Haut, Blue Hill, Brooklin, Brooksville, Sedgwick, and Surry.

My duties as intern were divided between the Blue Hill office, where I assisted in the duties of ad representative, and the Stonington office, where I aided in the design and layout of advertisements and the production of the three papers. As an ad representative, I secured ads from new businesses, researched new and potential advertisers, and created insertion orders for the production of the ads. I also gathered lists of potential advertisers for the newspapers’ special and seasonal inserts.

The Stonington office of Penobscot Bay Press is the production office, so my duties there were solely computer oriented. While in this office, I assisted the production manager in designing, setting, and modifying the advertisements from week to week. I immediately learned how to use the Quark Xpress and Adobe Photoshop graphic design programs on Macintosh. A few weeks into my internship, I was asked to join the production manager during production day. I was both nervous and excited about this increased responsibility because production is my favorite aspect of advertising and I wanted to do it right.
My original objective of gaining experience in all aspects of advertising was met on my first day of working for Penobscot Bay Press when I was put in charge of every aspect of a walking map of Blue Hill businesses and attractions that the Blue Hill Peninsula Chamber of Commerce asked Penobscot Bay Press to compile. This was perfect immediate exposure to every aspect of production. This was a non-funded project, so I began by asking local businesses for sponsorships, donations, and/or an advertisement in the brochure. I then designed a creative and easy-to-follow map of downtown Blue Hill with numbers referring to each corresponding business. During the production of the brochure, I designed all of the ads for the brochure and the layout of the brochure itself. This was a great project because I learned immediately that I do not enjoy the selling and representative aspect of advertising, but I LOVE working on the production of ads.

Working for Penobscot Bay Press was such a great learning experience. I feel so lucky to have been able to intern for such a friendly company in one of the most beautiful areas of our country, northern coastal Maine. I am now comfortable with the different computer programs generally used in ad creation. I can now use this knowledge to facilitate the completion of my senior integrative project.

I am excited to design and produce a series of pamphlets for my senior integrative project meant to “re-educate” the American consumer. I plan to address consumer issues such as nutrition, cleaning supplies, clothing, infant goods, alternative power, and waste. This series of pamphlets can then be used to inform people about the wide range of environmentally conscious products that are accessible today. I hope to distribute these brochures around campus and to New London and surrounding area businesses, such as Muddy Waters Gourmet Coffee House and ShopRite. I often use the example of someone going to the store to buy a bottle of laundry detergent. When looking at the different bottles of detergent, this person is more likely to pick up a bottle of TIDE than choose a bottle of the eco-conscious BRAND X. People know TIDE, they recognize the bottle, the colors, and the logo, making them more comfortable in choosing it. I want to change this and I think change begins with familiarizing consumers to the variety of eco-conscious products in the market, such as natural beauty products, natural cotton diapers, and chemical-free cleaning supplies. This is my vision, for my senior integrative project and beyond, and my internship with Penobscot Bay Press played a very important part in exposing me to what goes into effective advertising.