Vince.

My name is Sharon Duke and I am a Graphic Design Senior. I found out about the internship at Vince because I know both Art Director and Senior Graphic Designer there. I had previously interned for them at Oscar de la Renta. One of them contacted me in the spring saying they were looking for an intern. I had a Skype interview with them and was offered the internship about a week later.

Vince is a luxury clothing company that was founded in 2002. The company’s focus is everyday iconic and luxury essentials for men, women, and kids. Their clothing is sold at Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale’s, Barneys, and Saks Fifth Avenue.

I worked for their Art Director, Natalie Clark, and their Senior Graphic Designer, Michaela McKenny, who run the creative department. They oversee anything to do with branding and graphic design. They are in charge of organizing and concepting photo shoots for each season, designing the website, creating emails, any application of the company’s logo, and many other things. They are about to release a new logo for Vince that they designed, and this summer they had to create all the new collateral for the new logo.

I was their only intern, so I had a lot of responsibilities. I was involved with a wide range of projects throughout the summer. I was basically assisting with whatever they were working on, but I was also given some projects to complete on my own with guidance. Here are some of the projects I worked on: creating their 2014 company holiday card, creating store event invitations, creating email blasts, creating window graphics for new stores during their construction period, saving web assets for their website, assisting with photo shoots, and assisting with completing magazine ads. I worked on these and a variety of other projects during the summer.

Natalie said that I’m the best intern they’ve ever had which I feel very proud of because she has worked at four major fashion brands over ten years. She said that I was more than an intern because people emailed me directly and could get what they needed without even asking my bosses about it. People in other departments were recognizing how hard I worked there.

I got to sit in on a lot of meetings where I learned what it means to be an art director or a senior graphic designer. There were things I learned which I would never have learned in a classroom setting. Something I learned from observing my bosses was that you need to be really adamant about what you need and that it’s okay to be demanding. I sat in on a meeting that the art director had with a vendor who was producing their new packaging. I was amazed at the level of detail she looked at the bags and boxes with to make sure they were absolutely perfect. Across the board, what made their and my projects successful seemed to be in the detail. I learned to really focus in on what I was creating to make it the absolute best it could be. This internship was really valuable because I learned so many things that will help me get a job after I graduate.

This internship helped solidify my career goals because it helped me to realize how much I want to go into fashion. I find working as a graphic designer in the fashion industry to be really exciting because you’re constantly working with both typography and photographs. You get to work on a variety of creative projects in many different mediums. It’s also inspiring to be surrounded by different kinds of creatives and to work with people who have incredible job experience.