My name is Max Breaux and I am a Senior Graphic Design major. This past summer 2017, I spent my time interning at iStrategy Labs in Washington D.C. I learned about this opportunity from one of my classmates, Mazzy Bell, who did the internship the previous year. iSL is essentially a creative agency that creates content for companies on social platforms. This tends to be advertisements and commercials, however, there is another side to the business where they create things like escape rooms, design and develop websites and create physical things with the use of technology at the forefront.
My direct supervisor was Campbell Kawaka. Her title is Senior
Art Director. I had very little to do with her the whole time I was interning.
That’s just because I ended up working on projects that were more given to Paul
Dunbar, another art director. My day to day was largely based on what I wanted
to do. I could take upon a project if I had enough time if I was up to date on
my tickets. Tickets are these little tasks of finding stock photography and
putting the correct logo on it. I despised doing this but at the end of the
day, everyone in the company must do a little bit of this every day. Other
tasks I was given was to brand a conference for front end developers called
Fore_Front. I got to work on shoots, come up with visuals for their blog, work
on Kroger projects, help brand the iSL Studios logo and other things.
The skills I developed were not technical skill as much as they were skills on how a creative agency works. I learned the process in which something gets approved through different levels of people. Prior to this job, I had no experience in a professional, creative work environment. I've had plenty of jobs, but none of them required me to be creative. My experience with iSL has been great. Hopefully it will also help me with my job search after I graduate at the end of next semester.
